Mar 23, 2020 | Behind the Scenes, Brave Africa Safari, Coronavirus Content
The coronavirus is causing a ton of uncertainty right now. Reading just a few news stories is enough to make you think that the world will never be the same and that once-in-a-lifetime safaris in 2021 will only ever be a dream. And it’s true that the travel and tourism industries have been severely and negatively impacted by COVID-19, but don’t count us out. In 2021, Brave Africa will still be around.
We know a lot of people are hesitating to plan or even think about their vacation in 2021. Which airlines, hotels, and tour operators will still be around next year? Already, 50 million jobs in the global travel sector are at risk, some airlines could go bankrupt, and hotels are asking for bailouts.
But Brave Africa still be around to take you on an African safari in the future. We won’t be another casualty of the coronavirus pandemic.
Brave Africa Will Outlast This Pandemic!
Obviously, we cannot predict the future with certainty or guarantee anything, but being debt-free and having adequate cash reserves puts Brave Africa in the best position possible to survive this unprecedented impact to travel and tourism. We are at low risk of going bankrupt even if there are no more safari-goers for the remaining nine months of 2020, and we are confident that Brave Africa will still be here to host once-in-a-lifetime safaris in 2021 and beyond.
Although we are a brand-new operator, Brave Africa is in solid financial health and we have the knowledge, experience, and foundation to outlast the pandemic. Out of all of the scenarios tour operators and lodges can find themselves in during these unpredictable times, Brave Africa is as set for success as we can be.
We’re looking ahead to 2021, and the future looks bright. We will get through this together.
Brave Africa is Debt-Free
First and foremost, Brave Africa has no debt. Unlike many other hospitality operators, we have no expensive construction loans, commercial mortgages, private land leases, automobile loans, or other major liabilities that we would be obligated to pay in spite of reduced revenues.
We own all of our assets outright, including our vehicles, tents, and other camp equipment.
Low Operating Expenses
In addition, most of our operating expenses are only incurred if we have paying customers. For example, as a mobile lodge, we benefit from the fact that we only pay for campsites when they are in use. We also only purchase food and other safari supplies shortly before each scheduled adventure, so there is no product waste or inventory spoilage that we have to worry about.
When we are not running safaris, are only expenses are staff payroll, business insurance, and a small office rent. This means that we have enough cash reserves to remain in business for the next 12 months even without any incoming revenue.
Experienced Executives/Investors
The Brave Africa team is also composed of experienced executives and investors who have knowledge weathering tough financial storms.
One of our owners has a background in accounting as well as running a successful software company in the United States. He has been able to guide our team down the right path to ensure that Brave Africa remains financially solvent in spite of any turbulence in the safari industry.
As for our financial backers, they are highly invested in Brave Africa’s success. They believe in our vision and business. If required, they are willing to put additional investment into the company to continue operations for the foreseeable future.
Plan with Confidence
We ask that everyone stay safe, and when we get to the other side, know that in 2021, Brave Africa will be here and ready to take you on an unforgettable trip!
For now, for as long as physical distancing, self-quarantining, and travel restrictions last, we will continue to bring the African bush to you! Check out our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube accounts to escape for a moment (our next blog will explain exactly what we’re doing).
Mar 10, 2020 | Botswana News, Brave Africa Safari, Coronavirus Content
We know that travel right now is frightening. With the coronavirus (Covid-19) spreading more and more quickly, we know that many people are canceling or placing their travel plans on hold for now. And we completely understand. However, if you do decide to still travel, we want you to know that we are doing everything within our power to ensure you have a great time with Brave Africa. Read our new Brave Africa coronavirus policy below.
Coronavirus Update in Botswana and Southern Africa
Currently, coronavirus infections have been few and far between on the African continent. Egypt is home to more than half of all confirmed cases on the content with 59 confirmed. The good news is that Egypt is nowhere close to Botswana, which still has ZERO confirmed cases.
South Africa recently announced seven confirmed cases, all from the same group of ten people who returned from a vacation in northern Italy. The infected individuals have all self-quarantined, and so far no cases have been discovered outside of the group—all of whom are young and in generally good health.
