3 daysUganda
3-Day Bwindi Gorilla Short Break
Fly in to Kihihi, trek one family in Buhoma, fly out. The shortest honest gorilla trip.
From$2,950 per person
Honeymoon and Private Safaris
Your own vehicle, your own guide, and nobody else at breakfast
A private safari means the vehicle is yours. Nobody else is in it, the departure time is whatever you agree with your guide the night before, and if you want to sit with one leopard for two hours instead of driving on, you sit with the leopard. That single change does more for the quality of the trip than any lodge upgrade.
For honeymoons we add the things that only matter once: a room with a view worth waking up in, dinners that are not at a communal table, private transfers instead of shared shuttle runs, and enough slack in the itinerary that a slow morning is allowed.
It costs more than a scheduled group departure, and it costs less than most people expect, because the vehicle and guide are a fixed cost split between however many of you there are. For two people the difference against a shared vehicle is real but usually smaller than the gap between two lodge tiers.
What private actually includes
- A dedicated 4x4 and a dedicated guide for the whole trip, not park by park
- Departure times you set, including pre-dawn starts and full-day drives with a picnic
- Private airstrip and border transfers
- Itinerary changes made in the vehicle, not through an office
- Room and table requests placed with lodges by name before you arrive
Where we send couples, and why
The pattern that works is contrast: one forest, one savannah, one place to stop moving. A gorilla trek in Bwindi or Volcanoes is a physical, muddy, high day. The Mara or the Serengeti is early mornings and long light. Then something still at the end, which is usually Zanzibar, the Kenyan coast, or a lake lodge if you would rather not fly again.
Do the demanding part first. Honeymooners who put the beach in the middle rarely want to get back in a vehicle.
Rooms worth asking for by name
Most lodges have two or three rooms that are materially better than the rest: the end villa with no neighbour, the tent at the point of the ridge, the suite where the deck faces the waterhole. They are not always more expensive and they are almost never allocated by chance. We ask for them at the time of booking and we tell you if we did not get one.
Private conservancies
In Kenya the conservancies bordering the Masai Mara reserve limit vehicle numbers per sighting, allow night drives and walking, and are leased directly from Maasai landowning families. For a couple who want the wildlife without the queue at a lion sighting, a conservancy is the single highest-value choice on the whole itinerary. In Tanzania the equivalent move is a mobile camp in a quiet sector rather than a large lodge in central Seronera.
Practical honeymoon notes
- If your passport is in a maiden name and the ticket is in a married name, they must match. Travel in the maiden name and change documents afterwards.
- Tell us the wedding date. Lodges do things for honeymooners and they need notice, not a mention at check-in.
- Dietary requirements go to camps two weeks ahead. Remote kitchens shop once.
- Yellow fever certificates are checked at some borders in this region. Carry the card, not a photo of it.
Proposals
We are asked regularly and we are happy to help, quietly. Tell us the shape of what you want and we will arrange it with the camp manager rather than announcing it in the dining room. What we will not do is stage it in front of other guests unless you specifically ask for that.
Safaris built around Honeymoon and Private Safaris
Each of these already includes it. Any of them can be reshaped around your dates.
Build your trip around Honeymoon and Private Safaris
Tell us your dates and we will come back with an itinerary, the lodges we would use and a price that holds.