How to Pick a Tour Company for an East Africa Safari
Which safari company should you book with for your first East Africa safari? There are hundreds of tour companies in East Africa to choose from, so what do you look for when making the best choice for your trip? How do you chose? In this blog post, I’ll go through what you’ll want to look for when booking a safari through a guide. So if you’re dreaming of visiting the Masai Mara, Serengeti, Amboseli, or go gorilla trekking and you have no idea how to start this safari planning process, you’re in the right place!
Are you just beginning your safari planning journey? You might want to start with my Crash Course on Planning Your First East African safari post here, before delving into this post on choosing a tour.
When I was planning my East Africa safari, choosing a tour operator was my biggest hang up — how do I make SURE I get a good tour operator when there are so many? With this East Africa safari guide, I will cover all the questions you might have.

Why chose a tour company for a safari? Can’t I do this on my own?
The short answer is no, you don’t want to do this on your own. I’m not into tours either, but for safari, you will want to book it through a tour operator. There are so many logistics that go into planning a safari — you can’t just rent a car from the airport and show up at the Masai Mara and expect to see lions and giraffes. Most of the safari parks won’t allow you to enter without a certified guide.

Your safari tour operator will take care of all the logistics, from your transportation to/from the park, to the airport(s), your lodging and meals, park entrance fees, and the game drives. All of this is included in your safari package price. All you have to do is chose a tour operator and they take care of everything else.
How to find safari tour operators
There are hundreds and hundreds of tour operators in East Africa offering safari packages. You can google, and delve through the deluge of google results — that’s where you’re going to get overwhelmed –there’s just so many! Perhaps you know someone who’s been on safari — you can ask friends who have done safari before for their recommendations, or you can do what I did — use SafariBookings.com.
This website is an aggregator for safari tours and does a much better job at finding a company that will give you the tour you want. Here, you can filter results by country, national park, budget (low/mid/luxury), start date, private vs joining (private is by far the most common and I highly recommend that you chose a private safari), number of adults, and more. This is how I chose my two safari tour operators for my East Africa trip.

Why did I need two safari tour operators? I wanted to visit Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar and Uganda (for gorilla trekking). There was no ‘one’ tour that could encompass all of that, so I booked two separate safaris. You may need to do this too, depending on what you want to see while in East Africa.
What to look for when choosing a safari tour operator?
What is your budget?
SafariBookings.com does a great job of filtering out by your budget. They have different tiers (budget/mid/luxury/luxury+) where you can filter the offerings by comfort level. We did the mid-range option. The ‘budget‘ option was a bit too rough for me — it meant 1-2 star equivalent lodging, or actual pitch-a-tent style camping, possible shared bathrooms, and the possibility of having to help with camp chores. No thanks!

Mid-Range offered 2-3 star lodging, better-located accommodations, private bathrooms, and more comfortable accommodations. I probably would’ve been happier with the luxury level, however, I didn’t really have any issue with the actual rooms we had – for the most part, they were fine. It was the food that really got me. In general, it was terrible, even despite the consistent 5 star reviews these places received. It really threw me off, because I was expecting much better food than what we got. What we got was worse than a Golden Corral meal — and I’ll happily eat at a Golden Corral! But this stuff was worse. I don’t know if the ‘luxury’ level would’ve been better, food-wise, because we did stay at a few luxury-level places and the food was still very bad!

Check the reviews
On SafariBookings.com, you’ll find reviews for each of the safari companies. Make sure to read them, and read them thoroughly — especially anything less than a 5 star review. Also Google the company, read the google reviews, read the Trust Pilot reviews, and read the TripAdvisor reviews. Again, pay attention to anything less than a 5 star.
Communication:
Once you’ve emailed the safari tour operator, how is their communication style? In other words, do they pass your vibe check? A few things to look for –
Do they reply promptly? If they can’t reply promptly on a sales inquiry, how can you trust they will respond promptly if anything goes wrong during your safari? That’s a red flag on the play!
Do you understand their messaging? (I’ve contacted a few and some had very broken English, so it was really difficult to communicate with them, so I went with someone else).
Does the quote include park fees?
You may find a safari with a low price tag on it — and that may be fine and all, but you’ll want to make sure that they are including park fees in with the price. Some tour operators do not include this, giving tourists a sticker shock when at a park gate! Prices for some these parks can be over $70/day per person and must be paid in USD cash at the gate, and can leave you in a lurch if you’re not prepared. MAKE SURE YOUR COMPANY INCLUDES PARK FEES TO AVOID THIS DRAMA!

Payment Methods Accepted
Very important! Safaris are expensive and you’ll be dropping a whole lot of money on this booking — thousands of dollars! When researching East Africa safaris, you will find that many of them do NOT accept credit cards. They want you to wire the money to them.
To be clear, this is not a scam. This is a common payment method for these companies, but I, personally, was not comfortable with it. I wanted to put it on my credit card for my own protection and I wanted the credit card points. So I only looked out for companies that took credit cards as payment. You may need to ask what type of payment they accept if it is not listed on their website.
Some safari companies want you to pay with cash on arrival – do not do this!
Type of Vehicle
What type of safari vehicle are you going to be in? This is so, so important! Because you are going to be in that vehicle for so much of your trip, you’ll want to be comfortable. Safari companies typically have either mini vans or Land Cruisers (often noted as a “pop up roof 4×4 vehicle”) — you will want the Land Cruiser!

Mini vans are cramped and can get stuck in the mud more often than the Land Cruisers — every vehicle that I saw that needed help was a mini van. We did not get stuck in the mud once on safari.
Tours with Land Cruisers can cost more, but you will be much more comfortable!

Lodging
You will want to review the types of lodging offered on your safari. There are three typical accommodation types found on safaris:
Tents: Actual tents! You’re truly camping in the African bush! Found with the budget comfort options.
Tented Camps: These can be permanent or temporary. The ones we stayed at in our mid-range safari were permanent. Temporary camps will typically have the bucket showers. Either way, these ‘tents’ are more like actual rooms, with wood floors, real beds, electricity (but it usually gets cut after 10pm), and bathrooms. Essentially, it’s glamping and you can find this type with all ranges of budget.

Lodges and hotels: Just what you think it is. Permanent structures with real walls.
For all properties, you have either fenced or unfenced –
A fenced property is just what you think it is — there is an electric fence surrounding the property so wildlife cannot roam through. The positive of this is you don’t have to have an escort if you want to be outside your room at night. You also won’t have to worry about a lion showing up outside your doorstep at 3am.
The negative of this is you don’t have to worry about a lion showing up outside your doorstep at 3am! You might want this experience! All depends on your preference!

At an unfenced property, you are required to have a guard escort you back to your room after dinner and if you need to leave your room for whatever reason at night. You also need to call the guard to go to breakfast or if you’re leaving for an early game drive.
We experienced both types of accommodations – I am ‘on the fence’ about this! At every unfenced property we stayed at, we definitely had wildlife right outside the door every night and it scared the shit out of us! On the other hand, wow — what an experience!
An elephant literally destroyed a tree right outside of our tented room. We could hear hippos walking around steps from our room. Additionally, at another property, a lion wouldn’t stop roaring at 2am — and it sounded close!
Meals and drinks
In my research, I never saw any company who didn’t include full meals in their price. But you want to double-check just in case. Meals are typically included because, well, you’re out in the African Bush. There is no Denny’s or Olive Garden nearby, nor is there a grocery store. You will be served meals at the lodge, or taking to-go breakfasts or lunches while on game drives.
The drinks included at meals are typically coffee and tea. You likely will have free drinking water in your room, but if you want water at mealtime, it is not included. All of the lodges and tented camps had bars, so you can get alcoholic drinks at an extra charge if you wish. They also served soda. I felt the prices for soda (gotta have my Coke Zero!) were reasonable.

One more thing – you probably have seen photos of people eating a fancy hot breakfast in the bush, prepared by chefs. You probably will not be getting this unless you’re shelling out big bucks for your safari. We never had this with our mid-range safari. Our ‘breakfast-in-the-bush’ was eating in the car or eating at a designated picnic site — and it was a nasty NASTY boxed lunch that was mostly inedible. A typical boxed meal would be a yogurt (sitting in the box for hours, unrefrigerated), a bruised apple, a juice box, a cold sausage marinated in fatty grease, and a stale mini muffin. Needless to say, we went hungry. (Hell, our driver was given these meals too and he wouldn’t eat much of it either!)
These boxed meals were very common at all levels of safari — and they all looked the same. We even saw those traveling with Abercrombie & Kent (which is a very high end safari operator) eating boxed lunches at the picnic areas!
We did see those with hot, prepared meals, but it was not common!

Contact the safari tour operators
Once you’ve settled on a few different tour operators, you’ll want to reach out to them. You can do this via SafariBookings.com, as it has a messaging system on the site, or you can reach out directly through the tour operator’s website if you wish. You’ll want to include the following information:
- How many people (specificity how many adults and children)
- When you’d like to go
- Where you’d like to do – specify what itinerary you’re interested in, and if you would need any changes to the itinerary.
- Ask for a quote / what payment methods they accept
It’s important to reach out to at least three different tour operators so that you can compare costs, as well as get a vibe check for each company — how quickly do they respond?

Ask more detailed questions to your potential tour operator
These questions get into more of the specifics of your tour. I’d save these questions for your next communication with the tour operator. A few things I made sure to ask:
- Confirm the vehicle type. Directly ask if you will be in a 4×4 Land Cruiser or if you will be in a van. If you don’t want a mini van, TELL THEM.
- Any questions on any of the lodges/camps you have? For example, I wanted to make sure we didn’t get into a ‘bucket shower’ situation – some of the camps, there is no indoor plumbing for a shower, so they keep a vat of water that an attendant will heat up for you. You access the water from your private stall via a rope and pully system. I made sure to ask to confirm we wouldn’t be doing this!
- Beds: I was traveling with my sister and we did not want to share a bed! We asked our tour operator to book us rooms with two separate beds.
- Airfare: If you are flying between safari parks or if you’re going to Zanizbar, ask questions to confirm:
- What airline are we flying?
- Time/date of flight departure and arrival
- What baggage restrictions are there? Can I check a bag? What is the weight limit? Am I allowed a carry-on? If so, any weight restrictions?
- When will I receive the tickets?

We had absolutely terrible communication with our Kenya/Tanzania tour operator when it came to our Zanzibar flights. The sales office never booked our tickets (even though they said they would), and when they did (two days before our scheduled arrival in Zanzibar!) they put us on a completely different airline than originally planned, which had major luggage restrictions. I won’t get into this now, and how we solved it, but I will write about it in a future post!

Finally, chose the tour operator you feel is the best fit and enjoy!
Your tour operator will typically require a down payment on the safari, with a final payment due shortly before you arrive. Because I booked my safari only a month before I left, I paid for the entire thing all in one go.
That about wraps it up! I hope this helps you plan your dream safari! Good luck and reach out in the comments if you have questions.
More East Africa Safari Information
PLANNING RESOURCES: Planning your first safari can be really overwhelming — check out these guides to help you get started:
Crash Course for Planning Your First East Africa Safari
9 Things I Wish I Knew Before Going on an East Africa Safari
How to Pick a Tour Company for an East Africa Safari
What’s a Typical Day on an East Africa Safari Like?
Kenya Travel Tips: Malaria Pills, Yellow Fever Vaccine, Transportation and more!
ITINERARY: Here is our exact itinerary for our 3 week trip to East Africa.
WHERE TO STAY: Here are just a sample of the reviews for lodges we stayed at during our 3 week trip.
Ngorongoro Coffee Lodge – Tanzania
Rushaga Gorilla Lodge Review – Uganda Gorilla Trek
Kibo Safari Camp Review – Amboseli National Park Kenya
Lake Nakuru Lodge – Kenya, Africa: Honest Review!
Honest Review of the Masai Mara Sopa Lodge – Kenya, Africa
Sangaiwe Tented Lodge Review: Tarangire National Park Tanzania
EAST AFRICA SAFARI NATIONAL PARK REVIEWS: Check out these guides to various National Parks within East Africa, based on our safari experience
Lake Nakuru National Park – Kenya, Africa
Guide to Visiting Nairobi National Park – Kenya
EAST AFRICA EXPERIENCES
Boat Cruise on the Kazinga Channel Review – Queen Elizabeth National Park Uganda
Gorilla Trekking in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
WANT MORE? Here are all of my safari-related posts on this site.