All of this is to say that Africa may be one of the safest places to visit when it comes to the coronavirus. There are very few if any cases across the continent, and when you go on safari, you are generally around a very small, select group of people. So, there is very little chance to catch the virus from other travelers.
Our Brave Africa Coronavirus Policy
However, if you are still concerned about traveling to go on safari with Brave Africa during this time, we have put in place a few coronavirus policies to ease your mind.
Postpone Bookings Up to 12 Months Out
If you have booked a safari with Brave Africa or are planning to book a safari with Brave Africa through June 30, 2020, but you are concerned that the coronavirus could affect your travel, we are offering the ability to postpone your booking for up to 12 months. There will be NO penalty to postpone for a later travel date. In this way, you can still plan your safari with us but have the comfort of knowing that you can change your plans as required by the virus.
To postpone your booking:
- 15 Days Warning: You will need to contact us at least 15 days prior to your arrival in order to postpone without any monetary penalties. We begin purchasing food and other products for your trip at least 15 days out, and so need this time to plan as needed.
- Rate Changes Apply: You can postpone your booking and re-plan your trip for any time in the next 12 months. However, if you plan your trip for 2021 or change your trip dates to a different season (you originally booked your trip in low season and now plan to visit us in high season), you will need to pay for the rate change between your original booking date and the new date. This is not a penalty, but simply to cover the cost of your new rates.
If you would like to cancel your booking with Brave Africa completely instead of postponing your trip, our standard cancelation policy applies.
For any questions or concerns about going on safari with Brave Africa during the coronavirus situation, please feel free to contact us at info@braveafrica.com.
Feb 15, 2020 | Adventure Safari, Brave Africa Safari, Most Popular Blogs
Do you want to go on a Botswana safari with your family, including kids? At Brave Africa, we can accommodate your safari vacation with special activities and pricing just for families!
We love booking Botswana family safaris because we believe there’s no better way to enjoy a safari than surrounded by those you love and who love you in return. We’re happy to make your dream vacation a reality. But don’t just take our word for it, here are “10 Reasons to Take Your Kids on Safari” from Travel Africa Magazine.
However, there are a few things you should know before you book your family safari.
Kids on Safari—7 Years and Older
Yes, it is possible to bring kids on safari as long as they are over seven years of age. We do not accept kids under seven (7) for their safety. However, even for kids older than seven, we do not recommend a safari for everyone. It entirely depends on their maturity level.
A safari can be an amazing experience for kids—there is so much to learn, see, and do—but only if they are comfortable and capable of handling certain activities with aplomb.
- Sitting in a car for long hours. Safaris require long days in a car, driving around. If your child would not enjoy sitting and watching elephants for an hour or driving around the bush searching for animals, a safari might not be right for them right now.
- Sleeping in a tent at night. We offer families a large enough tent to fit four people. However, you still need to be able to trust your kids not to leave the tent at night no matter what. They also need to be comfortable sleeping in darkness and hearing sounds of the African bush at night.
- Listening to and following instructions. A safari is perfectly safe, but only if you follow the instructions of your guide. All kids need to be mature enough to listen to their safari guide no matter what they are told, whether that’s to be quiet, sit still, stay close, etc.
- Remaining calm and quiet when required. On a safari, you will get up close to the animals. During these times, it can be vitally important to stay quiet and calm so as not to disturb or upset the animals.
Safari Camping Experience
One of the reasons why families love to choose Brave Africa for their safari is because of the experience at camp and beyond.
Family Tent
Each family is offered the use of our four-person family tent, which can be set up as desired—either single or double beds. And as always, your tent will include a private toilet, closet, washbasin, and bucket shower (filled on demand). It offers a wonderfully private and exclusive safari experience for families.
Kids Meals
And when it comes to family dining, you can enjoy an exclusive experience as well. If your kids are picky eaters, our wonderful Chef Rachel will create a wide range of children’s dishes just for them. You can provide us with a list of items that they enjoy/hate or leave it up to us. We can make almost anything from pizza to pasta with meatballs, fish and chips, chicken nuggets, and more.
