Places to visit on a family safari

With 22 national parks, Tanzania has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to safari opportunities. More than 15% of the country is given over to protected areas and the wildlife viewing is truly world class. The most famous park is the Serengeti, a vast area crammed with plains game and the predators that hunt them. This truly is one of the best places for a family safari in the world. The Ngorongoro Crater is also iconic, a sunken volcanic caldera whose steep sides encourage a high concentration of animals on the crater base.

To find out more, check out our Places to visit in Tanzania section.

In addition to incredible safari, Tanzania has masses of other things you can do. Cycle through the banana plantations on the edge of the Rift Valley, take a tuk-tuk ride to the markets of Mto Wa Mbu and stop for a cookery lesson, visit the Bushmen of Lake Eyasi, walk alongside giraffe on the plains beneath Mount Meru, canoe on the Momella Lakes in Arusha National Park and climb an extinct volcano for views over Olduvai Gorge. Check out our Tanzania customer photo selection.

For more ideas on child-friendly activities check out our Tanzania with Kids blog or see our Tanzania family safari section.

Perhaps best of all, you can round off your family safari in Tanzania on the fabled Spice Island of Zanzibar, home to picture-perfect white beaches and fabulous snorkelling. Our Tanzania Safari and Beach itinerary is the perfect family blend of activity, safari and beach. We will select family-friendly accommodation to suit your budget and the ages of your children.

Kenya is where safari all began, and it remains a truly great destination for family safari holidays. The jewel in the crown is the Masai Mara, featuring an extraordinary profusion of game and (together with the Serengeti in neighbouring Tanzania) home to the renowned annual wildebeest migration.

We also love the less well-known area of Laikipia, a wild and rugged region to the north of Nairobi. Here, critically, in addition to plenty of game, there are lots of activities that kids love. We’re talking rafting, swimming, camel rides, hiking (in a fun way), visits to authentic Samburu villages, climbing craggy cliffs, sunset hot chocolates, and marshmallows around the campfire. All of this will keep the children fully engaged and of course, complement perfectly the game drives that also form a key part of the trip.

There are a total of 27 national parks in the country, ranging from remote arid desert in the north to the red hued elephant-rich terrain of Tsavo. You can read about the options in more detail in our Places to visit in Kenya and our team of family safari specialists will be able to help you identify what will work best for you and your children.

Don’t forget that Kenya is also fringed with absolutely idyllic white sandy beaches, lapped by turquoise water and offering hammocks, sun-loungers and a dose of relaxation.

To find more information, check out our Kenya family safari section or go straight to Highlights of Kenya for one of our most popular African family safaris, combining the best activities in Laikipia with wildlife viewing in the Masai Mara and finishing up with time on the beach. For ideas on child-friendly activities, see our Top 10 Activities to do in Kenya with Kids.

One of the world’s most unspoilt safari destinations, Botswana is the perfect country for those who want a wilderness feel and an exclusive experience. The world’s largest inland delta, the Okavango, truly is like nowhere else. Even flying to it, soaring over those immense flood plains, is an experience you’ll never forget. But the wildlife (elephant, buffalo, hippo, wildebeest, giraffe, lion, zebra, and plenty more besides) is simply stupendous, and as well as game drives there’s the unique experience of heading out on the waterways with a guide in a traditional punt-like mokoro.

At the heart of the Delta wetlands is the Moremi Game Reserve, surrounded by private concessions for the crème de la crème of wildlife viewing, including African wild dogs. Due to permanent water sources, the Moremi is good for wildlife viewing year-round. In the Delta, the floods arrive around May and coincide with the Okavango’s dry season – peak time for safari!

Many people will also head to Chobe National Park with its river attracting thousands upon thousands of elephants, and popular for boat trips. Also a ‘must’ is Victoria Falls, just over the border from Chobe in Zimbabwe, and easy to combine with a safari for boat cruises, adrenaline activities and a bit of relaxation.

Check out our Botswana Highlights & Vic Falls (8 days) itinerary for more info. And our Botswana Highlights & Vic Falls (12 days) if you’d like to spend longer and experience a thrilling mobile safari.

And if you want to add a different type of safari, there are the wild Makgadikgadi Salt pans with great walks, horse riding and the opportunity to get close to the indigenous meerkats. To read more about the different areas, see our Places to visit in Botswana page.

