How To Guide
Your Own
Safari Successfully
Guide Your Own Safari
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It's always better to go on an African
safari with a guide, right? Wrong! This
is a common misconception that many
people have. The fact
is that a self
guided (also
known as a
self drive, self catering or road trip) safari has a
number of advantages over an operator guided tour and is an option that
you should seriously consider for your own safari adventure. Here's
why... Advantages
Of Guiding Your Own Safari »
Wildlife Spotting -
You can see just as much wildlife when guiding your own safari as when
tagging along with a safari operator (I share ten essential
tips in the guide which makes this possible).
»
Flexibility and Independence -
It's a lot more flexible. You decide how long you want to spend at a
sighting whereas the safari guide has to move on quickly to try and
keep all his guests happy. »
Better Wildlife Photography -
This flexibility is a huge advantage of an independant safari,
especially for wildlife
photography because you need patience to get a great picture. You're
the driver, you're in charge, so you call the shots.
»
Costs Less -
It's much more cost effective and a lot easier on the budget. You can
get the same standard of
accommodation and food as the safari operator will offer you and still
pay a lot less. Guided safaris can often cost
twice as much (the guidebook details how to work out exactly
what your self drive will cost). »
Family Safari Friendly - You
can enjoy a dream safari with your whole family. Many guided africa
family holidays have a limit whereby children under 12 aren't allowed
to go on
game drives because they might be unruly and spoil the experience for
the other paying customers. No
problem with a self drive. Just bundle
your whole family into the car as you would on any other road trip and
experience the wonders of an African safari with your children (the
guidebook explains all the logistics and steps necessary for a trouble
free Africa road trip.)
»
Accommodation Choices -
You choose where you want to stay and the options run from budget right
through to ultra luxurious (the guideboook contains all the
accommodation options, costs and how to book them). With the
safari operator you are stuck with
the accommodation they decide on. »
Best of Both Worlds -
When you are on a self drive safari, you get the best of both worlds
because you still have the choice of going
out with a guide as virtually all the national parks and game
reserves in Southern Africa offer morning, day and/or night drives with
a qualified guide (all the activity option in each reserve, costs and booking procedures are covered in the book). So
when it suits you, you can book a game drive with the guide and
then by all means pepper him or her with questions (the guides
enjoy
sharing their encyclopedic wildlife knowledge) for the three
hours or
so duration of the trip and then you can go back to the independence
and flexibility of driving yourself through the reserve.
Disadvantages Of Guiding Your Own Safari
Some
of the major drawbacks of a self drive safari is that you need
to do all the planning and handle the logistics yourself and that you
don't have any local knowledge if you haven't been on a safari to that
area before. To
help you overcome this, I've written the 248
page Guide
Your Own Safari ebook
which contains much of my 25 plus years of local safari knowledge and
leads you successfully through every step of the
process of planning and carrying out
your African safari. Every
possible thing you need to know
about guiding your own self drive, road trip safari in Southern Africa
is covered
in this
guide book... How
To Guide
Your Own Safari My
name is Bruce Whittaker and I
have over a quarter of a centuries experience of self
guided safaris in numerous national parks and game reserves in Southern
Africa having been on hundreds of self drive safaris over the
years myself. In
the process I have travelled the equivalent distance from
Cape Town in South
Africa to Cairo in Egypt at least four times over.
I
have condensed all this local knowledge and experience
into the Guide Your Own
Safari book to make it child's play for you to plan
and carry out your own African self drive safari.
In
2007 alone, my wife Wilma and I travelled
over 15 000 km (9320 miles) visiting all the top
national
parks and game reserves in Southern Africa and the final results of
our experience and research is contained in this travel guide
book.
You won't find the conclusions we present anywhere else
because there
is no other safari guidebooks like this available at the moment.
We
have been to all the wildlife
areas covered in the book using our normal sedan vehicle (no
4x4
needed), many of them on
numerous occasions through
the years. We self drive the Kruger National Park at least once a
month, every year. So
you can use this guidebook with
confidence to undertake your own self drive safari because everything
has been tried and tested by us again and again. It's like being on
a guided safari except that you have all the advantages of a self
guided
safari thrown in too.
