The company
We publish the guides. One agency in Kenya plans the trips.
That sentence is the whole arrangement, and we would rather you read it here than work it out for yourself on page four of something else.
What we actually do
We write and publish fifty safari planning guides. Each one takes a single subject — one park, one country, one kind of trip — and goes deeper on it than a general travel site can, because a general travel site has to cover Peru next week.
They are free, they carry no advertising, and they are written to be useful whether or not you ever send us anything. That is not altruism. It is the only version of this that works: a guide nobody trusts generates no enquiries, and the fastest way to lose trust is to write a brochure and call it a guide.
When you do want a trip planned, the enquiry goes to one agency in Kenya. Not a panel, not a marketplace, not the highest bidder.
The network
Two families of guides
One covers Kenya in depth. The other covers the top of the market across East and Southern Africa. Both feed the same desk.
Kenya Safari Planner
Fourteen guides to Kenya: the parks, the seasons, the costs, the itineraries and the camps. The most detailed thing we publish.
The Kenya guides
Luxury Safari Planner
Thirty-five guides to the top end across Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Botswana and Zanzibar — bespoke, honeymoon and exclusive-use.
The luxury guides
All fifty, listed
Every guide we publish, grouped by what it covers, so you can go straight to the one that answers your question.
The full listThe commercial model
How we are paid, in one paragraph
If you book a trip that started with an enquiry here, our partner agency pays us a commission out of their margin. You pay no more than you would going to them directly, because camps hold rate parity — the same trip costs the same whether it reaches them through us or not.
We think that belongs near the top of the first page rather than in a footnote, because you cannot judge planning advice without knowing who pays for it.
- One partner agency, not a panel of operators bidding
- Your details go to them and to nobody else
- No fee to plan, no deposit to see an itinerary
- Commission comes out of their margin, not your price
- Guides published
- 50, across six countries
- Partner agency
- One, in Nairobi
- Reply time
- Within 24 hours, from a person
- Cost to plan
- Nothing, at any stage
Free download
The Safari Planning Workbook
Eight decisions, in the order they have to be made. Fill it in and you have a brief good enough to send to anybody — including us.
- Why the order of the decisions matters more than the decisions
- Decision 1: the window you can actually travel in
- Decision 2: what you want to be true of the days
- Decision 3: how much per person per night
- Decision 4: how many countries
- Decision 5: how you move between places
- Decision 6: how much of the day you want structured
- Decision 7: who is in the party, and what that rules out
- Decision 8: what you will not compromise on
- The one-page brief, ready to send
No cost, no obligation. We ask for an email so we can send it and, if you want it, follow up once.
Before you ask
The questions this page exists to answer
Who actually arranges my safari?
This site is a planning guide. When you send an enquiry it goes to Nomad Africa, our partner travel agency in Kenya, who prepare your itinerary and quote and handle the booking, the payments and you on the ground.
You deal with one team from the first email to the airport transfer home.
Are you a travel agent?
No. We are a publisher. We do not hold bookings, take payments, issue tickets or operate anything, and we are not licensed to — the agency we work with does all of that.
The practical difference to you: we can tell you a trip is a bad idea without losing a sale on it, because the sale was never ours.
Why do you run fifty sites instead of one?
Because a page that tries to cover Kenya, Botswana and honeymoons at once covers none of them well, and because the questions are genuinely different. Somebody comparing Okavango water camps and somebody choosing a month for a Mara trip need different writing, not the same page with a filter on it.
They share this company, this partnership and this editorial standard, and they link to each other wherever a question belongs on one of the others.
Do you write from experience or from research?
Both, and we try to be clear which is which. Where we describe what a camp or a walk is like, that comes from the agency’s team on the ground, who see these places constantly. Where we publish numbers, they are marked as indicative ranges rather than quoted as fact.
What you will not find here: invented reviews, awards we cannot document, or a guarantee about what an animal will do.
Do you charge for planning?
No. Sending your dates, getting an itinerary and getting a costed quote is free and carries no obligation. Money only changes hands when you decide to hold space at a camp.
The desk
Tell us what you are thinking about
Even a vague idea is enough to start. Where, roughly when, and roughly what per person per night — that is a workable brief.
It reaches our partner agency in Kenya, and a specialist replies within 24 hours with an outline and an itemised price.
- A reply from a person within 24 hours
- Named camps and an itemised price, not a brochure
- An honest answer if the plan and the budget do not meet
- Nothing to pay, and no obligation at any point
Who answers
Nomad Africa, our partner travel agency in Nairobi, builds and prices every itinerary we send. You deal with one team, on the ground, for the whole trip.
Licence and membership numbers appear here once filled in at
shared/placeholders.mjs → partner. Nothing is claimed until it is verified.
Get your tailored itinerary and quote
Our Africa specialist replies within 24 hours with a costed plan built around your dates.
More from our Africa guides
Specialist guides across our Africa network
Each of these is a focused guide we publish. Same Africa specialist behind every enquiry.