Safari with toddler and baby

[Flymeaway4]

Never been on safari and now have a 2yr old and 5 month old. Had resigned myself to waiting 10 years til they were old enough, but a family member has just returned from her first one and it looks incredible! She also said there was a British couple there with their 2yr old and triplet babies!! So it got me thinking, maybe we don't have to wait 10 years?! Thoughts? Anyone done it and can share their experience, good or bad?

Follow travelwithsinja on Instsgram :) she travels around Africa with her 1yr old and has heaps of tops

Nothing to stop you but they're as excited by cows at that age!

i travel a lot with my daughter - She’s still little (2) the trips are trips I want to do - she just tags along ! It’s good while she’s so small as she has been pretty much free up until recently on the flights and she doesn’t have any demands or preferences on where we go or what we do

it’s not always easy but I definitely think it’s well worth travelling with kids - I couldn’t cope having to wait years to do all the trips I want to do

Do you mean a proper African safari? I went on a week long safari in Shamwari reserve South Africa, I couldn't imagine they would allow a 5 month old to go out on the safari drives? It would be really difficult to manage such young children and truly enjoy the experience. You'd be better off waiting until they were 7 or 8 and could actually appreciate how cool of an experience it is. But if you're talking about a day safari at a zoo-like place then I'm sure that would be fine as it's more suitable for younger children.

Just no.

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I'm talking about an actual safari, south africa is where she went. Thanks @Heyahun I've followed her! I would definitely love to take your view on it, but wasn't sure if a safari was a step too far (others on here are definitely of the opinion that it is!). Have you done one yourself with your toddler?

Those saying no, why not? Would a family friendly reserve make it doable?

Remember going to a safari park with DS when he was little, he was more interested in the cars in front of us than the animals!

So if you are going hoping your eldest will get something from it I wouldn’t bother

@Flymeaway4 there are so many different types of safari parks in South Africa. There's ones where you have to stay in the middle of the Bush in tents (we did a luxurious tent but its crazy expensive) and go out at 5am in the morning for 3hr drives and I'm pretty sure there's age restrictions on children. But there are other day parks where you arrive just for the day and you can go on a drive an see animals in a more controlled environment, I think this is probably what your friend did?

At that young age they won’t appreciate it or remember it
Also a lot of lodge are not child friendly ( young babies and children are noisy and not suitable for quiet safari drives etc)
you would be better waiting until they were much older
Honestly with young DC try a a different holiday

A safer would be great with school age kids (I went in my 20s), but you are basically spending the entire day in a car driving over bumpy ground, I’m not sure a baby of toddler would be hugely impressed doing that all week.

And they are bloody expensive holidays to spend all day in a car with a bored whinging toddler.

Go when the youngest is 7 or 8. They will appreciate it them.

We took DS on an amazing four week roadtrip around Nova Scotia and Newfoundland when he was 2.5.

Whale watching, puffins, Cape Breton, glorious PEI beaches, lighthouses, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, a sleeper train, boat trips; do you know what he remembers? Eating a fucking Tim Hortons bagel, while watching Paw Patrol in the hotel room.

My little boy is nearly 2 and there's only 1 of him and I couldn't think of anything worse then dragging him on safari in the scorching heat but good luck to you

Nothing to stop you but they're as excited by cows at that age!
Exactly! I would personally save it until they could remember it.

Do you really want to be running from a lion with a toddler and a baby? Just driving in a four wheel drive will probably be bad enough. Mind you, this is the kind of rhung I used to do and love, and now I'm worried if my baby falls off a chair. I personally would find it too stressful and risky

I got bitten by a tsetse fly on safari (Kenya) so I wouldn't risk my toddler and baby.

We also had an incident when an idiot saw we were watching baby elephants so drove up fast close to us then climbed out of the roof flashing away with his camera. The female elephants took it as an attack and tried to ram the car then headed for us. On a separate day we were also chased by a male elephant that came out of nowhere when we were travelling slowly down a track. Neither were particularly scary, but had I had kids there with me, I'd have been kicking myself for putting them at risk.

I know I wouldn't be able to keep my kids silent every time they needed to be. The sound of my toddler's repetitive whine of 'I want to go home' would ruin it for everyone 😄

Been on safari, twice, both in SA. Stayed in lodges with game drives on site. Love it.

However, it’d be about the last holiday I’d go on with a toddler or a baby. Crack of dawn starts (think 4-5am), vast amounts of time sat in jeeps or vans with potentially no option to get out, a requirement to often be completely silent, very little option for self catering, food at very specific times (often late, to allow for evening game drives) and quiet campsites that are geared to wildlife and not much else. You’d need to go to very specific and hence expensive resorts to avoid malaria. I’d be amazed if a 5 month old would be allowed on the jeeps and I reckon a 2 year old would be whinging, hungry, tired and cold (the jeeps get really, really cold out on the reserves especially early in the the morning) within a few hours. Save it until they are older and they can appreciate it would be my advice.

If nothing else, for the sake of the others on the excursion.

I've flown my kids on holidays since they were little and this is not a good idea. A holiday should be a relaxing break for all involved not a test of endurance! You might need to accept that a holiday somewhere with a kids club would be a better option until they are a bit bigger. They are too young to remember any holidays yet so make life easy for yourself and save the memory holidays until they can actually remember them.

Definitely wait. The drive I went on in South Africa wouldn’t allow children under 12 for safety reasons - young children are impossible to control and can sound like small animals/prey which can make predators (lions etc) think there is something interesting (tasty…) in the jeep. Proper drives mean you get so close to these animals (literally a metre away) that it’s not worth the risk.

Definitely no. I’ve done several safaris of different lengths in Kenya and South Africa, absolutely, definitely not with tiny babies in my opinion. The travel alone is just unsuitable, the potholes on roads are up to your knees, it’s incredibly uncomfortable. The heat is extreme, the flies are more extreme, the vaccinations required, the flu spray chemicals, the anti malarial…. Urgh, no. Then the poor child gets absolutely nothing out of it and you don’t actually see anything as you’re feeding, calming, dealing with kids.

Either wait for your kids to be 10+ and able to remember and enjoy or go alone when you’re content to leave them.

Seriously, it would be a huge waste of money, they’ll get nothing from it and you’ll see nothing.

Fly spray*

Ridiculous idea and I say that as some who took my kids to 28 countries on 5 continents before the age of 10.

We’ve just done a safari in South Africa and it was amazing but would have been horrendous with small children: 4.30am wake up calls, 4 hours at a time in the jeep, trying to keep the kids quiet so as not to scare the animals and as amazing as it is to see the Big 5 in the wild how long is a toddler going to sit and watch a rhino before getting bored.

it is also serious £££££ which would be wasted as the kids won’t remember it.

This

Was also coming on to say this. Babies cry is a massive flag to predators. Also breaking the outline of the vehicle when near a predator (ie. Standing up). Under 12s we’re banned at the place I went for that reason.