Tanzania Safari Update 2022

Hallow from all of us at Biko Adventures Tours!! with the current safari update.

The safari world has been hard hit by this awful Covid 19 situation, but there’s now a powerful sense of optimism, with a major resumption of new bookings and guests expected to return to the bush in significant numbers over the next few months.
As you all might be aware of, the “high season is about to start in the Tanzania National Parks”

I sincerely hope that you and yours have managed to get through all this without too much pain and that you too are starting to look forward to a return to travel. In this article I am simply going update you on the current situation, in case you are moving in that direction.

1. An undiminished experience

The feedback that we receive every day from safari operators, staff and travelling guests is that the core safari experience remains undiminished by the Covid 19 situation.

Remote camps are inherently ‘bubbles’, so once you’ve joined the staff and other guests in a location, you really can continue virtually as normal. You may see the occasional mask and you may dine at separate tables, but otherwise very little has changed, the whole safari experience is every bit as great as it ever was.

In some ways, the safari may even be better and more exclusive than usual, with fewer guests in the camps and lower numbers of vehicles out in the bush. You may even find yourselves being offered private safari activities for no additional charge.

2. Booking without risk

Perhaps the most important point that we can make right now is that you can now book your trip with very low risk from Covid 19.

If your trip cannot go ahead due to changes in government regulations at either end, then we undertake to shift the trip to alternative dates. We have long-standing and incredibly close relationships with our safari partners, which allows us to offer our guests amazing levels of flexibility. Having worked in these testing circumstances for almost a year now, we have all this down to a fine art!

Usually, there are no costs associated with the delaying of trips. However, if your trip moves to a different price season and/or year, then the costs may nudge up or down to suit. Your safari expert can walk you through any necessary considerations whilst you work together on building your trip.

It’s probably also worth pointing out that travel insurance policies that cover last-minute Covid 19-related issues are now widely available.

3. Trip planning

How much Covid 19 will impact on your trip will depend on your home country, the places you want to visit, the timing of your trip and your personal feelings.

We have some guests who have continued to travel throughout the whole of the last year, we have others who want to wait until after their second jab and we have many who are desperate to travel but remain unable to leave the country due to border restrictions.

Our safari experts are now very familiar with all the various issues and are always happy to have a quick chat about your particular circumstances, to determine whether or not it might be appropriate to start planning another safari.

4 : When to travel
In this section, I run through a few of the key points relating to the potential dates for your next trip…

4.1 : Travel in Jul-Nov 2022

As it stands, availability over this period is unusually tight. We now have all of this year’s bookings and the majority of last year’s delayed bookings converged into the one timeframe. However, it seems likely that travel restrictions from some origin countries may not relax in time for some trips, meaning that a significant proportion of these bookings will need to be moved, mostly shifting into 2023. So if you are able to travel, we should be able to find some excellent availability. If you would like to look into the feasibility of a trip during these months, then we recommend that you get in touch for a preliminary chat as soon as possible, so that you are ready to move should everything fall nicely into place.

4.2 : Travel in Dec 2022

The situation for Christmas and New Year this year is similar, with bookings shifted from 2020 already occupying large areas of the availability charts. This effect is not as strong as for the previous period, but with travel restrictions likely to be much more widely lifted, fewer of these bookings are likely to slide. We do still have some good availability for the period, but we recommend that you take a look at it sooner rather than later, especially if your group needs more than one room.

4.3 : Travel in Jul-Nov 2022

We are presently experiencing an unusually high volume of inquiries for travel during this period, especially for larger families and groups, as well as longer landmark trips. A lot of people want to get something big in the calendar, something to really look forward to. These larger groups are well-advised to book now. For smaller groups (2-4 people), there is less of an immediate rush, so long as you remain reasonably flexible on dates and lodge choices.

4.4 : Travel from Dec 2022 onward

We are always happy to work on trips further into the future. Plenty of our serial repeat guests book years ahead in order to be sure to get into their favourite places on key dates. It can also be possible to save a great deal of money, since we can often book trips at this year’s prices, avoiding the usual 5-10% per year price inflation.

5.0 : How to get started

If you’ve travelled with us before then you know how it works, just give us a call or answer this email. We will dig out your old trips and get to work immediately.

If you haven’t travelled with us before, then please don’t feel you have to have it all researched in advance. Just let us know a little bit about you and what you might fancy getting up to in Africa. We should be able to pick it up from there and come back with some inspirational and appropriate sample trips. No hard sell, no obligation on your part, just safari people chatting about what we love. Our mission is simply to get you out on the best possible safari at the best possible price.

To get in touch you can simply send an email and our safari experts will get back to you with relevant reply…

Email :info@bikotours.com or Talk to us.

6.0 : Conclusion

Well, that’s about all for now.

Please forgive us if this email has reached you at an inappropriate time. We understand that in some parts of the world it still feels like the storm is still raging, whilst in others the road ahead is really starting to clear.

Whatever your circumstances at this time, we wish you all the very best and hope that we will be able to chat safari with you at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Do feel free to email me back just for a chat, I know how easy it is to feel disconnected at the moment.

Yours in Tourism,

Saitoti Saibull and the whole Biko Adventures Tours Team!