Overland travel companies

Einhard

Hi,
I'm planning on doing a trip to Africa during Easter, to include a safari and some camping in the wild. Just wondering if anyone has recommendations on tour companies. I don't want luxury, and am looking at Dragoman, Tucan, and Intrepid, but other suggestions would be welcome. Also, would anyone know if and when these kind of companies tend to hold sales?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: If anyone has any experience of planning their own African safari adventure, then that would be great too.

Todd Gack

Dragoman have the best reputation on African overland tours, they use 3 staff - tour leader, driver and cook. African Trails for example only use 1 - driver/leader and the group cooks and plans all meals. Tucan have 2 - driver and leader. The standard offerings for all of them are tents with 2 sharing so it makes no difference what company in that sense. Upgrades are available in most camp sites for a reasonable fee - $10 - $20 usually, this may get you a dorm or a room for 2 sharing. It depends on the campsite, some are comically overpriced e.g. $100+ for a permanent tent. Pricing strategy tends to be a little wayward in some places, the luxury safari tourist may pay that but the backpacker type tourist won't.

Intrepid sell a lot of Dragoman tours also so you may book with them but be on a Dragoman tour, it'll be on the trip notes if this is the case.

G Adventures are another big company that provide their own tours and trucks, Africa isn't their main focus but they do offer a good selection. Acacia Africa, Geckos and Oasis Overland are another few in the game too. If you're on a truck and camping then there's not too much between all of them, a good tour leader and group is pot luck really but Dragoman would be better trained and more consistent overall from what I hear.

As for sales, most of the bargains are last minute reductions, last minute being a month or two beforehand maybe depending on the numbers booked. Tucan seem to offer more sales as they're not quite as popular for Africa and would tend to have smaller groups than G or Dragoman, the latter usually being a little pricier than others on average. In general there aren't too many big sales in advance. Also check the optional extras as what may seem cheap may not be e.g. a Gorilla permit in Uganda and Rwanda is $500-800 and may be included in some prices but not others, same with the Serengeti which is $500ish.

Your best bet is to go with the best tour in terms of route and what you want to see and check to see if the tour is guaranteed, this is dependent on numbers and is good peace of mind so you can book flights etc. as some do get cancelled. The popular routes are usually quite similar but the minor differences may swing it one way or another e.g. different game parks or traveling to a different country. The trucks as well are worth having a look at, some are seated like a normal coach and others are laid out with seating around the perimeter which gives more space depending on the numbers in the group but these tend to be older trucks. Dragoman have a mixture of the two, Tucan are the former and have arguably the better trucks. Some are soft sided and some are fixed with openable windows. It's worth asking before booking which truck it's likely to be. Soft sided tend to get very breezy on the road.

Einhard

Thanks for the informative response.