Recommendations for Safari holidays/honeymoon

[CheltenhamLady]

One of our sons (who is a teacher) is getting married in 2026. They want to go on a safari honeymoon in July/August.

Any ideas for places/companies?

Budget?

Manda Bay , Saruni and Elsa’s Kopje in Kenya. But no idea if that works in July.

It’s our favourite type of holiday - we have done quite a few. But going to need some idea on budget?

ATR (Africa travel resource) are excellent

We went on safari as part of our honeymoon as also restricted to school holidays. We went to South Africa at Easter. Personally I think 3 or 4 days on safari is enough for most people as it can be tiring due to very early morning game drives. We combined Cape Town, the Eastern Cape wine regions and Kruger. Had an amazing time!

Around 8-10k I would say.

A TA suggested South Africa but a friend of mine recently moved back to the UK from there after 30 years saying she felt unsafe. My DH got 'danger money' when travelling on business there several years ago, however, that wasn't wildly unusual!! How safe is it on the Safari routes?

For that budget I’d say South Africa or Kenya. It will be tricky in high season to do Tanzania or Botswana or Zambia.

Yes I'm afraid that the costs at that time are very high and to stay anywhere great would be more than that. Zanzibar is a great RnR location though for a post safari wind down. I'd recommend Wayo camps if they do look at Tanzania.

I would suggest Namibia as an alternative. It offers lots of variety - giant sand dunes (take a hot air balloon ride with champagne breakfast), kayak with the seals, visit the cave drawings, stay with the San tribes people, and then safari on the salt flats in Etosha. You can self drive and I think they could manage it in that budget. We loved it.

We did SA a few years ago and absolutely loved it - did 5 nights Cape Town, 4 nights Eastern Cape Safari (hillsnek) then a week in Mauritius

Shamwari in south Africa. Amazing. Can tie in with wine region, garden route etc

We looked into Tanzania and Zanzibar combo but a colleague did this last year and said Zanzibar wasn't great weather wise so I would check what the general advice is for summer.

Zanzibar is beautiful in August.

Maybe they just had bad weather but they said it wasn't really warm enough to be at the pool. It was supposed to be the relaxing part of their trip.

It was warm for us, but it is winter … near the equator. I’m part vampire so not given to much sun

@CheltenhamLady August is the middle of winter in the southern hemisphere so the weather is unlikely to be great for sunbathing. We've been to Mauritius in July and the pool was too cold for me although I am "a bit precious"!
Unfortunately school holidays are peak costs but not necessarily peak climate.