About when, rather than what

Twelve months if gorillas are in the plan, nine for July to October or Christmas, six otherwise.

Those are not sales numbers. They are when the small owner-run camps that make a honeymoon stop having space.

No. Availability starts doing the choosing rather than you, but shoulder and green season have room and are frequently the better trip anyway.

The biggest cost of being late is spending another week deciding to ask.

Permits, if gorillas are in the plan — before lodges and before flights, because a permit cannot move to suit a flight and a flight can nearly always move to suit a permit.

Otherwise, send a brief. Twenty minutes, costs nothing, and it narrows everything.

Because they have no capacity in them, for anybody. A honeymoon decided in that window is decided from what is left, by two exhausted people, in the gaps between other conversations.

Front-load the decisions and the last six weeks contain nothing but confirmations.

Nothing to see a plan or revise it. A deposit holds the camps when you accept the itinerary; the balance is usually due some weeks before travel, and the quote states both dates.

Gorilla permits are the exception — usually payable in full, early, because the allocation is capped.

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.