South Africa is extraordinarily varied, offering not just world-class safari but also so much more. From the family safari perspective, this is our top pick for those travelling with younger children. A drive along the famous Garden Route, either starting or finishing in Cape Town, will allow time to visit the small game reserves around Port Elizabeth.

These may not have quite the majesty or grandeur of Kruger or the East African national parks, but, critically, they are malaria-free meaning you have no tricky malaria tablets to coax into unwilling mouths. And whilst these reserves are not vast areas of wilderness, their relatively small size means a particularly dense concentration of wildlife – keeping younger children engaged.

Further north, Madikwe also offers malaria-free safaris and is breath-taking both in terms of the landscape but also the wealth of wildlife that can be viewed here.

For families with older children, Kruger National Park is absolutely superb. You can either visit the main area of the park on a self-drive basis or you can head to the private conservancies fringing the park, for a more exclusive and crowd-free experience. Both will offer superb game sightings. From Kruger you can head south through KwaZulu Natal to Durban, north to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, or down to Cape Town and the southern winelands.

You’ll find more detailed information on our Places to visit in South Africa page.

Our Classic Cape & Garden Route includes a shorter safari that provides a great introduction to the safari experience. Our Kruger & Beach Family Safari includes more game viewing and this can be extended depending on what would suit your family. For more, check out our South Africa family holidays section and Top 10 activities in South Africa with kids.

Zimbabwe is back in business as the grande dame of safari destinations. The wildlife viewing here is astounding, especially in Hwange National Park, and children can join in walking safaris from the age of seven – much younger than in some other parts of Africa. You’ll also experience it all in the company of the very best wildlife guides in Africa, thanks to their long, in-depth training. Yet despite all this, there are no crowds!

Hwange is Africa’s 10th-largest national park, with many different terrains, but because it’s off so many people’s radars, you’ll probably feel like you have its wild dogs, baboons, giraffes, and other epic wildlife to yourselves. There’s a unique way to experience it too, with an iconic train safari on the Elephant Express. Parents can sip a G&T, kids can take their turn driving, and you can all ogle wildlife. There’s also the chance to go out with the Cobras Community Wildlife Protection Unit, which has brought rhinos back to Hwange. See our Zimbabwe with Kids photo guide or Places to visit in Zimbabwe for more.

Most family safaris to Zimbabwe will start and / or finish in Victoria Falls, home to one of the world’s largest and most spectacular waterfalls, Victoria Falls. Aside from the falls themselves, which are undoubtedly one of Africa’s great wonders, the town is the adventure capital of Africa. Here you can find white water-rafting, gorge high-wiring, zipline-canopy tours, canoeing, rafting, and micro lighting – to name just a few of your options. See our Highlights of Victoria Falls & Hwange itinerary for more details and our Highlights of Victoria Falls & Botswana if you’d like to travel on from the Falls to world-famous Chobe and the Okavango Delta.

Namibia is vast, varied and quite extraordinarily beautiful, with an endless series of mesmerising landscapes unspooling out the window. This is a road-trip kind of destination so works brilliantly for families looking to get away from it all, enjoy the solitude and serenity of some of Southern Africa’s most superb landscapes, and don’t mind a few longer days in the car.

There are vast sand dunes to race down, ghostly shipwrecks to visit, rocky crags to climb and remote bushmen to visit. And up in the north, there are the vast tracts of wilderness that comprise Damaraland and Etosha National Park, one of the continent’s great wildlife reserves. As with Kruger in South Africa, you can self-drive here so you can explore at your own pace. Check out our Places to visit in Namibia page for more detailed information.

Namibia is also one of the least densely populated places on Earth, so there is masses of scope for getting out into the wilderness, sleeping under the stars, or in remote lodges with nothing around.

Our Highlights of Namibia 2-Weeks includes, as the name suggests, all of the main sights and includes ample time in Etosha. Our Highlights of Namibia 3-Weeks includes even more wildlife viewing. As ever, both itineraries can be tweaked to create the perfect safari holiday for your family. For more ideas on child-friendly activities check out Namibia with Kids. Note that accommodation in Namibia, particularly around Etosha, fills up many months in advance (often more than a year). It’s therefore imperative that you start planning any trip to Namibia well in advance.

