Today I thought it would be helpful to give some tipping guidelines for South Africa and the rest of Southern Africa. In recent years we have noticed some game lodges suggesting quite high tipping recommendations. When chatting with other industry colleagues we feel that we shouldn’t leave it up to the game lodges to recommend tipping guidelines for their own staff!

So, without further ado…
•    A tip of 10 to 12% is normal in hotels, restaurants and for taxis, depending on the service.
•    In a hotel you might give a porter US$1 (R10) to carry a bag, more if there are several bags to be carried.
•    Chambermaids always appreciate a tip at the end of your stay – perhaps R10 per night
•    If you have a private tour guide during your stay, you may like to tip $10-15 (R100-R150) for a full day or $5 to $10 (R50-R100) for a half day

At South African Private Game Lodges

You may feel under pressure to tip generously here but this is entirely your choice, depending on how well your ranger and tracker have done their jobs. Typically your stay is co-ordinated by your ranger and so he is your main point of contact with the lodge. So often the lodges leave out three envelopes for tips: one for general staff, one for your ranger and one for your tracker.

The following is a loose guideline - depending on how you feel…
$5 - $8 (R50-R75) per person per day for a ranger/guide ie R100 to R150 per couple
$2 - $3 (R25-R30) per person per day per tracker
$3 - $5 (R30-R50) per person per day to be shared among general camp staff.

At Southern African Game Lodges

At many Botswana or Zambia Game Lodges you may enjoy different activities with different guides. If this is the case, we recommend:
$2.50 - $3 (R25-R30) per person per guide ie $5 to $6 per couple for each guide

Some safari operators feel that it is fairer and more beneficial in bush camps to give a general tip to the camp management to be shared out among the camp staff (not including the management) but this is your choice. A guideline would be US$5 – US$10 per person per day.

A not too surprising trend at the moment is that our clients are all looking for the best value in their vacations. Whether this takes the form of searching for special deals on the internet or simply trading down from a five star hotel to a three/four star hotel, the trend amongst the vast majority of our clients is clear. They simply don’t want to spend as much money this year on their African holiday as last year?

But what are the best ways of getting great value for money on your South Africa safari vacation? One of my blogs a few months ago addressed the issue of how to Save on Your Safari (which is now an article on our website).  But today I thought I would address one of the simplest, and in many ways painless, ways of saving money. It is simply this – consider switching at least part of your escorted holiday to a self-drive holiday.

Most of our North American clients choose to take an escorted holiday to South Africa and combine it with a safari. Most of these will take a private guide for the greater flexibility and personal care. In contrast most of our UK and European clients opt to do a self-drive holiday in South Africa.  I don’t think I have ever had a self-drive client who has come back to me and said that they wished they had taken an escorted tour. Uniformly they all enjoy the experience.

By switching to a self-drive holiday, you can usually retain your preferred standard of accommodation and save at least 25% or more off the cost of your holiday.

What’s more consider the following advantages…
1)    Great flexibility to do what you want when you want. For example, you don’t have to go to the Cape Peninsula today simply because your guide is booked and paid for. You can choose to do it tomorrow instead, or not at all if you feel like it.

2)    You can choose from a range of cars from compact to luxurious

3)    You don’t have to always be with another person (your guide) no matter how nice they may be. You can kick back, relax and just be with your loved ones. Particularly important on holidays and anniversaries!

So what are some of the concerns about self drive in South Africa and how would I deal with them?

1)    We drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road
Yes, we do drive on the left but it is surprising how quickly you get used to it as all our Continental European clients will attest (as they also are used to driving on the right). It takes only an hour or two to adjust because all other cars are driving on the left. Really…

2)    I can’t use a manual transmission in a car
No problem. Both Avis and Budget, our preferred partners have a range of automatic cars in all sizes

3)    It’s Africa. The roads will be appalling!
No, they are not. The vast majority of our South African roads are good quality tarred roads and usually wider than many European country lanes!  They are well signposted and the signs are in English. If you are particularly concerned about road quality, then specify that you do not want to drive any gravel roads. (It’s unlikely we would suggest that anyway but some off the beaten track areas have some gravel roads).

4)    I am going to get lost
Any reputable tour operator who has a lot of self-drive clients will give you good documentation with detailed instructions on how to get from one hotel to the next. In our case we give you detailed route and area descriptions as well so that you hardly need a guide book. What’s more you get road maps and also the option to hire a GPS with your rental car if you prefer.

5)    I’m worried about my safety
It’s natural to be apprehensive about driving in a foreign country. The rural areas of South Africa are generally very quiet and safe and we never compromise our client’s safety by suggesting inappropriate routes or areas. However if you are nervous about driving in cities that you don’t know, then why not consider a compromise that works for many of our clients. You are transferred to your first hotel, perhaps in Cape Town. You enjoy one or two guided tours whilst you settle into the country and get the feel of it, then we arrange for your rental car to be delivered to your hotel. This gives you the chance to enjoy the Cape Peninsula drive under your own steam or to visit the Cape Winelands. Then you head off for a few days of self-drive pleasure perhaps visiting Hermanus or the Garden Route.

6)    What about my safari?
We don’t usually suggest self-drive to your game lodge as the roads are, of course, bumpier and usually gravel. Typically our European clients enjoy a self-drive holiday for the majority of their holiday and then return the car to the nearest office and have road or air transfers into their safari destination.
If you have any further questions about self-drive in South Africa, don’t hesitate to contact us.

At this point I have to put my cards on the table to say that the Lower Zambezi National Park is one of my favourite areas of Southern Africa. Firstly the Lower Zambezi is not just a pretty face, though pretty it most certainly is. This watery paradise to home to a vast array of wildlife, most notably huge numbers of elephant, hippo and buffalo. These in turn attract the predators: lion, leopard and other nocturnal hunters. However  what makes the Lower Zambezi so very attractive for the safari visitor is the varied activities on offer – choose between day or night drives, game-viewing by boat or on foot, quiet canoe trips along the small tributaries of the Zambezi or try  your luck tiger fishing. We sampled most of these activities during our stay and enjoyed an eventful night drive with sightings of lion and leopard, tiger fishing with notable success for some – mine, of course, was the one that got away - and a wonderful morning canoeing expedition.

Zambezi Kulefu Camp is a personal favourite of mine, both because of the camp itself and because of the Lower Zambezi National Park. Kulefu camp is one of only six camps actually within the park and is located in the eastern section which is noticeably quieter. The camp has been completely rebuilt in recent months and though the vegetation around the tents is looking a little spartan this will rapidly change after the summer rains.  The camp was looking great – still very much an understated tented camp but with a stylish modern edge.  As at Puku Ridge, the tents are very generous with a good sized sitting area, a deck with two comfortable loungers and both indoor and outdoor showers.

Going back to the activities, I was a complete novice at tiger fishing and, being a A1 type personality, I was slightly fazed initially by the prospect of spending the next couple of hours doing nothing but hanging a rod over the side of the boar, but the first bite was an adrenalin rush of note even though nothing landed in the boat, and I am now a convert. In between all the activity, we enjoyed gentle game-viewing on the river, including, a procession of elephant swimming through the river from one island to another.

The following morning some of us enjoyed a gentle canoe trip along some of the tributaries. I say gentle in the loosest sense of the word because it doesn’t require a vast amount of physical effort as the river current ably assists you. However languid gentle paddling was interspersed with heart-pumping close encounters with hippos – the hippos snorting at us menacingly as we gingerly hugged the river banks making sure we didn’t invade their territory so this is not an activity for the faint hearted.  But I have to admit I loved it! We saw plenty of wildlife and notable birding so bring your binoculars and camera.

Sanctuary Lodges offers Special Long Stay Rates up to May 2009 if you stay five nights at one or more of the camps. Contact Us for more details…

Aside from the current global economic downturn, one of the major reasons why people decide not to travel to South Africa is their perception of the crime situation here.

Over the years when we have reviewed our client’s post-travel questionnaires, the same message has been given over and over again. Their perception of safety risks was high before they travelled to South Africa but always much lower after their visit.

Recently our own experience was re-enforced by research done by management consultants, Monitor,  across several countries.  Before their visit to South Africa visitors had a below average perception of our country’s safety & security versus other destinations. After their visit, their perception improved by 28% so that their final perception of South Africa was that it was above average for safety and security.