Your kids will love having dinner at camp with their own special-made kids’ menu, as requested.
Private Family Vehicle
Last, but certainly not least, all families with kids under 12—regardless of size—enjoy a private vehicle just for them. In this way, you control the pace of your safari and the activities you want to enjoy. We can go as fast or slow as you want and spend as much or as little time on drives, at camp, or whatever you want.
Junior Guide Activities on Safari
The good news is that when you bring your kids on a Botswana family safari, they aren’t limited to just the standard experiences:
They also have the opportunity to enjoy kids-specific experiences, which we call Junior Guide Activities. These activities are designed to teach your kids to love nature and animals as much as we do. We want to help them discover a new-found respect for Africa and all it has to offer.
Of course, all of these are subject to parent/guardian approval, but they offer a great way to keep your kids entertained and learning.
Tracking & Survival Skills
Our Brave Africa guides each have over a decade of experience in the African bush, and they love to share their knowledge with guests. For kids, this can be especially exciting and a great learning experience.
Our Junior Guides will learn how to explore and survive the African bush from the experts. Not only will they learn as much as they want about all the animals they see, but they’ll also learn to identify and follow animal tracks, understand wildlife spoors, and more. On top of that, they’ll acquire valuable survival skills such as how to make fire by friction and the medicinal uses of plants.
Your kids will learn to recognize animals tracks just like this lion paw print.
Safari Vehicle Skills
On a Botswana family safari, you will spend a lot of time on game drives. This can occasionally get boring for kids, but not when you add in our safari vehicle lessons. With parent approval, your kids can sit on our guide’s lap and learn how to drive through the bush. In addition, they’ll learn how to use the vehicle radio to communicate with camp and run the spotlight at night to find animals in the dark.
Our guides will find a safe location to give your kids a chance to drive our safari vehicle.
Wildlife Art
If your child is an artist, they’ll love our wildlife art and drawing opportunities. Our guides will find a beautiful spot in the wild with animals nearby and then give them a chance to draw what they see to their heart’s content. Then, your entire family will come home with one-of-a-kind original art pieces—better than any photo.
Traditional Botswana Sling Shooting
Slingshots are very valuable tools in the African bush and they’re lots of fun for kids. Our expert guides will teach your kids all about sling shooting and give them a chance to practice their skills on cans. Don’t worry; no animals will be harmed. We love nature and all things wild, and we want to share that love with your kids.
Brave Africa Passport
Finally, we’ve crafted a one-of-a-kind Brave Africa passport for your kids to commemorate their entire safari experience. They’ll receive their passport the moment they get off their bush flight at the airstrip and are picked up by your guide. From then on, they’ll collect stickers for every animal, activity, and camp they experience on safari. Best yet, the passport includes journal pages so they can write about all of their favorite memories.
Brave Africa Passport with collectible stickers!
Collect stickers and check off animals throughout your safari.
Your kids can fill in their Brave Africa Passport journal with their favorite memories.
Book Our Junior Guides Family Safari Package Today!
Your children will never forget their first safari in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. They’ll love learning everything they can about the bush from animal tracking to wilderness survival, safari driving, and more.
Contact us today to learn more about our Botswana family safaris.
Feb 4, 2020 | Brave Africa Safari, Most Popular Blogs, Safari Tips
When planning your Botswana safari, should you choose a mobile safari or a safari lodge? What’s the difference and which one is best? Of course, we are biased toward a Brave Africa luxury safari, but we know it is important to shop around. So, we are here to help you out.
Both a mobile safari and safari lodge offer amazing experiences that you’ll remember forever. The difference is in the type of experience you’ll have. They’re not as different as you think, but there are some key things you should be aware of before you make the right decision for you and your family.
To get started, we’ll break down the key differences between a Botswana mobile safari and a safari lodge and then leave the decision up to you. (more…)
Jan 29, 2020 | Adventure Safari, Brave Africa Safari, Safari Tips
One of the first questions we get whenever we talk to someone new to safaris is, “Is an African safari safe?” We immediately assure them that it’s very safe, but we know that the word of safari enthusiasts may not be as reassuring as you would like.
