What couples actually ask us

It can be, and it is the most common thing we correct. The fix is structural: bush first and beach second, three nights per camp rather than two, a private vehicle so you choose the start time, and one genuinely unscheduled day at each place.

Done that way it is restorative. Done as four camps in ten nights with a shared vehicle, it is not.

Rwanda or Uganda, where gorilla trekking runs year-round and rain is an inconvenience rather than a wash-out. Or go anyway at green-season rates — thirty to forty per cent below peak, empty camps and dramatic skies.

Delaying by two or three months is also a perfectly good answer and more couples choose it than admit to it.

Ten is the sweet spot: six in the bush, four on the coast. Seven works if you stay in one country and take two camps at most. Fourteen is enough to add gorillas or a second country without rushing.

Whatever the total, three nights per camp rather than two. Two nights is really one day.

Most do, and the good ones keep it understated: a private dinner, a bush breakfast, a room set up when you arrive. Tell us at the enquiry stage so the camps know before you get there.

We will not promise a specific gesture from a specific camp. They are goodwill rather than a contracted inclusion, and a site that guarantees them is guaranteeing something it does not control.

Bush first, every time. The coast repays the sleep the safari costs. The other way round you arrive at the safari rested and fly home wrecked, and the transition from hammock to 6am game drive is a shock rather than a pleasure.

For July to October, the migration months in the Masai Mara, six to twelve months is normal, and the best small camps sell out first. Christmas and New Year book up just as early.

For the shoulder months, three to four months is usually comfortable. Inside eight weeks we can still put a very good trip together, but you are choosing from what is left rather than from everything.

A Africa safari is usually quoted fully inclusive: accommodation, all meals, park and conservancy fees, your guide and vehicle, and transport between parks. Most camps include soft drinks, house wine, beer and laundry.

Not included: international flights, visas or travel authorisation, travel insurance, tips, premium drinks, and extras like balloon flights and spa treatments.

This site is a planning guide. When you send an enquiry it goes to Nomad Africa, our partner travel agency in Kenya, who prepare your itinerary and quote and handle the booking, the payments and you on the ground.

You deal with one team from the first email to the airport transfer home.

No. Sending your dates, getting an itinerary and getting a costed quote is free and carries no obligation. Money only changes hands when you decide to hold space at a camp.