Our feedback: Reviews of our trips to Africa
Our travellers' feedback - the reviews of their trips and the places that they visit - are completely integral to the way we work. They are exceptionally important for us and great resource. They help our travellers to plan their trips; they're helping us to keep bang up to date; and they're eagerly read by the lodges in Africa, who love frank and constructive feedback and appreciate that they're guaranteed to be genuine.You'll find these reviews on our site in different places:
- Firstly, for the most comprehensive list, all of our travellers’ most recent reviews are listed here, in reverse chronological order.
- Then, you'll find reviews of whole trips from the Reviews tab on our Country pages. Eg: Reviews of safaris to Botswana, and reviews of holidays to Namibia.
- You can find reviews of whole trips include particular areas from the Reviews tab on our Area pages. Eg: Reviews of trips to the Okavango Delta, and reviews of holidays in the Serengeti.
- Finally, reviews of individual lodges are found via the Reviews tab on each Lodge page. These include the glowing reviews of Beho Beho, and first-class Rreviews of Tafika - as well as many much more marginal lodges, like the more variable reviews of Halali, in Namibia's Etosha National Park. We've over 1,000 lodges, camps and hotels on this website, and over 6,000 individual reviews, so happy reading!
Wildlife surveys
Since 2018 we have collected wildlife surveys as part of our travellers’ feedback. We use this information to power the sightings data across our website. As our sightings data grows, it’ll become even more useful for identifying species specific hotspots and be able to help potential travellers, and zoology researchers, even more. We have already been able to help a hyena research project identify new areas where hyenas are found – which were previously thought to be outside of their natural range.For more detail on our wildlife surveys and how we use the data, please see our page on Wildlife Surveys.
Background to our travellers' reviews
We've always asked our travellers for their feedback and comments, it's an important way for us to learn and do even better. However, prior to 2007 this had to be on hand-written paper forms. These were not easy to collate, or to pick out patterns; they were not even always easy to read!In mid-2007 we designed an electronic feedback form for our Africa travellers; we've been using it since.
Whose travel reviews will we publish?
Only Expert Africa travellers are given the opportunity to send in this feedback - and only for places which we have booked for them, and they have visited. So we are 100% certain that every feedback on this site is from a paying traveller who has visited the property in question, on the dates noted, for the duration noted. These are all from our travellers - these feedback pages are not open to postings from anyone else.To date, we have received many thousands of trip reports back - and reviews, and published all of them. None have been edited: we've published the good, the bad and even the indifferent. We think this is probably unique in the travel industry, and especially we wonder why other Africa travel companies don't do the same?
Guidelines for your Africa travel reviews
Please base your comments on each part of your trip based on what you saw, felt and experienced. We hope that it'll help us to learn more about your experience, help the places that you visited to understand more about how you felt about your trip, and help others who might be thinking of travelling to this place in the future.Think of each part of this feedback as your review of that part of your trip. Please give each section of your trip a short, appropriate title if you can; use this to try to summarise your feelings!
Please include in your travel reviews:
Only things which you have seen and experienced for yourself, first-hand. By all means include what you thought and felt. It would be helpful for you to include:- Details about places that you think are important for others to know.
- Particular things that you enjoyed, or didn't enjoy.
- Anyone there who was particularly good or helpful. (Use first names only please.)
- The high points of your stay.
- Any negatives or bad points that others should know about.
- Any problems that you experienced.
- Things that you wish you had known about the place or service.
Please do not include in your travel reviews:
- Any hearsay - that is second-hand information. ie: things that you might be told about, but which you haven't seen for yourself - especially things which others with first-hand knowledge might dispute.
- Anything which is insulting, profane or libellous!
- Any web addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers.
- Any surnames of staff, managers, guides or other guests.
- Company names for guides, transfers or ancillary services.
- Any text written entirely in ALL CAPS, as this makes it very difficult for others to read.
- Any HTML code.
How we use your reviews of your African travels:
You'll find that we ask for your feedback on each place or service specifically. We'd like to use each of your comments in two ways:- Firstly, we'll circulate your feedback to the relevant country-specialists in our office - so that we can learn about your experiences. This will help us to better advise our travellers in the future.
- Secondly, if you agree (and we hope you will: there's a tick-box on the form), we will share your comments with the relevant operations in Africa and with the readers of our website. This is most important for the camps and lodges that you visited. They always appreciate feedback and this helps them to know what they're doing well, what they may be able to improve, and also about any problems that you experienced. It’s also really valuable for other travellers to be able to read what you thought about your trip. We hope that this will help them to make decisions about their own travels which are really well-informed.
Copyright of reviews
For legal reasons, please note that by submitted a review for publication on our website, you agree that the copyright of the review belongs to Discovery Worldwide Ltd., trading as 'Expert Africa'. All rights are reserved by Discovery Worldwide Ltd.Reviews on this website are all Copyright © Discovery Worldwide Ltd.
