How We Spent Our Family Vacation is a new column that unpacks a single trip down to the cost, from the point of view of families who love to travel.
28.01.2025 - 09:55 / lonelyplanet.com
Jan 27, 2025 • 15 min read
Southern Africa is one of the best and most varied places to go on safari in Africa. This is a region that’s home to some of Africa’s best and most famous parks and wildlife areas: Kruger (South Africa), Etosha (Namibia), Chobe and the Okavango Delta (Botswana) and Hwange (Zimbabwe) to name just a few. On a first-time safari, you may want to anchor your visit around these classic destinations.
But these parks are just a few of the safari possibilities in Southern Africa. This is a region where there are almost no limits on what you can do, from the ultra-exclusive fly-in safari where everything, including great luxury, is included, to a self-drive safari where you’re the one who makes the decisions. The luxury option is a particular specialty of Botswana (although it’s possible in many places elsewhere), while the self-drive safari is a popular option across the region.
And where to go? South Africa is probably the pick for a wide range of safari choices that you can pair with other, non-safari highlights. For a quieter, self-drive safari, it just has to be Namibia or Botswana (yes, they've perfected both this and the high-end safari). Zambia and Zimbabwe might not have the same profile as their neighbors, but they’re brilliant places to look for animals.
After all, these beautiful wild creatures are what a safari is about, and Southern Africa is home to some of the last great wildlife populations on earth.
Five countries form the safari heartland of Southern Africa: South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. These countries have a strong tradition of safaris, numerous national parks, and strong conservation credentials. When you think about a classic Southern African safari, these five are usually the focus.
Other Southern African countries offer safari possibilities, albeit on a smaller scale. The question of scale is especially in play when talking about eSwatini and Lesotho, both of which are tiny and entirely enclosed by South Africa. Malawi is an emerging safari destination, with a handful of excellent parks. Mozambique, too, has some outstanding parks but security is an issue in some parts of the country. While worthy destinations in their own right, each of these places is unlikely to be your choice if this is your first time experiencing a safari in Africa.
Although Southern Africa’s seasons can be loosely divided into wet and dry periods, the further south you go, especially into South Africa, the more the year will resemble the four seasons of summer (December to February), autumn or fall (March to May), winter (June to August) and spring (September to November).
For most travelers, Southern Africa is at its best during the dry season, which runs from around
How We Spent Our Family Vacation is a new column that unpacks a single trip down to the cost, from the point of view of families who love to travel.
This past July I went to Sabi Sand Game Reserve and Kruger National Park for the first time. My boyfriend, Sam [Rockwell], was shooting a movie in South Africa, so I joined him and we spent five days on safari. The whole trip was magical, seeing zebras, giraffes—animals I'd dreamed of seeing since I first picked up National Geographic as a kid. I mean, on the first day, I immediately got to see lions. The male lion, with that huge mane, was awesome, but what was even more incredible was the lioness. She was feeding on a Cape buffalo that had died naturally, and she had these three adorable cubs with her. One of them seemed as if it was tattling on its siblings to their mom because they wouldn't let it feed on the buffalo too. And the mom was, like, huffing, almost talking back, telling her kid to grow up or keep up. It was insane how close we got to them. One of our guides—named Kruger, funnily enough—said the only reason that the lioness let us get so near was because her cubs were feeding and she was full. She was so relaxed, just chilling with her babies. It was a majestic moment; the sun was setting and I felt so...I'm starting to cry just remembering it. That was the first of many mother-and-child moments I saw on the trip: a mama hyena roaming with her pups, an elephant with a two-month-old calf playing around and learning how to use its trunk. I saw the circle of life, how these mothers were teaching their kids, letting them learn to fend for themselves. It all reminded me of my mom. My father died when I was a small child, so my mother raised me and my sisters. She always listened, but she never mollycoddled us. She would be like, ‘You've got to figure this out. You will.’ She passed away in 2018, so coming to South Africa six years later, finding the mother-child bond everywhere I looked, and feeling connected to the bush and the land made that little girl in me who grew up in the Virginia countryside very happy. I was very happy.”
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