Top Safari Adventures for Young Explorers

Going on safari with your kids, or even with your parents and your children, promises to be one of the most memorable journeys of your lives. What’s more wonderful than a child’s excitement at first spotting an elephant, or sharing African tales around a fire with the next generation? Bonding in and through nature can last a lifetime.

For every family safari booking, we donate USD20 to our Children in the Wilderness non-profit partner, enriching the lives of children in the rural areas where we operate, through leadership and conservation training. Creating an army of young eco-warriors.

We have endless adventures in store for you and your cubs. Wild creatures feature of course – on game drives, walks, in our libraries and research centres. Much to marvel at zoologically. Botanically, ecologically, and culturally, too. The bush is the best classroom, and our guides are incomparably trained to teach not just the facts, but the appreciation. The love. Our staff can also share special moments with your children making pizzas and other culinary delights; drawing and painting; learning their way around Olympus camera equipment; identifying constellations in awesomely starry skies; finding the beat on a djembe drum; and so much more. Age restrictions apply in some cases, but ultimately there’s something for everyone.

Here’s a taste of what awaits you, in some of our camps in Namibia, Botswana, and the Zambezi region (Zimbabwe and Zambia). We’ll keep you safe and happily occupied. Entertained. Enthralled. Engaged. Together with your children, and sometimes apart, to give you a break and them some extra youth-orientated attention on an African safari for families.

Namibia Family Safaris

Namibia will wow your children, and you as well. With its landscapes of rust-coloured desert, plains, canyons, mountains, edged to the west by a wild coast where the desert meets the sea, it’s otherworldly.

At Little Kulala, race up and down 300-metre high dunes at Sossusvlei, like ‘Big Daddy’. Our exclusive-use access point gets you there faster, keeping everyone more content (fewer ‘are we there yets?’). On game drives or walks, spot desert-adapted wildlife such as ostriches, springbok, gemsbok, brown hyaenas, black-backed jackals, bat-eared foxes, perhaps an aardwolf, or the endemic dune lark. Age permitting, explore the sands by e-bike or eco-sensitive quad bike. At dusk hear geckos bark; set out for a fairy circle dinner in the desert, prefaced by a ‘critter night walk’. Later, follow a guide and UV light on a scorpion safari. Stargaze in one of the darkest places on Earth, counting the constellations by laser.

Damaraland Camp offers guided nature walks for the young ones (and their elders), taking in fascinating desert-adapted life such as strange plant species and elephants almost camouflaged by the dust.  A visit to Tywfelfontein introduces your children to astounding San rock art and engravings dating back 6 000 years. In camp at Damaraland, fireside boma evenings of song, dance, and local stories will captivate all of you.

More desert-adapted wildlife is seen at remote, stunning Hoanib Skeleton Coast, where you can treat your team to a private dinner at the in-camp research centre as a scientist regales you with ‘lion tales’ – stories of the desert-adapted predators they’re studying, along with elephant and hyaena. An uber-highlight for the family: take a rollicking guided 4X4 drive over the floodplain and dunes to the Skeleton Coast, a wild stretch of the Atlantic where the cold Benguela current collides with the warmer sand, sending miles of mist upwards. Where white beaches are dotted with whale bones and shipwreck remains. Picnic on the sands to the cry of seabirds and Cape fur seals. Discover the remnants of Strandloper – Beachcomber – lifestyle from centuries past. Fly back to camp for an aerial view of what seems uninhabitable, but is full of life. Walk with a guide to witness that life, including the smaller creatures, an impressive variety of birds, and unusual flora.

Serra Cafema, our camp in Namibia’s far north, lies in one of the most untouched places on Earth – along a river incongruously rushing through an ochre desert. Explore the local geological wonders, like the phenomenal rocky outcrops of ancient metamorphosised granite at Bogenfels. A wonderland of natural crevices, caves, and bizarre rock formations that your young ones can investigate with a guide while you ease into your sundowners. Meet with a community of Himba, Namibia’s last semi-nomads still living traditionally, and local custodians of the land. Hear their stories, and share yours. When water levels permit, boat on the Kunene, with Angola’s craggy mountains in the distance and plenty of aquatic life all around.

Explore the dunes on foot and in game vehicles, perhaps spotting oryx, springbok, Hartmann’s mountain zebras, or tiny desert chameleons. Along specially allocated, low-impact pathways, quad bike across the untamed, lunar landscape. Disconnect and connect at the same time.

Botswana Family Safaris

Botswana spoils for choice, whatever age you are. Most of our camps in the Okavango Delta and the Linyanti Wildlife Reserve offer both land- and water-based game viewing, so the family-friendly adventures just keep coming. Private game-drive vehicles are booked for families with children younger than 12 years of age. At our Delta camps, children upwards of six years old can learn the art of poling in a mokoro (traditional dugout) along safe, shallow channels. Watch their faces light up as they glide across the deep-blue water, spying reed frogs, colourful water birds and huge waterlilies.

