Safari With Children: What Works, and What Nobody Tells You

Safaris are marketed to families and they can be wonderful for them. They can also be four hours in a hot car with nothing visible and a child asking how long is left. Which one you get is mostly a planning decision.

Age matters more than anything else. Under about five, most children do not get much from it and many camps will not take them. From six to nine, it works if the days are short. From ten upward, children often out-spot the adults and get more out of it than anyone.

Shorten the days, not the trip. The instinct is to pack in parks. The better move is fewer parks and shorter drives — two hours out in the morning, back to camp for the middle of the day, two hours in the late afternoon. A child who has swum at lunchtime is a different passenger at four o'clock.

Private vehicle, always. On a shared vehicle you cannot turn back early, and the other six passengers did not pay to accommodate your six-year-old. A private vehicle means the day bends to your family instead of the other way round.

Pick parks with short transfers. Tarangire, Manyara and Ngorongoro are close together. Mikumi is four hours from Dar with the game starting at the gate. The northern Serengeti is spectacular and is a very long drive; save it for later trips.

Give them a job. A checklist of animals, a cheap pair of binoculars that is theirs, or the task of spotting the next giraffe. Children who are looking for something are engaged; children who are being shown things are passengers.

What actually lands. In our experience it is rarely the lion. It is the dung beetle rolling a ball across the track, the hyrax on the rocks at camp, the fact that a giraffe drinks by doing the splits. Guides who are good with children know this and lead with it.

Practical points. Malaria prophylaxis for children needs a conversation with your doctor months ahead, not weeks. Most camps have family tents but not all, and the ones that do sell out first. And a few crater and walking activities have minimum ages, which is worth checking before you build a trip around one.