So, to help you determine for yourself if an African safari is safe, we’re going to delve into the main arguments we hear over and over again. (more…)
Jan 8, 2020 | Animals of Botswana, Brave Africa Safari, Most Popular Blogs
The first question we get whenever someone begins the booking process with us is, “When should I visit Botswana? Is there a best time of the year to go on safari?” It’s a good question and it depends on where you’re visiting in Botswana. The Kalahari Desert and Okavango Delta are vastly different and respond to the seasons in different ways. We recently had the privilege to experience that difference for ourselves at the end of December.
However, before we delve into our 7-Day/6-Night Kalahari Desert region experience, let’s explain why we tried it out in the first place.
Rainy Season and the Okavango Delta
While we’re biased and don’t think there’s ever a truly bad time to go on safari, there are some months that are less than ideal. For example, the rainy season.
From December through March, Botswana becomes a water-flooded wonderland, which is essential for the eco-system of the Delta but can make your safari less enjoyable even with our ponchos to help keep you dry. The good news is that, most often, the rain is in the early morning and evening, which means midday on your all-day game drive should still be beautiful weather.
The main problem with the rainy season is that some sections of the Okavango can become impassible. For example, we cannot offer our typical 10-day safari during the rainy season because the road to get to Savuti is underwater. Instead, we mix it up with more time in Moremi and Khwai.
To combat this rainy season problem, our team wanted to try out something totally different. We decided to test out a new route with three camps around the Kalahari Desert area: Nxai Pan, Makgadikgadi Pans, and Central Kalahari.
Brave Africa and the Kalahari Desert
First: a little Botswana geography lesson.
Almost all Brave Africa safaris begin in either Maun or Kasane (Maun for trips beginning via South Africa, Kasane for trips beginning via Victoria Falls). These two airports (in black and white on the map) are your starting points for getting to your safari destination.
The Red Route – Inside the Okavango Delta
For our typical route (the red dots), you would take a bush flight from the airport (Maun or Kasane) to either Savuti or Moremi to begin your safari with us. We would then drive you along the red route (north or south) until you spent three days at each location and really gained a taste of the Delta.
However, as we explained above, Savuti is disconnected from Khwai and Moremi during the rainy season (December – March), so we’re limited to a smaller area of the Okavango. It’s still a great experience since that area is so incredibly wildlife dense, but for some guests, it can be disappointing not to visit Savuti and Chobe National Park.
The Orange Route – Visiting the Kalahari Desert
That’s why we decided to try out a new southwestern route, which we’ve outlined in orange: Nxai Pan, Makgadikgadi, and Central Kalahari.
As you can tell right away, this is a much different region of Botswana and that offered quite a surprise for our team. Because of its very dry landscape, the rainy season is actually peak season for these areas, and we had hoped it would offer our guests an exciting alternative to the Okavango Delta without the rain. And that was definitely the case.
During mid-December, when heavy rains hit Maun and the Okavango, we remained fairly dry on in the Kalahari area—only enjoying one amazing thunderstorm. So, the area definitely passed our test for dryness.
However, in the end, it’s not a route we’ll be offering Brave Africa guests any time soon. While there were many things to love, there were also many negatives that we felt would detract too much from a quality safari.
Here’s what we discovered: the good and the bad.
Mobile Safaris in the Kalahari: the Good and the Bad
So, what was it like to go on a mobile safari in the Kalahari region? It was very different from the Okavango in both good and bad ways. Unfortunately, by the end of the trip, we felt the negatives outweighed the positives, at least for us, and here’s why.
GOOD: Unique Animals
Our favorite aspect of visiting the Kalahari region was getting to see unique animals that you don’t find in the Okavango. For example, instead of Impala everywhere, we were overwhelmed with Springbok and Oryx (Gemsbok). These are desert-dwelling antelope that you won’t find in wetter areas. We also saw a ton of Steenbok (the smallest antelope) and even some Red Hartbeest.
Springbok
On the predator side, these areas are also a haven for black-backed jackals, bat-eared foxes, and highly rare predators such as Brown Hyena. For birds, there are Kori Bustards (the largest flying bird) everywhere, as well as various eagles and hawks and vultures.
This was all very different from what we were used to in the Okavango, which made it exciting.
BAD: Long Travel Days
As easily evidenced via the map, going on a mobile safari in the Kalahari area requires a lot more driving between camps. On camp move days, we had to travel over 100 km to get to our next camp and much of that travel was on roads.
This meant that, as a guest, you would not be able to enjoy an all-day safari on camp move days. Instead, you’d be stuck spending a good four to five hours on a dirt road, driving at 50 km/hour, waiting to get to something you can see and enjoy.
The driving between camps was not only taxing on our guests, but it was incredibly difficult for our staff. Trying to get all of our ultra-luxury camp supplies to the next location in time and safely was a chore.
GOOD: Mesmerizing Landscapes
Baines Baobab
Every day on our 6-night safari in the Kalahari region, someone in the Land Cruiser would say “Wow!” when it came to the scenery. We were all so used to seeing rivers, Mopani forests, and sweeping grasslands in the Okavango, that to see desert salt pans as far as the eye could see was something else.
There were a few areas, such as Baines Baobab, that literally took our breaths away. It felt like we were on a completely different planet. It was hard to imagine things living in such harsh but beautiful landscapes, and we thoroughly enjoyed the scenery.
In particular, we all loved the many Baobab trees, which could be found throughout Nxai Pan. Every time we saw one, we had to stop and enjoy its beauty, shade, and majesty.
BAD: Low Animal Density
If you’ve ever taken a Botswana safari in the Okavango, you know that animals are everywhere. You won’t be with lions, leopards, or wild dogs constantly, but there’s a fairly regular stream of antelope, elephants, buffalo, wildebeest, and more. You won’t go more than an hour without seeing something in the Delta.
In the Kalahari, there were times that we drove for hours and hours without a single sign of wildlife. No birds, no antelope, nothing. The peace was incredible. We were seriously on our own for hours at a time, but if you’re going to Botswana to see the animals, this area could be fairly disappointing.
For example, in our seven days on safari, we only saw elephants twice and we only ever saw Bulls; we never saw a breeding herd. And in Makgadikgadi, it’s unfortunate to say, but we saw more corpses and livestock than Botswana wildlife.
GOOD: Fewer Tourists
If you’re looking to get off the beaten track, the Kalahari region is the area for you. In both Nxai Pan and Makgadikgadi we rarely, if ever, saw another car. We were alone in the parks and able to explore as much as we wanted without having to worry about any other camps or self-drive vehicles.
Central Kalahari had more camps, but still far fewer than you’ll have in the Okavango. We still went hours without seeing another soul.
BAD: Heat
There’s hot and then there’s hot. Imagine 35 degrees Celsius (95F) with no shade around, no water to cool things down, just unrelenting sun and heat. There were times that we didn’t stop for lunch until 3 pm because we couldn’t find a single tree tall enough to offer shade to eat.
At least in the Okavango, there’s always a river, marsh, or watering hole nearby to offer a reprieve from the summer heat. In the Kalahari, you have to be willing to brave locations where there’s not a single plant above waste high for as far as the eye can see.
Going on Safari in the Kalahari Desert – Final Thoughts
In the end, while we enjoyed our time on safari in the Kalahari region, it is not a location we think our guests would enjoy as much as the Okavango. For first-time safari-goers or safari enthusiasts who are visiting Botswana for their first or second time, the Okavango Delta is a much better choice. There’s more diverse wildlife and denser populations of wildlife.
However, we definitely recommend that you take the time to visit a camp in the Kalahari region and spend two-to-three days exploring. The pans should not be missed and there are many great camps in this region where you can fly in and fly-out before joining up with Brave Africa for the remainder of your safari in the Okavango.
In particular, we recommend Nxai Pan and Central Kalahari. For example, African Bush Camps offers a unique Migration Expeditions in Nxai Pan solely during the rainy season.