Enjoy boating and catch-and-release fishing at our water-based camps in Botswana 

Our camp in Botswana’s Central Kalahari, Kalahari Plains, offers a complete contrast – and unforgettable encounters with desert-adapted wildlife, like the iconic black-maned lion, and with a local San community. Africa’s ‘first people’ strive to preserve their culture, one of great indigenous wisdom, invaluable to the planet. A cultural walk with a San family will stay in your family’s hearts forever.

For foodies of all ages – at Seba Camp, aside from a classic Delta safari, you’ll get to make pizza in an unused termite mound. DumaTau in the Linyanti, sited between two wildlife corridors and boasting one of the largest elephant meta-herds in Africa, delights with evenings on the floating firepit, serenaded by hippos and other creatures, brunch or supper on a barge, and bush breakfasts where children can play sous-chef. Our flagship camp in the Delta, Mombo, promises not only some of the best game viewing in Africa and lessons in impactful tourism (rhino conservation, leaving a light footprint, etc.), but also stages harvest table meals in the bush, where your family can feast to your hearts’ content. At lovely Vumbura Plains, you can loll about on cushions, picnicking on a Delta island perhaps, while your children enjoy supervised play.

Zambezi: Zimbabwe & Zambia Family Safaris

The legendary Zambezi River – slow-moving, vast, and a significant piece of African history – is a destination on its own. It separates Zambia to the north and Zimbabwe to the south, flowing like a giant silvery ribbon through gorgeous, game-rich wildernesses. Victoria Falls, a must-see natural wonder and the world’s largest water curtain, sits midway along the river’s course from north-west Zambia to the Indian Ocean. Thrills await the entire family: getting pleasurably drenched by the Falls’ mile-high spray and immersing yourselves in the endless plains of some of Africa’s most pristine reserves, bristling with wildlife.

Reading animal tracks with our expert guides excites just about any child, teen – or adult. Our camps in Hwange, Zimbabwe’s largest national park – Linkwasha, Little Makalolo, and Davison’s – offer exceptional tracking experiences. Stop at a pan or waterhole; shoes off; start deciphering the latest creature ‘news’, the stories in the sand. Hwange’s Ngamo Plains, dotted with vleis and ilala palms, serves up a never-ending wildlife parade. On a guided walk or game drive, find uncountable dust-kicking buffalos; some of the 40 000 local elephants; herd after antelope herd, with predators like lions, cheetahs, or African painted dogs in their wake; the more elusive pangolins, lesser bushbabies, and honey badgers; more than 400 bird species, including raptors, which fill the skies once the rains start. At night, a simple white sheet and flashlight or lantern attract dozens of weird bugs; identifying them is a hit with the young ones. As is roasting marshmallows over an open fire, to deep lion roars and hippo grunts. Or a sleepover in a Star Bed, up in a tree.

Zimbabwe’s Mana Pools – a World Heritage Site that is home to our camps Chikwenya, Ruckomechi, and Little Ruckomechi – mesmerises with its albida forests bathed in golden light, where elephants stand on tiptoe foraging for seed pods. While the hours away catch-and-release fishing in the shallows of the Zambezi, trying to catch little bream, imbiri, and chessa. Your littlest ones will love to ‘dobba-dobba’, catching the tiniest fish and letting them go, to grow.

Many call Zambia ‘the real Africa’, and rate its safari experiences above all others. Our camps Shumba and Busanga Bush Camp, sited in Kafue National Park’s renowned Busanga Plains, do not disappoint. For five months each year, before the rains return, watch a wildlife extravaganza play out on the infinite floodplains. Witness hundreds of red lechwe, puku, and other plains game, often fleeing predators. Like the famous ‘flying lions’ leaping across the channels after prey – the area’s show-stealers. Boating, game drives, catch-and-release fishing, and an engrossing introduction to birding are just some of the unforgettable activities that can be tailored to younger guests.

Finally, a shout-out to our Bush Buddies – throughout your journey they’re there to help with the younger set, both children and teens. Highly trained in child care and education, our team ensures the best safari experience. Customised activities, co-ordinated by staff between camps to avoid duplication, include:

• Guided walks in camp, pointing out the miraculous minutiae often missed on game drives;
• Tracking lessons and competitions, and making plaster casts of tracks to take home;
• Bird and animal-call identification;
• Collection and identification of leaves, insects, dung, etc.;
• Scrapbooking;
• Treasure hunts;
• Soccer and volleyball games with staff;
• Popular board games;
• Assisting a camp chef;
• An assortment of arts and crafts (painting, sculpture, drawing, jewellery-making, basket-weaving, writing and telling stories, etc.);
• Dancing and drumming lessons;
• Frogging;
• Stargazing and astronomy lessons.

Let’s do it together - book your luxury family safari at a Wilderness camp today!