1) A mobile safari is often an affordable safari.
Mobile Safaris are generally less expensive than permanent camps. Despite this, they boast a string of other advantages, which can make them a preferable option for many travellers. A lower cost per night can mean longer spent on safari, an advantage that cannot be overstated.
2) Your food will be wonderful.
Eating in the open can be exhilerating and if you are canoeing or walking on a mobile safari, your meals will taste wonderful! You can usually expect tea and coffee and rusks in the early morning, with a hearty brunch late morning, snacks and sundowners and a home cooked, delicious dinner (with fish freshly caught from the river, if you're lucky!)
3) You will have one expert guide throughout and will form a relationship with them.
The advantage of a mobile safari with a private guide is that you get in-depth quality guiding that evolves throughout the trip – instead of going to a new guide at every lodge. You travel with a guide, cook, and someone to set up tents, etc and can interact with all the staff if you choose and learn about their culture.
4) You will stay in the wilderness and get to experience wildlife in an intimate, raw form.
Camping in the wilderness and being up close to elephants, lions, buffalo and hyena, hippos, leopards and fantastic bird life is wonderful. Expert guides keep you safe and share their knowledge. Expect evening meals and chat around the fireside before you retreat to the safety of your tent and listen to a chorus of night sounds unlike any you will have heard before.
5) Your holiday will benefit local people and have a low environmental impact.
As opposed to permanent camps, mobile safaris leave no trace whatsoever, with each wilderness site left in the natural state that you found it. There is no electricity only solar lights; water consumption is kept very low. Food is limited to what you can carry with you in the vehicel/boat/backpack, and is cooked over an open fire! Guides and staff are mostly local from surrounding villages. Having grown up in the bush their knowledge and understanding of the environment and animal behaviour is amazing – you are in very safe hands.
6) Daily Sundowners will become a favourite ritual and memory
Sipping a glass of wine, a juice or a gin and tonic while admiring a sunset on the Zambezi and watching a bull elephant wade across the river, is a priceless experience that will herald each day on safari’s end.
7) The stargazing is the best you’ll ever see!
There is almost no light pollution, the only light source for miles around being the warm glow of a few lanterns illuminating a handful of cosy khaki tents. Above these, myriad sparkling stars light up the pitch-black night sky in an unreal show each evening.
8) The camp timings revolve around you!
Normally a mobile safari will involve just one wildlife-viewing vehicle, (or a small group of canoes or boats), allowing you to stay out for as long as you like without having to worry about being late for meals. The intimacy of the operation gives you more flexibility allowing you to tailor trips to your interests.
Contact the following for mobile safari experiences in Zimbabwe's Zambezi region:-
Natureways Safaris
River God Adventures
James Varden Safaris
John Stevens Guided Safaris Africa
Sunpath Safaris
Zambezi Expeditions (African Bush Camps)
Discover Safaris