Undoubtedly South Africa’s crime statistics are a cause for alarm so why are our clients NOT feeling a sense of danger and fear. And what does this mean for you?

•    Crime is localized. As in many cities around the world, there are parts of a city which you do not visit lightly and there are parts of the same city which are very safe. So is the case in South Africa. Much of the crime takes place in the poorer areas of the cities where you are highly unlikely to visit. Once you leave the cities, the crime levels drop dramatically.

•    Our clients  often travel with a private guide for the duration of their holiday. Many of our clients, especially from North America, take a private guide for the sightseeing part of their holiday. This guide collects them from their hotel, takes them on their tours and is usually with them in the evenings for dinner as well, if our clients wish it. Thus many of our clients don’t have to worry about whether they are heading in the right direction, or in the right place. Your private guide not only adds to your understanding, knowledge and enjoyment of South Africa but ensures that your safety is never compromised

•    South Africa stands to gain a lot from increased tourism spend and so in the last few years have pumped significant resources into policing tourist areas. They have installed CVTV cameras in the city centres, recruited security guards and increased the police presence on the streets all of which has led to dramatic reduction in the amount of crime in these areas.

•    As in many other large cities, our clients have found that taking simple precautions such as you might do in Rome or New York mean that they are not a target for muggers.

•    South Africa has a far lower risk of being the target of a major terrorist attack than many countries in the Western World. We also have no internal civil strife unlike many other developing countries.

•    South Africa is the only country in Africa which is mostly malaria free. Clients can choose whether to visit the Kruger National Park and adjacent private game reserves (which are in a seasonal malaria area) or choose from three big five non-malaria game areas (Madikwe, Eastern Cape and the Waterberg.)

Tips for increasing your personal safety
1)    Don’t wear expensive jewellery or carry expensive camera equipment when sightseeing in urban areas. Leave that for dining in your restaurant in the evening.
2)    If in doubt about an area, ask a local security guard whether it’s safe.
3)    Don’t go for a late night stroll in the downtown city centre of our major cities. You wouldn’t do it in many US cities and so don’t do it in South Africa.
4)    When in a smaller town, take advice from locals or your hotel manager about the immediate area. Usually it will be safe to walk at night but there’s no harm in checking.

Continuing from my report on the Victoria Falls and Sussi Lodge…

We next headed to two contrasting luxury lodges in Zambia’s famous South Luangwa National Park – Chichele Presidential Lodge and Puku Ridge Camp

Chichele Presidential Lodge
Chichele Presidential Lodge is quite unlike any other safari lodge in the South Luangwa National Park and will appeal to some and not to others. It was formerly owned by President Kaunda as his safari retreat and so it has a very colonial feel which is either your ‘thing’ or not. As you arrive and enter the cool reception hall, your eye is drawn through the lodge to the expansive views from the veranda beyond. The setting is stunning.

But this is no bush camp – it makes no apology for its colonial grandeur and I have to confess it is supremely comfortable. The air-conditioning was especially welcome in the hot months of September to November. (October is known as suicide month by many in the ‘Valley’, as the South Luangwa is colloquially known, as the temperatures rise inexorably before the start of the summer rains.)

The food at Chichele Lodge was outstanding with all of us clamouring to receive recipes, especially for their desserts. A particular lemon meringue confection springs to mind…

My game-viewing was good but with a slight absence of the larger predators but plenty of nocturnal species on the night drive made up for that. The hippo and crocodile sightings were truly impressive with nearly 50 crocodiles feasting on a dead hippo at one sighting. Our ranger John was very knowledgeable and gave us lots of insights especially during our morning game walk. During the hotter early summer months, the walks tends to be shorter – 2 to 2½ hours and followed by 1-1½ hours on a game drive whereas as winter walks would be longer up to 3 hours. I liked the combination of early morning walk followed by game drive.

Chichele Lodge is one of the few lodges in the South Luangwa National Park which accepts children on safari - from 9 years and up. The rooms are very spacious and thus can easily accommodate an extra bed. There are two rooms adjacent to each other which are ideal for a larger family safari party.

