Why You Can’t Easily DIY a Safari Vacation

As global travel becomes easier with online innovations and the rise of AI, many travellers try their hand at planning African safaris themselves. After success with local trips using Airbnb, Booking.com or similar, it can seem like a good idea to use those platforms to arrange a trip to Africa. After all, Africa has hotels, airports, public transport and Internet connectivity, so how difficult could it be? Just ask ChatGPT to design an itinerary and book it yourself – easy, right?

Let’s break down why it’s not always possible to set up your own safari…

Explore the highlights of this post with ease by using the table of contents below to navigate to sections of interest.

Unlike city hotels, safari camps and lodges do not generally have live online availability. In other words, you can’t always go to a website and see which rooms or tents are available on specific dates. There are many reasons for this:

• Many lodges and camps are seasonal and close once heavy rains arrive – but those rains maybe be ‘early’ or ‘late’ so the camp managers need flexibility.
• Camps may have to suddenly shut down rooms or tents to do maintenance: Decks, thatch, plumbing, solar and canvas may all need ad hoc repairs, which affects how much accommodation is available.
• New lodges open and old lodges close regularly, and some begin selling nights before they start operating.

Essentially, most reputable safari companies still run reservations through human teams who know exactly what is available and when. Unlike traditional hotels, lodges have to be more flexible and keeping online booking systems 100% up to date is simply not always possible.

While many travellers assume that online rates are always cheaper, this is not the case. Online platforms take a considerable percentage of the rate displayed. Using a travel agent to book a hotel, lodge or camp can save you money. This is because:

• Many camps and lodges have a special, lower rate (known as an STO or standard tour operator rate) that is only available to agents and their clients.
• Online platforms often show a ‘rack rate’ that is generally much higher (this is sometimes to compensate for the commission that lodges and camps have to pay those platforms – this can be as high as 30%).
• In addition, online platforms may use ‘dynamic pricing’ where rates change based on availability. In some cases, AI is being trialled to see how much you specifically can afford to pay for a room or flight based on your overall online presence (other online purchases, your address, reviews of products, restaurants and hotel etc). This could lead to rooms or flights only being available for guests who can pay ‘the most’. Safari operators have extremely high costs and price their rooms to cover everything from anti-poaching units to staff accommodation. This means their budgets cannot be ‘thrown out’ by dynamic pricing or wildly fluctuating rates. It is also fairer as set rates allow everyone to pay the same price.

Just as agents have access to special rates not made available online to the general public, so too do they have access to special deals. These include:

• Pay-stay deals: these are often along the lines of pay for three nights and stay for four and can significantly reduce costs.
• Long-stay deals: the longer you stay, the cheaper your ‘per day’ rate. For example, staying for six nights might be more cost effective than staying for three.
• Honeymoon deals: one newlywed spouse stays free, essentially a 50% discount.
• Kids’ specials: children under two generally stay for free but lodges that accept kids sometimes have much lower rates for pre-teens and under.
• Circuit deals: agents know which lodges are operated by the same company and can create itineraries across different areas or even countries that trigger company-specific circuit deals.
• Green season specials: Africa is highly seasonal and your travel agent can access off-peak lower rates that can result in substantial savings.

In addition, travel consultants may be able to string together several deals with different safari operators to use several discounts and bring down your costs. Doing this on a single online booking system is virtually impossible.

Think of your travel agency as a one-stop shop. A single point of contact (and payment) that handles:

• Your inbound flights if necessary.
• Co-ordinates your pickup transfer with your flight landing (and knows if your plane is late or early).
• All your accommodation, from first and last nights in city hotels or fly-camping in remote areas.
• All the light aircraft flights to remote airstrips – again ensuring your pick-up transfer is waiting to take you to the lodge.
• All your extra (non-included) activities like helicopter flips, hot-air ballooning and boating – again, dealing with third-party suppliers where necessary.
• Special requests like proposal set-ups, birthday cakes or romantic secluded dinners.
• Emergencies such as medical issues, lost luggage, delayed flights and so on.

If you had to do this yourself, you may end up having to juggle multiple emails from lodges, transfer companies, activity companies, airlines and more – never mind having to make individual payments to all of them plus update them all if anything changes… instead, you deal only with your agent who takes care of all the admin on your behalf.

Lodges and camps in Africa can be small: some have fewer than half a dozen rooms. Your agent will spend much of their time finding which lodges have rooms available for your travel dates. In addition, they will keep them within your budget and ensure that all your accommodation is more of less of the same standard throughout your trip.

This can be extremely time consuming to do yourself especially if you are in a large family or big group. Another significant factor is the very limited number of interleading or family units. Your agent will know which lodges are willing to add a child’s bed to a parents’ room, which lodges can handle three or even four children in a room, which lodges insist on a private game-drive vehicle for families with young children…

No matter how good AI or online bookings systems can be, they simply cannot provide round-the-clock, real-time support when you are on safari. At Biggestleaf Travel, help is always just a phone call away on dedicated number. Many of our clients stay in touch via text or WhatsApp while travelling, sharing photos and videos of their amazing sightings.

Sadly, online systems are notorious for not solving problems. Requesting a refund, changing dates or altering itinerary details if one member of the party can no longer travel are all very difficult to do especially when you have no access to a human being and algorithms determine which changes are allowed, with no exceptions (or with added penalties or costs).

When real life happens, it’s better to have someone on your side who knows the background to the issue, understands the payments and who has relationships across all parts of your vacation to help you resolve problems as quickly and painlessly as possible.

AI can be a useful tool for creating a quick itinerary as its searches use genuine itineraries from real travel agents published online to put together options. It is also useful for basic information about major safari areas, seasons and wildlife. If you’re thinking about a safari, then AI can give you broad brushstrokes and a useful place to start.

But be aware of the following ChatGPT and other LLM pitfalls:

• Costs: the rates shown may be very out of date. Some safari websites do not publish rates. Many LLMs stopped accessing training data in 2022 so may show costs from then. In addition, agents can access STO rates and sites may show rack rates. Budgeting with AI will not be accurate.
• Dated information: a common issue is old information because ‘data training’ was stopped. Lodges frequently change the number of rooms, update room categories and add amenities or facilities. In addition, lodges will close for refurbs and new ones will be built. None of this will necessarily be reflected in your AI itinerary.
• Availability: as mentioned, finding you space in your preferred lodges is a major part of the process. AI cannot do this and it may be impossible to implement an itinerary plan exactly as ChatGPT wrote it because of availability and the reliance on old information.

Use AI tools as a starting point to gather your ideas and preferences. Once you are happy, approach one of Biggestleaf’s consultants to work together to see what is feasible, affordable and possible. Bear in mind that ChatGPT and other AI systems have no true knowledge or experience of Africa and may be working with old data. And always let your travel consultant have your budget so they can create a plan that works for your pocket.

Happy travelling – Biggestleaf Travel can’t wait to welcome you to Africa!

We love helping first-timers come on safari. There is so much to see, do and experience. Please browse our expert FAQs so you can get the most of out your trip and have a smooth planning process: