A day on safari starts early, around six, while it is still dark and the animals are at their most active. You drive for a few hours, eat breakfast out in the bush or back at camp, rest through the hottest hours and head out again late in the afternoon. After sunset you sit by the campfire, and by nine you are in bed.
Time | What happens |
5.30am | Coffee or tea at your tent |
6am | You leave as it gets light |
6am to 9am | The best hours of the day |
Around 9am | Breakfast in the bush or back at camp |
Noon to 3.30pm | Lunch and rest, it is hot and the animals lie in the shade |
3.30pm | Out again |
Around 6.30pm | The sun goes down, back to camp |
7.30pm | Dinner, then the campfire |
That is the rhythm of a day in one park. On days when you drive from one park to the next, it looks different.
The first two hours after sunrise are the best of the day. It is cool, the predators are still active after the night and the light is soft. From June to September it is cold in the open vehicle at that hour, and that is part of it. A fleece on, a cup of coffee from the flask.
The early start feels hard the first morning. After two days you fall asleep at nine without trying and wake at half past five.
Often you take breakfast with you and eat it under a tree, looking out over the plains. Or you drive back to camp around nine. Both work, and your guide decides depending on what there is to see that morning.
Between twelve and half past three it is hot and most animals lie in the shade. That is when you have lunch and rest. Read, sleep, swim if your lodge has a pool, or watch whatever walks past the camp.
On days with long distances you take a packed lunch and keep driving.
At half past three you head out on your second game drive. The light turns warmer, the animals start moving, and the last hour before sunset is every bit as good as the first after sunrise. In the national parks you have to be back by sunset, and your guide plans for that.
Sometimes you stop for a sundowner, a drink as the sun goes down.
A shower, dinner, and at the campfire you tell each other what you saw. In a camp you then hear the night, hyenas in the distance, sometimes a lion. By nine you are tired in a way you never are at home.
The rhythm above is a guide, not a timetable. If a leopard is in a tree at nine and about to come down, you stay and have breakfast later. With your own vehicle and your own guide you can, and that is the biggest difference from a group tour.
More tips for your first time are in our blog on your first safari.
How the days follow one another over a whole trip, from park to park and on to the sea, you can see in our itineraries.
