Gems of South Africa & Botswana: Luxury Safari to Beautiful Winelands

Absolutely awesome experience – better than we imagined! We spent time in Victoria Falls, Chobe National Park, the Okavango Delta and Cape Town. The service, guides, lodgings and experiences we had in each location were exceptional. This safari travel company and our travel planner made everything easy – we were greeted each step of the way, enabling us to enjoy our African adventure without the normal stress of traveling in another country. In Zimbabwe, we experienced majestic Victoria Falls both from the air and a guided tour through the park. We enjoyed a sunset dinner cruise on the Zambezi River. Our room at the Ilala Lodge was picture perfect and comfortable, plus we could see the mist rising from the falls. In Chobe National Park, we went on numerous game drives and boat tour with a dedicated guide. The Ngoma Safari Lodge was the most visually extravagant place we ever stayed.  The view walking into the lodge literally takes your breath away as you look down at the Chobe River with herds of zebras, giraffes and antelopes moving between a small watering hole close to Ngoma Lodge and the river. Combine that with great location to Chobe National Park, exceptional guides, thoughtful and well-trained staff, delicious dinners and wonderful rooms with incredible views and you have the perfect safari location. In the Okavango Delta we saw so much wildlife (inlcuding a numerous lions and African Wild dogs and their pups) and were again blessed with wonderful guides, great staff, and lovely rooms in an amazing location at Sable Alley in the Khwai Reserve. Cape Town gave us an opportunity to relax at the boutique hotel and enjoy winery tours and a peninsula tour, as well as amazing restaurants.

Originally, I tried to work out an itinerary myself using online review and travel books, but became concerned about arranging transportation and guides. Then I contacted several different travel agencies. This travel planner quickly responded. She made everything easy for us. She worked with us on locations, desired experiences, dates and cost. We really wanted to see Botswana’s Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta. Two other companies were trying to steer us away those areas due to cost and availability, but our travel planner was able to make it happen for us. She took care of absolutely everything from lodging, car and in-Africa air travel, tours, guides, and even restaurant reservations for us in Cape Town. Amazing personalized service.

This company makes you feel very pampered and special. Our travel planner made time to meet us in Victoria Falls (her home base). In honor of our 30th wedding anniversary, the travel company surprised us with a complimentary dinner and bottle of wine at our Victoria Falls hotel, which had one of the best restaurants in Victoria Falls.

My son and I visited Tswalu Kalahari, Victoria Falls, the Okavango Delta and Great Plains in September 2016.  We had the four very different experiences and enjoyed every one of them immensely.  Our safari travel company did an excellent job organizing our trip and everything went almost flawlessly.  At the last safari camp Selinda in Great Plains, they had one tent ready for the both of us when our reservations were for two single rooms throughout.  Fortunately, the camp was not full and they were able to provide my son with another tent as specified in our reservations.  It was just a simple misunderstanding and our stay there was totally enjoyable with comfortable accommodation, excellent food, impeccable service, fascinating game drives and, above all, the wonderful guide. 

I am interested in visiting Tanzania during the wildebeest migration season perhaps in 2018 and would definitely contact this agent again for that trip.

Thank you.

We had a very enjoyable trip to Victoria Falls, back to the Republic of South Africa (via Botswana) for a typical safari experience in the Northwest Province at Madikwe Game Reserve, and then a week in the Cape.  Our travel agency suggested the Victoria Falls stop and Elephant Camp in particular.  Elephant Camp was very nice (and we were in the intimate four "tent" family camp that opened just in March) with excellent service and good food.  However, our agent oversold the opportunity to interact with the somewhat tamed elephants on the Wild Horizons/Elephant Camp Reserve.  We had literally no more than five minutes with the elephants, feeding them, so far less than we expected.  We enjoyed the visit to Victoria Falls National Park, as well as a canoe safari on the Zambezi above the falls.  We also very much enjoyed our time at Madikwe Safari Lodge, a very nice facility with an excellent guide, good food, but not always top-rate service.  However, I wish the agent had suggested the opportunity to fly in and out of Madikwe because it has an air strip, and this would have saved us a great deal of travel time doing mostly road transfers to and from Madikwe.  Our travel company was responsive to our requests for particular accommodations in Franschhoek and Cape Town, though they were different than the accommodations suggested by Born Free.  In both cases, we enjoyed our choices very much, as much because of location as because of the facilities themselves.   In Zimbabwe and Madikwe, service was not always up to par at all facilities, and meals were not always as excellent as we expected, but our travel company is not responsible for this.  

When our son left his Kindle on one of the transfers, Born Free helped track it down and get it sent by courier to catch up with us at Cape Town.  This was very helpful, but instead of charging us the cost of the courier and telling us what that cost was, they passed onto us the round figure of ZAR 500. I would have preferred transparency on that.  One of the other transfer operators officiously collected form the safari lodge things of ours (plaster imprints of animal tracks) we had asked them for--she did this while we were having breakfast our last morning.  But then the transfer operator forgot to give the things to us when she dropped us off at Oliver Tambo Airport--even though they were on the front seat of the van next to her!  Again, we were able to get these items sent by courier to catch up with us on Cape Town, but I didn't think we should bear the cost of that.   

We booked, what we thought would be the trip of a lifetime.  It was so fabulous in reality, that we think we need to go again!  We had turned almost all of the trip over to our travel agency to plan for us, giving them only a minimal outline of what we would like to see.  They planned the trip and only with a few minor changes (e.g. add a day for a wine tour in the Cape) we booked.  Frankly, we were a little nervous about placing a high level of trust in a company we only knew via Zicasso and the internet, but it was trust well placed and rewarded.  Our trip consisted of 3 days at Cape Town, a few nights at Londolozi in Sabi Sands/Kruger, a day at Victoria Falls, a few days at Chobe Game Lodge on the Chobe River, a few days at Savute, and the last few days in the Okavango Delta at Xugana Island Lodge.  Almost 3 weeks in total. All logistics were seamless with no problems whatsoever despite numerous hand offs and transports.