What to book before a safari (and what to skip)

Updated June 2026

Short answer: book the things that sell out or save you if it all goes wrong — the safari, your flights and your travel insurance — early and direct. Everything else is a convenience, not a necessity. An eSIM is genuinely worth it; an airport transfer is worth it for a late or first-time arrival; tours are handy only for a city or beach add-on; and self-drive car hire is the one most lodge-safari travellers should skip, because your game drives are run by the camp. Below, an honest verdict on each — including what we'd skip.

A safari is one of the most expensive trips most people ever take, so the internet is full of people trying to sell you extras on top of it. The honest truth is that very little needs to be booked in advance beyond the trip itself. This page goes through the add-ons one by one and gives each a plain verdict — Book it, Worth it, Maybe, or Skip — so you can sort the genuinely useful from the noise in a couple of minutes. Where we link a partner, it's one we'd use ourselves, and the link is affiliate (it earns us a small commission at no extra cost to you). Where we wouldn't take a commission — like insurance — we just tell you to buy it direct.

The big three: book these direct, and early

Before any add-on, get the expensive, sells-out, matters-most things locked in — and book them directly, not through us:

• The safari itself — your camps, lodges and game drives. Book direct with your operator or lodge. Good camps in peak season fill a year ahead, and the price is dominated by fixed park fees, so booking early is about availability, not a discount. See how much a safari really costs before you compare quotes, and use our safari trip planner to frame region, days and budget.
• Flights — international and any internal bush flights. Book direct with the airline; internal light-aircraft hops are often essential (and weight-limited) in places like the Okavango.
• Travel insurance — covered in full below. This is the one add-on we treat as non-negotiable.

None of those three are things we sell. They're simply too important — and too specific to your trip — to route through anyone but the provider.

The add-ons, with an honest verdict

A data eSIM you set up before you fly is one of the cheapest, highest-value things you can sort in advance: maps, messaging and a lifeline from the moment you step off the plane, with no airport SIM queue and no roaming-bill shock. The honest caveat is that remote bush camps are often off-grid with little or no signal — so this is for airports, cities, transfers and the road, not for streaming from your tent. For that, it's well worth it.

Get an eSIM (Airalo) →

If you're arriving late, arriving somewhere for the first time, or your camp isn't arranging the pickup, a pre-booked fixed-price transfer removes the single most stressful moment of the whole trip — the tired, just-landed scramble for a taxi. It's worth it precisely then. If your lodge or operator already includes airport pickup (many do, especially on fly-in packages), you don't need this — check your itinerary first so you're not paying twice.

Book a transfer (KiwiTaxi) →

Here's the honest distinction: on safari, your game drives are already included by your camp — you do not book those as separate "tours." Where pre-booked tours genuinely help is the non-safari portion of the trip: a day in Nairobi or Cape Town, a Zanzibar spice tour or snorkelling trip, a cultural visit on a free afternoon. If your trip is pure bush, you can largely skip this. If you're bolting on a city stopover or a beach finish, it's a handy way to fill those days — hence a Maybe, not a must.

Browse experiences (Klook) →

This is the one we'll tell most safari travellers to skip. On a lodge or camp safari, your game drives are run by the camp in proper open 4x4s, with a guide who knows the area and a spotter who finds the animals — a hire car can't go where they go and isn't allowed to do what they do. It would simply sit parked while you're out on drives. Car hire only earns its keep if you're doing a genuine self-drive trip (parts of South Africa and Namibia are built for it) or adding independent road travel either side of the safari. If that's you, it's worth comparing; otherwise, save the money.

Compare cars (Getrentacar) → — only if you're actually self-driving.

For a trip this expensive and this remote, travel insurance is the one thing you should not skip — and we say that as a site that earns nothing from it. We don't sell insurance and won't point you at an affiliate link; we'd rather just be straight with you. Buy a policy direct from a reputable insurer or a comparison site, not as a checkbox bolted onto a booking, and make sure it explicitly covers medical evacuation — many safari areas are hours by road or air from a hospital, and an evacuation is the scenario that turns a bad day into a financial catastrophe. Also check it covers your activities, trip cancellation, and any pre-existing conditions. This is the easiest "Book it" on the page.

At a glance

Cost bands are rough orders of magnitude per traveller, not quotes: $ = tens of dollars, $$ = roughly a hundred or few hundred, $$$ = the main cost of the trip. Insurance scales with trip value and age.

Our honest takeaway

Spend your booking energy on the three things that actually matter — the safari, your flights and your insurance — and book them direct and early. Add an eSIM because it's cheap and genuinely useful, and a transfer if your arrival warrants it. Treat tours as an optional extra for the city or beach days, and skip the hire car unless you're truly self-driving. Everything else the internet tries to sell you on top of a safari is, more often than not, noise. When in doubt, ask your operator what's already included before you pay for it twice.

Related guides

• How much does a safari really cost?
• What to pack for a safari
• Malaria and staying healthy on safari
• How many days do you need for a safari?
• Tanzania, Kenya or Botswana?

Next steps: frame the trip with our safari trip planner, see where the money actually goes in how much a safari really costs, get your kit-bag right with what to pack for a safari, and sort the health essentials with malaria and staying healthy on safari.