Puku Ridge Camp
After our morning drive and surprise bush breakfast, we head to Puku Ridge Camp. This camp is much more the sort of lodge you would expect in Zambia, and in many respects it was my favourite (though Kulefu Camp in the Lower Zambezi gave it a good run for the money). This camp has been extensively rebuilt in recent months and was looking fantastic. The tents are huge with a sitting area, writing desk, dressing area, large bathroom and private deck overlooking the flood plains. It is stylishly decorated using modern furnishings, providing a complete contrast to colonial grandeur of Chichele.

However delightful as they were, it is not the tents which are the key selling point of Puku Ridge. It’s the gorgeous view over the floodplains from the deck of the lodge that blows you away. We gathered here for our afternoon game drive on the first day but delayed the start of the drive as we were seeing so much game from the deck whilst having tea including buffalo, elephant, giraffe, puku and monkeys.  During the afternoon siesta I had decided to spend the time at the main lodge where I could cool off in the shallow water pools and lounge around on the extremely comfortable circular shaded day beds. The hanging pods were an equally attractive proposition  (- wicker chairs suspending from the trees which are a sort of modern take on those 1970’s hanging chairs!)

Puku Ridge is near perfect. The new extension of the deck under the tree offers a larger dining area when the camp is full. The only other change they are planning to make is to offer flaps to cover the gauze windows in the tents. This will ensure greater warmth during the cooler nights of June/July and it will slightly cool the tents during the hot summer months. Highly recommended!

Tomorrow I head to the Lower Zambezi National Park…

Sanctuary Lodges offers Special Long Stay Rates up to May 2009 if you stay five nights at one or more of the camps. Contact Us for more details…

I sometimes feel that I cannot win when promoting cultural tours within Southern Africa, and especially South Africa. People come to the idea with such differing cultural perceptions of their own that it is hard to please everyone.

Some people are expecting to see village life such as it might have been in the 19th century in the days of David Livingstone and the explorers. They are vaguely disappointed to see that people wear western dress and use tinned food, alongside more traditional staples.

Others are very keen to understand what it’s like to live in the modern South Africa not only for the people that they meet in their five star hotels but also for the more ordinary people. They positively don’t want a historical experience. They want the real facts.

Yet others, somewhat to my wry amusement, say that they want an authentic cultural experience and yet are horrified when they realise that they can smell the cows and the manure of the kraal next to the house, have to walk through some mud, or encounter poverty in its grittiest.

So, in the interests of clarity, I thought that I would talk about cultural tourism – what it is and what it isn’t. Many ‘cultural tours’, especially in the Zulu areas of rural KwaZulu Natal are actually a mix of interesting historical tour of the Zulu customs and traditions, with some showmanship in the form of Zulu tribal dancing, which is very exciting to watch. They are not what I would call authentic cultural tours but rather enjoyable cultural shows. You may have some opportunity to  meet local people and discuss how they live now but not much.

Other cultural tours, usually in the urban townships of Soweto or Cape Town, are a more realistic depiction of modern urban living for many people in South Africa. Typically you would visit someone’s home, see some of the local community buildings such as a school, hospital or perhaps have a beer in a shebeen. These are organized tours where your safety is of utmost importance so it stands to reason that your visit follows a very set format. You will not go to dangerous areas or see life on the edge. However it is a glimpse of township life and your guide is an important interpreter of what you see and can tell you a lot about recent South African events.   What you will see often challenges your pre-conceptions. You see poverty but you will also see middle class township life as people better themselves as in any city.

Finally the third (broad) category is the more informal village visits which you may undertake as part of your stay in South Africa. Many game lodges, for example, now offer visits to the local villages where their rangers and guides have grown up. This is an informal walk through, perhaps visiting somebody’s house or seeing a community school. What you get out of it very much depends on what you put in in terms of asking questions to your guides and to those you meet. You will see the more haphazard side of modern village living – a traditional thatched rondavel will have a modern brick outhouse or a dilapidated building will sport a satellite dish on its side. It could be dirty, it could be smelly but you will be seeing a slice of real South African life. You may learn how someone who has gone to a local one-classroom school has managed to enter the safari industry and train to be a safari guide. You may learn how many people that person’s wages support. If you have an open heart, you will get a lot from such visits.