Madikwe Kopano Lodge

I worked with Justin Van Wyk at Discover Africa Safaris to arrange safaris in Zimbabwe and Botswana, including a stop at Victoria Falls, for two of my children and me. The safaris were exquisite, and Justin was phenomenal—professional, responsive, and detail-oriented. He patiently helped refine my changing requirements and dreams until we created a luxurious, once-in-a-lifetime trip. The adventure was extremely well organized: there were no surprises, we were greeted at each location, and transportation between destinations was well planned and flexible when needed.

The six luxury camps arranged by Discover Africa and Justin were outstanding. The food was excellent, and even my picky daughter ate well at every meal. The accommodations and furnishings were beautiful, and the staff were welcoming, attentive, and friendly. Everyone at the camps prioritized safety and made sure we always felt comfortable and secure.

The actual safaris and activities we out-of-this-world. My goals of this trip were to have my adult children see the Big Five and to capture pictures of leopards. We saw a leopard on the first day! And around a dozen in all. Many amazing pictures were taken as well. With a side trip to see rhinos, we did see the Big Five, and many, many more wild African animals. We even caught tiger fish…

Thank you, Justin and Discover Africa,
Bill Reid

PS – Captured acceptable Milky Way photos in Botswana as a Bonus!

Very professional in the approach of customer’s needs. Intelligent in the approach and in the design of our safari in Botswana taking into account some of the constraints that we had. We were extremely happy with all the camps that were recommended to us. Thumbs up!

Megan Warrington was amazing to work with. She was very informative and kept us up to date on everything. I found out that I would need to have surgery a few days after returning from the trip and asked Megan if she would be able to arrange for a wheelchair to be at the airports and activities we had planned. She got everything scheduled and sent me confirmations within a short period of time…That is what you call service!!!!!

We had a truly magical safari experience perfectly planned & organised for us by Susan Veldman at Discover Africa.

We flew from Cape Town to Hoedspruit and then seamlessly transferred to the most beautiful lodge in the Karongwe private game reserve. We stayed at Kuname Lodge and it was perfect, the setting, the staff and the lodges were all wonderful and the food was amazing. The game drives from the lodge were so well organised and we saw so much big game.

The transfer back to airport and flight back to Cape Town were also seamless so the whole experience is everything we could have asked for.

If anyone asks me where to look when booking a South Africa adventure then I would say that they do not have to look any further than Susan!

We just completed our second African safari planned by Megan Warrington, this one to Botswana, and we couldn’t have been more pleased with our trip! Megan did a fantastic job of starting us out in the Kalahari (Tau Pan Camp) which was unique in its landscape and some of the animals that you see, including the Oryx. You don’t see as many animals as in other locations, which would be expected in the desert, but the experience was wonderful and we are glad we started there.

Our next stop was in the Okavango Delta (Splash Camp) which exceeded our lofty expectations. Before we made it to our camp from the landing strip we saw a leopard and hundreds of various animals including giraffes, zebras, elephants, etc. While in the delta we saw another leopard, a large pride of lions that were resting in trees, which is very unusual, hundreds (estimated at 600) buffalo and we actually experienced a lion hunt where a group of four siblings successfully secured a young buffalo. Our last stop was on the Kwando River (Lagoon Camp) and this was actually the jewel of the trip. There weren’t as many prey animals as in the delta, but predators were abundant and the hippos were unbelievable. We saw 3 leopards, two young brothers together and another very shy female, many lions from a couple of prides included several mature males, 2 cheetahs (brothers that travelled and hunted together), and a small pack of African Wild Dogs including 4 adults and 6 puppies.

Our guides and trackers were exceptional at all locations, but Mr. T stood out at Kwando’s Lagoon camp. All of our stays were at Kwando camps and I will write them a separate review, but they were fantastic! Back to Megan, we thought that the lengths of stays and the order of our stays was perfect and very well planned. She is so easy to work with and truly tries to meet your personal goals and experiences for the trip. We thought this may be our last trip to Africa, but we are now fully onboard to come back, likely in a few years with our grown children. There is no question that we will revisit Botswana, we can’t say enough about the people, the landscape and the wildlife, they are all lovely.

We booked a safari with Susan and as it was something I have been eagerly anticipating most of my life, we opened the budget strings a little. If we were going to do it once, we really wanted to get it right and make sure to make the most of it. We were still blown away. Although we have been home for a couple weeks, it still hasn’t really sunk it what an amazing experience it was. Susan set up an incredible itinerary, covering both Tanzania and Kenya during the wildebeest migration. Stayed a two five star camps, Taasa Lodge and the Soroi Luxury Migration Camp and both were better than we could have even hoped. The animal experiences were incredible, staff were unbelievably friendly, food unreal. Just a great family experience.

When there were little hiccups, and there are bound to be, Susan promptly responded and sorted it out. She was great. Would recommend her to anyone looking for a trip of a lifetime safari!