African Family Safari: Benefits of Taking Kids

An invitation from a Native American elder to honour, to respect, those close to us and all other creatures, as well as the Earth herself. Celebrating, cherishing, our interconnectedness, acknowledging the awareness needed to help it maintain and thrive.

 

 

Family safaris do just that, giving you and your loved ones the chance to connect – to each other, to the pristine wilderness around you and the wildlife it sustains, to yourself. If only fleetingly, to shed addictions to cyberspace, to step out of the fast lane and focus on being present, with each other, for each other, in nature. Or perhaps not fleetingly, after one of our transformative journeys to Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, or Rwanda.

 

The rewards of bringing your family on safari are many…

 

Sharing a Child’s Wonder

 

A child’s innocent astonishment at a ‘discovery’ softens even the hardest cynic. Induct your children into the wonders of the wild, while renewing your own capacity to marvel. Thrill at spotting animals together on a game drive: elephants on tiptoe foraging seed pods in the golden forest light at Mana Pools; lions leaping across clear, blue channels in the Okavango Delta or snoozing on a Namibian dune; a lone fish-eagle flying over the magnificent Zambezi River.

 

 

Learn more about them from the guides and camp libraries, perhaps drawing them together. Many of our camps run a Bush Buddy childminder programme, further enriching their safari experience. I’ll never forget the moment my young son saw his first elephant, as we drove over a rise and came upon a vast herd scattered across the plains. He stood up in the front seat, steadying himself between his father and me, and trumpeted loudly, repeatedly. The joyous noise still rings in my ears.

 

All in the Family

 

Multi-generational travel is today a top travel trend, and for good reason. As families live further and further apart, shared experiences – like a family safari – become more and more precious, a time to make lasting memories together, from oldest to youngest.

 

 

Our luxury camps are not short on comfort and pampering, well suited to celebrating your parents’ special anniversary or a milestone birthday, at any age. Imagine sharing with family members, young and old, a visit to spectacular Victoria Falls; a flight over an ancient desert to Namibia’s Skeleton Coast; a bush breakfast or supper around a camp’s fire pit, serenaded by hippos and other creatures; stargazing under phenomenal African skies. And much, much more. The memories you make transfer into stories for years to come – stories that can heal, strengthen bonds, create empathy, and promote shared and individual identities. I still tell the story of taking my mother, recently widowed, on safari in Botswana in 1993, where the Okavango’s magical waterscape helped heal her grief, where animals were mysteriously drawn to her. A hippo ‘mowed’ one night around her tent; an elephant munched the tree branches above her another night. A refined Bostonian lady, more at home on the tennis court than the savannah, my mother was not afraid. My son never knew her; she died too soon. But he knows, and treasures, this story.

 

A Taste for Adventure

 

Safaris offer adventure in many forms, liberating you and your family from familiar routines, opening minds and hearts. Meeting, watching, wildlife in the wild is one of life’s incomparable privileges, all the more meaningful if shared with those close to you. There are many ways to experience it: gliding almost silently along the Okavango’s pure waters in a traditional mokoro/dugout canoe, as elephants, antelope and others come to drink; game drives generally yielding an abundance of creatures, great and small, predators and prey, a plethora of birds; drifting over the desert, plains, or waterways in a hot-air balloon, drinking in the endless landscapes and herds gathering or galloping below; walking with a guide through riverine forests, over golden plains, or through rainforests and up a volcano in search of mountain gorillas; or just learning the adventure of waiting at a waterhole, to witness the remarkable passage of life there.

 

 

Perhaps, just being in the wilderness, learning to overcome fears. In the words of another Native American elder: