Page 3 - 5 Critical Things

- Your Guide -
The Most Important Thing To Consider When Choosing Your Safari
• There are a multitude of organised safaris on the market with a wide range of prices catering to all kinds of people and their speci c interests. How to select the best one for you can be dif cult and confusing.
• If you are a serious photographer with a keen interest in wildlife, the guide becomes even more critical to the success of your trip.
• The Gold standard of independant, professional guides are those who trained under the rigorous Zimbabwean system.They can be found working in many of the premier safari countries and come highly recommended.You can expect to pay a daily fee for the guide as well as his accommodation and park fees over and above the price of the safari. (Illustration 1)
• Budgets may determine that this kind of guide is not possible for your trip and there are many alternatives that will work well. Most of the countries will have their own training programmes, some more developed than others.
• Many of the top ranked safari camps and lodges have their own excellent guides but some of the middle and lower ranked camps and lodges have guides who don’t understand the needs of serious photographers.
• A camp’s own guide will be provided as part of your safari package and isn’t an extra cost but included. It is worth asking the organiser or leader of the safari that you’re considering whether the guide will have any experience with photographers or is, indeed a photographer themselves. One advantage of camp guides can be the wealth of local knowledge that they have, however, not all camp guides come from the area that they work in so it is worth asking how long they have worked in that location.
• There is little worse than having a uninterested guide or one who has little understanding of photographers who want to sit and wait for the moment to evolve, who need a still vehicle so that images aren’t compromised by movement and who require the vehicle to be positioned appropriately to the conditions.