Going on walking safaris in Africa’s wild places means you’ll leave just the tiniest of traces on the continent, but ensures your African safari will leave you with indelible memories.
Being on foot lets you appreciate the signs that trackers ‘read’ for updates on the previous night’s events, and to track down the culprits. The slower pace allows you to observe all the myriad details that make up each ecosystem.
There’s an almost mystical quality to walking where generations of our ancestors did, and leaving your footprints across the Serengeti in the imprints of the earliest humans, or along the Lower Zambezi. You can even get a small sense of how they lived, if you overnight by fly camping.
Going on a private walking safari in the Masai Mara provides an enhanced understanding of migration journeys, while tracking rhino on foot gives your walk added purpose, as well as the frisson that comes as you close in on one of Africa’s largest creatures. When tracking desert black rhino in Namibia, the desert environs also impart a sense of exploration.
You may not always find what you came for, but when you track Kruger wildlife on foot, you’ll always come across something fascinating. And while you’re exploring, don’t forget to look around you, too – when walking in the Waterberg, for example, it would criminal not to take in the scenery.
Finally, if you want to go the whole hog, try walking for several days in Zambia’s South Luangwa – it will be an unforgettable experience.
