How to safari on a budget

This guide may contain affiliate links. At no cost to you, they allow me to provide these free and, even if I do say so myself, expert guides based on almost two years of travel in Africa. For a broader view, don’t miss my complete guide to travel in Africa.

Scroll through the webpages of tour operators offering safaris, and there’s a decent chance you’ll baulk at the prices being quoted. Add to that the recently-inflated cost of international flights, and an African safari can seem prohibitively expensive. However, there are ways you can take an African safari on the cheap.

How much does it cost to go on safari?

Pricing up safari deals is always a difficult thing to do, given the range of options available to travellers today.

For one thing, there are various different types of safari to consider. For another, costs can vary greatly between countries. Angola is one of the most expensive destinations I’ve visited, with prices substantially higher than many of its neighbours, for instance.

Prices for safaris currently start at around £100/$125 per person per day. At the other end of the scale, the sky is pretty much the limit. If you fancy splashing out on a safari costing £1,200/$1,500 a night, that’s absolutely possible.

While even £100/$125 per day can sound like anything but a cheap safari holiday from the UK or elsewhere, remember that most safari deals count as all-inclusive, or come very close. Transport, accommodation, game drives, and meals are often all covered. This of course means that you’ll spend very little money on the ground.

International flights are almost never included in even luxe safari packages. It’s therefore up to you to shop around for the best flight deals, with CheapOAir being my personal choice of the moment.

How to find the best budget safaris in Africa

Travel out of season

On the face of it, there’s the good time to visit Africa on safari, and the bad time to visit. The best time to visit will provide dry, sunny weather, and the worst times rain and even cyclones.

The best time to visit many countries on the safari circuit are limited to just a few months a year. This means prices at these times of year are at their most premium. In certain areas of the continent, some parts of Zimbabwe included, camps aren’t even open during the heaviest rains.

But sitting either side of the best time to visit a country will be a shoulder season lasting at least a couple of weeks. Since dry seasons don’t give way to heavy rains overnight, shoulder periods in Africa can provide still great weather, but without the prices or crowds which usually accompany it.

Choose your destination country carefully

As I’ve already indicated, some countries are simply more expensive than others. Just to make knowing where to go on safari all the more complex, the cost of living in a particular state isn’t related in any way to the safari experience you’ll have.

Botswana, for example, has positioned itself as a more exclusive safari destination. To see the glories of Chobe National Park, the Okavango Delta, and Central Kalahari Game Reserve you will have to stump up significant amounts of cash. But in my experience, you definitely get what you pay for.

In contrast, Angola is just plain costly. This seems to be mainly down to the infrastructure being so bad that getting anything anywhere inside the country costs a lot more than it should.

South Africa, Namibia, and Kenya all offer a good mix of excellent tourist infrastructure and price in my view. Zimbabwe straddles this line too.

The cheapest safari destinations tend to be those where animal sightings aren’t as easy to come by. Ghana’s Mole National Park is a steal, but you could go home seeing nothing. Eswatini (Swaziland) is another good pick when it comes to price, largely because its safari options haven’t been ‘discovered’ by the outside world.

Head to lesser visited national parks

South Africa’s Kruger National Park and Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park are perhaps Africa’s best-known safari destinations. As a result, large numbers of people want to visit them, and prices jump.

Be clever, and you can get very similar safari experiences in the same country at a fraction of the price by visiting a lesser visited park. While park entrance fees might be the same, swapping Kruger for Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park can save you a bucket of cash on safari packages since there’s so much less demand.

All the same, Kgalagadi’s scrub provides plenty of fodder for herbivores like gemsbok, eland, and wildebeest, in turn drawing in predators including black-maned lions and leopard.

Likewise, in Tanzania, give the northern safari circuit and the Serengeti a wide berth in exchange for Nyerere National Park in the south. East Africa’s largest protected area, you’ll still get the safari you’re looking for with the park home to the Big Five. Still in Tanzania, Ruaha National Park is also making a name for itself as a little-known gem.

Opt for accommodation outside national park

You’ll pay a premium for overnighting within the confines of a national park. In many instances, it does make good sense to do so, since you’ll be at the heart of the action from the moment you wake – if not before.

However, if budget is a concern, there are ample options just outside national park boundaries. They can be of a similar – or better – standard, and almost certainly at a lower nightly price. Your experience won’t be all that different either, since many parks are unfenced and animals free to roam wherever they like.

Limit your number of transfers

When the number of nights on two different safari deals are the same, basing yourself in a single place can also help the wallet. Choose to spend your time in two or more camps, and prices start to rise since transfers need to be accounted for.

Travelling by road might not add much to your overall bill. However, with the vast areas we’re talking about in Africa, often charter aircraft are required. Stepping aboard one could double the cost of a day on safari. What’s more, these small aircraft also often limit the amount of baggage you can take aboard, so you’ll want to know what to take on safari and what to wear on safari too.

You shouldn’t worry about getting bored if staying in the same place for multiple days either. No two days are alike when on safari. In addition to activities ranging from hot air balloon rides to walking safaris, an increasing number of lodges are also kitted out with spas, pools, and libraries.

How to safari on a budget

There are a number of hints and tricks that can help you safari on a budget without taking anything away from your overall experience. Pay heed to when and where you safari, alongside accommodation options and limiting transfers, and you can save big on safari deals.