Contents Of The Guide Your Own Safari eBook
I
have included in the book the top safari destinations in
Southern
Africa where it's possible to guide your own safari with a normal 2
wheel drive
sedan vehicle (you can use a 4x4 there too if you want).
Locations
that you can only get to with a 4x4
vehicle or where self driving is not possible incur a higher
cost so I left them out of the
book completely. These
are the eleven national parks and game reserves that I
cover
in detail in this 248 page
guide... -
National
Parks: Kruger, Etosha,
Kgalagadi, Addo, Mountain Zebra -
Game
Reserves: Pilanesberg,
Hluhluwe-Imfolozi, Ithala, Mkhuze, Mlilwane, Malolotja
There
are detailed
satellite maps of each region to help you with navigation. You can zoom
in so far you can actually see the accommodation buildings of the main
rest camps where you will stay on your safari. Distance
and time calculators give you accurate logistical information to help
you plan your routes effectively. Take
a look at the full Guide Your Own Safari
index for a comprehensive
overview of the information and advice the ebook
contains (it's too long to list everything here).
Below
is a quick view of some of the self drive aspects the africa guide will
help you with... - Ten
Essential Tips To See
More Wildlife on your Self Guided Safari
- How
to Accurately Estimate
the Cost of Your Self Drive Safari
- Car
Rental: Leave the 4x4
Behind
- The car we use for self drive
safaris
- Car hire optional extras that
will enhance your safari
- Where to rent a car for your
safari
- Detailed Safari Packing
Lists
- Self Drive Safari Rules of
the Road and Etiquette
- African Travel Insurance
- Your
Health Before and On
Safari
- Comprehensive Independant
Travel Overview
of South Africa, Namibia and Swaziland
- Getting
there
- Getting around
- Money
matters
- Crime and personal safety
- Public
and school holidays
chart
- Detailed Information About
Each of the Eleven Wildlife Parks and Reserves Covered
- The animals you can see here
- Park
specific tips to improve
your wildlife watching
- How to make a booking yourself
- Best
time to go
- Getting there
- Arrival
at the gate
- Where to stay
- Communications
- Picnic
spots
- Hides
- Dams
and waterholes
- Lookout points
- Walking
trails
- Cultural/historic sites
- Activities
- Eating
and drinking
- Self catering
- Shops
- Animal
numbers chart
- Useful contacts
- Recommended
reading and
websites
Like
I said, this is the shortened version of what the Guide Your Own Safari
book offers. If you
want to see the full table of contents it's here...
Buy
the Guide The Guide Your Own Safari
book has the potential to save
you money while maintaining the overall value of your
African safari.
A guided safari can cost double
the price of a self drive safari, and yet you will have the potential
to see the same amount and type of wildlife because, after all, the
self
drive and guided safaris both take place in the same area.
And
the standard of accommodation and food that you can expect is similar
for both forms of safari so you don't have to compromise on that either.
By
following the exercise to estimate the cost of guiding your own
safari outlined in the book and then getting a quote from any safari
company for the equivalent guided safari, you will be shocked by how much
the self drive safari will save you. Do the calculation,
it will amaze you.
So by spending only US$27.00
on the Guide
Your Own Safari ebook you will be saving a
substantial amount of money for a safari experience that is just as
good and in some cases even better than the more expensive guided
safari.
Click on the icon below to buy now...
Straight
after payment you will be directed to a
download page and you will also receive an e-mail (triple check that your e-mail
address is correct) with a link to retrieve
your eBook, and in just minutes
you'll have access to all the Guide
Your Own Safari
knowledge. The
eBook is created in Adobe
Acrobat electronic file format (PDF file). If you
don't have the Adobe software to read PDFs, you can download and install it here for
free. PS...Once
you own the guidebook you are entitled to all future editions
free
as I regularly research and add top new safari areas and update the
existing ones to keep them current.
Money
Back Guarantee - If
for any reason the Guide
Your Own Safari ebook doesn't live up to your expectations
I will
refund your money within eight weeks of your date of purchase.
Simply e-mail
me the
reason why it fell short in your estimation (which helps me improve
the guide) and I will issue a 100% refund to you.
2Checkout.com,
Inc. is an authorized retailer of Guide Your Own Safari.
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