Top 3 Luxury Family Safari Destinations

A safari is one of the most exciting, novel, and gratifying vacation experiences you can have with your family. This holiday adventure presents a vast array of activities for your family to enjoy–as vast as Africa itself. Big-game viewing, the lions, elephants, and zebras moving across the land–and only in Africa. The entire family will enjoy the gorgeous beaches of Zanzibar with lots of activities for the kids, hiking Africa’s stunning trails and mountains or walking among the chimps.

A family trip to East Africa offers a rich opportunity for your family to spend quality time together, strengthening your family bond and creating treasured memories–memories of fun, laughter, excitement, and wonder. And what an opportunity for kids to experience new cultures, learn about nature, and stand in awe at the sights and sounds of wild animals in their natural element.

Imagine the excitement and joy on your kids’ faces when they spot a real lion, giraffe, or elephant. Or imagine when they first step into an authentic safari tent and discover that it features beds and toilets, unlike the tent in their backyard!

When planning a family safari, we highly recommend contracting with an experienced tour operator who can customize your itinerary to suit your family’s interests and preferences. They can make a big difference in helping you realize the trip of your dreams.

So if you’re looking for an ideal family vacation, we recommend a mix of beach and safari adventures. We’ve listed our favorite luxury safari destinations that might fit the bill for you and your family.

Bush and Beach in Tanzania: the Serengeti and Zanzibar

The Serengeti, one of Africa’s most well-known and popular national parks, boasts the highest concentration of animals on Earth. Of course, other private reserves bordering the Serengeti provide the same iconic scenery and wildlife as the national park and offer additional opportunities like African Family Safaris, off-road viewing, and night drives.

But when visiting Tanzania, spending a few days of your vacation on a Serengeti safari will be a highlight of your luxury family safari. Your family will enjoy the spectacle of hundreds of thousands of animals moving across the land on their annual migration. The Great Wildebeest Migration, at the least, will give your family a chance to take in the sight of a great multitude of wildebeest, zebras, antelopes–and their predators. For those who can handle nature at its most elemental and raw, there are the dramatic river crossings when the animals converge, then stampede across crocodile-infested waters.

And after this much excitement, jetting off to visit the picturesque island of Zanzibar may be just what you need. You will certainly appreciate the beachside fun after the drama of a safari in the wild. While in Zanzibar, you can stay at Melia Hotel and Resorts, with 124 rooms spread across two light-filled stories. The rooms are not only spacious, but they enjoy ocean and garden views. You can’t help but fall in love with this resort as a fringing coral reef shelters its peaceful white sand beach.

Your entire family will enjoy some barefoot luxury as you swim, snorkel, and scuba dive offshore or sunbathe and relax on the pristine beaches. Or take a dhow sail in the beautiful waters of the Indian Ocean and catch the dazzling sunsets.

We hope we have given you enough reasons to put Tanzania on top of your family safari bucket list.

Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Reserve

The Maasai Mara in Kenya is one of the most unique and stunningly beautiful places on Earth. Imagine walking into golden sunrises and hopping aboard the jeep for a wildlife excursion.

Try and picture your son or daughter’s reaction when they spot lions in their natural element, hunting for their next meal. Imagine them holding their breath, almost hoping for the antelope to escape.

And you get to experience this in the deep side of the Masai Mara Game Reserve. After a long day in the wild, you and the family can relax and experience beautiful golden sunsets casting a blue flame-hued glow over the undulating savannah grasslands.

And for accommodations, there’s the beautiful and luxurious Fairmont Mara Safari Club, offering 51 opulently-appointed tents with four-poster beds. The bathrooms are ensuite with private decks overlooking the Mara River. There is no better place to stay if you want to witness the famous Mara River portion of the annual wildebeest migration.

Every year, in July, millions of anima move across the Mara River and into the Maasai Mara Reserve, a veritable natural paradise with abundant water and fresh grass.

During summer, you will see many animals, including lions, elephants, hyenas, hippos, crocodiles, zebras, wildebeest, baboons, and gazelles. Rarely do visitors miss seeing most, if not all, of the Big Five game animals while staying in the Mara.

And you and your family can interact with the native Maasai and experience their rich semi-nomadic culture before leaving for the beachside in the country’s coastal region. I promise this experience will leave you and your family with a deep sense of connection, and these memories will be forever engraved in your hearts.

Botswana’s Okavango Delta Adventure

Botswana is in a league of its own and one of the world’s most exclusive safari locations for families. The Okavango Delta is a great place to start.

You can plan your own schedule and enjoy amazing wildlife viewing from the comfort of your private vehicle. You and your family will get up close with many predators in this area, including leopards, lions, and wild dogs.

Or, once you’ve had enough of the outer area, you can fly further into the Okavango Delta. This site will offer some of the best game-viewing experiences in Africa, and you can top it off by going on a boat safari.

Tucked between Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta, there are some great camps in this region with luxurious, family-friendly accommodations. Camp Okavango is a secluded lodge on a separate island with spacious and well-equipped rooms for families or couples. You and your family can enjoy an exclusive sightseeing outing to see the elephants at this location. Frankly, this would be one of the most exciting highlights for you and your kids on your family safari.

There’s the Ngwana Club for a fantastic and entertaining experience for your kids. It’s kid-friendly and offers some of the best nature hikes around the camp, kid-friendly arts and crafts projects, and cookery classes.

If Botswana was not on your family safari bucket list, we hope we’ve given you the green light to include it.

Final Thoughts

Africa is unique on this planet. Open spaces, pristine wilderness, ancient history, diverse cultures, and animals roam the continent like nowhere else on Earth. And yet, all this splendor can be enjoyed comfortably, if not luxuriously. Many lodges and tour operators offer exclusive packages that provide a range of adventures and activities suitable for the whole family. And when it’s time to relax, dine, or get an early night’s sleep, you can find yourself in the lap of luxury.

Of course, many parents who take their children on safari worry about their safety and what’s age-appropriate. An African safari family vacation is an epic adventure and requires careful planning and attention to detail. An experienced tour operator can address your concerns and understand how to safely manage the safari while preserving a sense of fun and adventure for your entire family.

And, of course, the kids are more concerned about different things. Will we get to see lion cubs? Or why does an elephant flap its ears? A family safari is a once-in-a-lifetime experience where you’re a guest in the home of the Lion King. Why go to Disneyland when you can experience this much fun on a safari?