Gloriously crowd-free, safe and welcoming, Zambia’s varied landscapes offer an action packed yet authentic safari-and-more experience for adventurous families. Our favourite place for wildlife (not just a top game reserve but with some of the best guiding in Africa) is South Luangwa National Park, where you’ll have front row seats to witness both water and land-based wildlife. This includes one of the highest concentration of hippos in Africa as well as the star attraction: leopards.

Other wildlife includes lions, hyenas, wild dogs, porcupines, crocodiles and elephants. This National Park is also the birthplace of the walking safari, where the family will learn to ‘read the bush’ rather than just drive through it. As this experience is such a highlight in Zambia, this is a destination that is particularly well suited for teenagers, who are old enough to take part.

Another key national park here is Kafue, Zambia’s biggest park and renowned for its lion prides, which frequently feature on wildlife programmes.

Zambia’s other stand-out star attractions, the Lower Zambezi National Park and the majestic Victoria Falls, offer a complete change of pace, swapping pristine wilderness for aquatic-based adventure. In the former, travelling by boat or canoe, you’ll enjoy a floating game drive spotting crocodile, elephants and more. In the latter, the Livingstone and Victoria Falls area are rightly dubbed ‘the adventure capital of Africa,’ where activities are of the adrenaline-fuelled kind; micro-lighting, ziplining and white water rafting.

Finally if you are looking for a bit of relaxation at the end of your trip, you might like to add on a few days across the border in Malawi. Here, the vast waters of Lake Malawi are fringed with white sandy beaches, and the lake is so huge it seems to be the ocean.

Considering its compact size, or perhaps because of it, Malawi is Africa’s hidden gem for family travellers. At just 520 miles north to south, there are no long driving days between diverse attractions, making this ideal for families with younger children. The country is also devoid of tourist crowds, making this one of the most authentic and up-close safari destinations in Africa.

Chief of the safari attractions is the Majete Wildlife Reserve, THE place in Malawi to spot the Big 5. A conservation success story over the past two decades, this 70,000 hectare park is home to black rhino, leopard, lion, elephant, cheetah, sable antelope and buffalo which you’ll spot on game drives and around the camp itself. Then there’s Liwonde National Park where, staying in a riverbank camp, you’ll experience a more laid back, ‘classic’ safari, enjoying guided bushwalks, and spotting wildlife from treehouses, underground hides or by slow boat.

What makes Malawi particularly attractive to family travellers is the variety of adventurous experiences it offer. Most famously, the country’s namesake lake, Lake Malawi, takes up a staggering 5th of the country (think inland sea rather than Windermere). Teeming with colourful freshwater fish, adventurous families can experience water sports galore, from kayaking, snorkelling, even taking a speedboat to nearby islands, as well as relaxing by its sandy shore.

Elsewhere, there’s the beautiful (and comparatively cool) hillside tea and coffee plantations in the Thylo (pronounced, ‘Ch’olo) region, our favourite being the Satemwa Tea Estate where you can learn about tea and coffee making as well as exploring the area by mountain bike or on foot.

The Zomba Plateau is also well worth a visit, a lofty highland area full of pine forests, dramatic peaks, waterfalls, and superb viewpoints.

Known as ‘the Land of a Thousand Hills’, with a landscape packed with tea plantations, mist-shrouded volcanoes and terraced farmland clinging to the hillsides, Rwanda is also one of the cleanest, most organised, compact and welcoming countries in Africa. This makes it a big hit with families.

It is famous as one of the best places in Africa to see gorillas in their natural habitat, in the Volcanoes National Park. There is a minimum age of 15 for this, which is strictly enforced, so this is a destination that better suits those with slightly older children.

Families will also love visiting Nyungwe National Park and Forest, where you can take the 70-metre-high Canopy Walk and spot chimps and monkeys in the vast ancient rainforests. Active adventure is also on the menu at crocodile-free Lake Kivu, where paddleboarding, swimming, kayaking are all popular with children. You can also enjoy a motorboat trip and lake camp on Napoleon island, famous for its bat colony.

Further east, if you want to see the Big 5, head to Akagera National Park where as well as the traditional game drives to see lions, elephants and lions, families can also enjoy boat safaris to safely spot hippos and crocodiles.