Africa: Reviews from our travellers

"Big thanks to Tracy for planning this trip for us. My wife, my mother and my boy, they all had a great time.

This was our third trip with Expert Africa and we are always happy with their knowledge, communication and overall services. Twice over the course of this trip, we needed to contact Tracy and thankfully we could just rang her and things were resolved.

We look forward to our next trip with Expert Africa." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 17 on a South Africa trip

"Pre-trip planning was great. I had many back-and-forth conversations with Megan and we tailored a trip that met our specific needs. We had to go through several rounds of proposals until we got the right one, and Megan was patient, prompt, friendly and very helpful. We definitely could not have arranged the trip without her guidance.

Once on the ground in Africa, we encountered a major problem. Because I was traveling without my wife, I was told by the border agent in Namibia that I needed to present my son's birth certificate, a letter from my wife giving me consent to travel alone with my son, and a copy of my wife's passport. This is all due to child trafficking prevention laws in southern Africa. I was not aware of these requirements and had to call my wife at 2am in the morning US time so that she could send me a copy of my son's birth certificate. The border agent also wanted the letter and her passport scan but I told her there was no way I could get those in short order and she reluctantly let us in to the country.

Over the next few days, I had my wife get a notarized letter and scan that and her passport and send to me. This, however, was not technically in compliance with the laws of these countries, as I was supposed to have an original copy of both the birth certificate and the letter. This meant that any border agent in Zimbabwe or Botswana could have decided to follow the law exactly and decline us entry into their country.

Upon reviewing the itinerary from Expert Africa, I did see a short section about traveling with children under 18 in southern Africa. It was several pages into a long itinerary, it was pretty vague (it mentioned a birth certificate but nothing else), and no one at Expert Africa - either by phone or in email - ever pointed this out to me.

I feel that this was a major failure on the part of the company. I had several restless nights wondering if I was going to miss an entire week of my trip due to this, I had to call my wife in the middle of the night, I spent time talking to the US consulates in each of these countries and generally this caused me a lot of stress.

I want to be very clear with this: any time Expert Africa has a parent and child traveling with them, they should repeatedly and proactively remind the parent to get all necessary documentation in order weeks before the trip takes place. This should not be left to a small-print section at the back of a document. As much as I loved my trip and the service I got planning the trip, I don't think I can recommend Expert Africa to friends unless I have confidence that other travellers would not be put in the same situation that my son and I were put in." Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 6 on a Botswana safari

"I really enjoy Luangwa at this time of year as the wild dog sightings are consistently excellent, the scenery is stunning and such a contrast to dry season, and the birding is great.

It's also very relaxing just spending a whole week at one camp. See my Nkwali review for more info!" Read full review: 9 nights in Africa; 7 on a Zambia safari

"We really liked the suggested itineraries on the Expert Africa website. If we were to book again we might spend a little more time analysing the alternative camps." Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 9 on a Botswana safari

"I've been to Africa on numerous occations and so decided to visit locations that I haven't been to before. Central Kalahari, Naxi Pan and Kwando concesion in the Okavango.

The three camps that I've stayed in, Tau pan, Naxi pan and Kuara are all run by Kwando safaris. The camps, situated in great locations, were stylish, spacious, comfortable and clean.

The teams were friendly, profesional, easy to talk to and made us as wellcome as possible.
The food was varied and tasty, pesonally I love a buffet and was spoiled with alternative dishes to accomodate my lactose intolerance.

The tents/rooms were enormous and very comfortable.

All the guides and trackers that I've spent time with were cheerful motivated and knowledgable.

Being the rainy season I knew that animal sighting could be patchy, although pleasingly Naxi pan was busy with wildlife due to the limited water supply.

I was delighted to find out that most people I've met were repeat visitors to Africa, some many times over.

Overall I was satisfied with my holiday. Unfortunately the Okanango section of my trip didn't live up to expectations due to few animal sitings." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 13 on a Botswana safari

"yes loads but no time to write about them

wilson - best guide ever had

Overall - Excellent" Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 14 on a Namibia trip

"An excellent trip. Worth going all that way just for five nights at Nkwali." Read full review: 8 nights in Africa; 5 on a Zambia safari

"Potentially it was a great trip but the insect bite which resulted in hospitalisation in Johnannsburg rather took the shine off!

However all the people at Kwando Safaris were extremely helpful." Read full review: 7 nights in Africa; 3 on a Botswana safari

"I particularly appreciate how responsive Lyndsey was to rescheduling our entire itinerary when our first flight was delayed. It would have been awful to have to cancel this much anticipated special trip.

During the planning, however, there were a few frustrations: we had to request confirmation documents which were late in coming; we could have used assistance with the visa application; it was annoying that the Zanzibar health form still was there to be completed although no longer required; and it was annoying that the “wallet and book” weren’t sent timely and came only to me when my travel companion lives 2 hours away. We would have been fine with no expectation of this well intentioned gift that backfired. (The wallet may be handsome enough, but it’s so large that I wonder for whom it is practical given luggage restrictions. The book wasn’t actually useful. The one activity I tried to arrange based on the book— Spice farm and tour in Spice Town— no longer is operating. )" Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 6 on a Tanzania safari

"A memorable trip to a new country. Any negatives about one or two places we stayed are more than outweighed by the excellent other ones. It was much hotter than expected (8-10 C above seasonal norms) and this, a bit of tummy trouble and the gravel roads made it tiring at times (and these are all hazards that are part and parcel of a trip and nothing that yourselves could / should expect to deal with).

The characteristics of travelling on gravel or tarmac are so different that we could have done with being better informed about specific routes when planning. Also the passage of time renders some of the guidebook information out of date and this is a problem on the map also. For example the map incorrectly shows a petrol station at Seeheim - this meant retracing our steps for 60 km (so an extra 120km which then meant missing an activity at our destination) to ensure we had enough petrol.

We lost count of the number of coffee shops / bakeries in the guidebook that had closed / disappeared. Having sussed the driving out we went "off-piste" and cancelled one overnight stay and cut-short our stay at Sesriem so we could fit in a stay at Walvis Bay. We let the cancelled place know but our email to Expect Africa to tell of the same went unacknowledged apart from an "o-o-o but someone is covering for me" reply.

Namibia is a spectacular country with friendly people and provided us with some great memories." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 16 on a Namibia trip