Self-drive vs. guided safari in Southern Africa

Our family of three had a three-week trip to Botswana, flying in and out of Johannesburg. Our trip was a hybrid of self-drive and budget safari package.

We rented a normal road car in Johannesburg, drove to Gaborone and visited a friend, then drove with the friend up to Kasane in the north-east. We stopped in various places and took group safari expeditions for the day, e.g. the Makgadikgadi Pans and Victoria Falls. Our friend took the car back to Gabs and returned it. We joined a budget safari through the Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta, ending in Maun. We spent a few days in Maun, then flew to Johannesburg.

Why I liked self-driving the road car for part of the trip:

• road car is cheaper to rent and to fuel than a 4x4
• flexibility to visit our friend in Gabs and to choose which destinations we saw
• fun driving with our friend

Why I liked the budget safari for the national parks bit

• no need to worry about finding camping and cooking equipment; it was included
• our guide and cook did all the work of setting up camp and cooking, and boy did they work hard!
• our guide knew not just where to go, and how to read the "bush newspaper" (I love that phrase!), but also what daily tempo to set. For instance, dawn and dusk wildlife cruises
• the safari company took care of securing park visit permits, which apparently sell out
• connections with side excursions like boat rides
• some of the bush tracks had conditions I wasn't used to, like 1.5m-deep water or sand so soft we got stuck. I was glad to have an experience driver handle that
• the other travelers in our group (2 other people, total group size of 5) gave us some new people to talk to, without burying us in a large group

In this as in many other travel decisions, the answer to the question, "do A or do B" is "do a combination of A and B, as it suits your situation and preferences".

So you have 20-24 days to spend and you are (potentially) ready to do a self-drive. In this I would suggest the following strategy. It is based on my experience and I have been very happy with it.

Start by picking the places you would like to visit and setting up an itinerary. Along this itinerary you will do the driving on your own. When you are visiting parks and games reserves along this itinerary, you can choose to rely on the services of a guide. As far as private game reserves are concerned, you will need the services of a guide. You won't be allowed to stroll around on your own. In bigger parks, such as e.g. Etosha, Kruger, Hluhluwe-Umfolozi, ... you have the choice. You can do one or another tour with a guide and tours on your own. If you have a good guide, you will learn a lot about the animals and nature. Moreover, with a guide you have options that are not available otherwise, such as night drives or a walk through the bush.

Note that wild animals won't show up just because you are there ;-) The presence of a guide does not change that fact. A guide knows places where certain animals are likely to show up and can read the "bush newspaper". But there is never a guarantee. I have seen extraordinary things on self-drives, but had rather disappointing guided tours, and the other way round ...

Our driver and Masai spotter in Kenya certainly noticed animals before any of the tourists had spotted them. I think we would have completely missed some if we were on our own.

Driving between the parks is generally not too difficult, even if some of the roads are terrible.

My suggestion is therefore to do the majority of the travelling yourselves between parks and arrange dawn/dusk guided game drives once at the parks. You can always do some game drives on your own to save money or see the difference.