How Much Does a Safari Cost from the UK? Prices in Pounds

A UK brochure price folds the flight in and hides what the park, the lodge and the hire car actually charged. I’d rather build it up from the parts, in pounds, so you can see which lines are big and which you can shrink.

Everything here is from rate sheets, fee schedules and fare pages I read in October 2026, converted at the European Central Bank’s rates of 26 October 2026: about R22.20, N$22.20 (the Namibian dollar is pegged to the rand), P17.95 or US$1.33 to the pound. The conversions are approximate. Park fees are from our own fee records, which cite the government schedules. If you think in dollars, the same sums in US dollars are in a seperate guide.

Park fees per person per day in pounds

These are the daily fees for a foreign adult, which is what a British passport holder pays everywhere in this table. Children pay half in Kruger, Chobe, Moremi and Hwange; Etosha charges N$180 for 9 to 15 year olds and lets younger ones in free. The free age is under 2 in Kruger, under 8 in Botswana and under 6 in Zimbabwe.

Park	Fee per adult per day	In pounds	Car	Valid
Kruger, South Africa	R692	about £31	none	1 Nov 2026 to 31 Oct 2027
Etosha, Namibia	N$280	about £13	N$60 a day (£2.70)	from 1 Apr 2026
Chobe, Botswana	P270	about £15	P115 a day, foreign car (£6.40)	2022 fees still in force
Moremi, Botswana	P270	about £15	P75 a day, foreign car (£4.20)	2022 fees still in force
Hwange, Zimbabwe	US$24 day visit, US$12 staying in the park	about £18, or £9	US$10 a day, US$3 if staying (£7.50, £2.25)	2026 tariff

Kruger’s fee goes up from R602 to R692 on 1 November 2026, which makes the SANParks Wild Card plain arithmetic: a couple pays R7,310 (about £330) for a year’s card bought by 31 October 2026 (the price from November was not out when I checked), against R20,760 (about £935) in gate fees for 15 Kruger days. The park fee calculator does these sums for your dates and party.

Three worked budgets in pounds

Each is a couple from London. Food, insurance and anything bought before the airport are not in here.

Kruger, self-drive, a fortnight. Small hire car from O.R. Tambo for 16 days, five nights in a Skukuza bungalow, four at Lower Sabie, five at Satara, 15 days of park fees, travelling after 1 November 2026.

Namibia, self-drive, 12 days. Hilux double cab with camping kit for two from Windhoek, two nights camping at Sesriem for Sossusvlei, then eight in Etosha (three at Okaukuejo, two at Halali, three at Namutoni), July to October 2027 rates.

Botswana, fly-in, a week. Airlink to Maun, three nights at Oddballs in the Okavango Delta on its package that includes the light aircraft from Maun, back to Maun and four nights at Okuti in Moremi, July to October 2027, when both camps charge their top rate.

For two people	Kruger fortnight	Namibia 12 days	Botswana fly-in week
Flights from London	about £680 each, KAYAK’s 12 month average for London to Johannesburg = £1,360	about £740 each, KAYAK’s UK to Windhoek average for May, its cheapest month = £1,480	about £680 each to Johannesburg, then about £420 each to Maun (the top of KAYAK’s typical range; October is dearer) = £2,200
Car or light aircraft	R381 a day, Discover Cars’ Johannesburg average, × 16 = £275	N$2,370 a day, Namib Trails high season, 7 to 14 day rate, × 12 = £1,281	Safari Air seat Maun to Okuti and back, US$383 each way with the fuel surcharge, plus US$25 departure tax = £1,185
Fuel	about 3,000 km at 7 litres per 100 km, 210 litres at R30.25 = £286	about 2,400 km at 10 litres per 100 km, 240 litres of diesel at N$27.86 = £301	in the fares
Beds	bungalows at R2,220, R2,225 and R2,312 a night = £1,422	camping, N$670 a person at Sesriem, N$560 at Okaukuejo, N$550 at Halali and Namutoni = £520	Oddballs US$2,300 each for 3 nights, Okuti US$1,410 each a night × 4, plus Ker & Downey’s US$5 a bed night for Chobe Impact = £11,927
Park fees	R692 × 2 × 15 days = £935	N$280 × 2 plus N$60 a car, 2 days Namib-Naukluft and 8 days Etosha = £279	included in both camps
Tips	a few pounds in R5 and R10 coins	the same in N$	US$15 guide and US$7.50 staff box each a day = £236
Total	about £4,280	about £3,860	about £15,550
A person	about £2,140	about £1,930	about £7,775

Some notes on how I got there. The Siyabona rate tables for the SANParks camps are guidelines, because SANParks’ own booking site sits behind a bot check; a bungalow is one unit for two, and a Skukuza campsite is R423 for the pitch from 1 November to 8 December 2026 (R551 over Christmas and from 19 March, and Lower Sabie and Satara charge R488 to R552), so camping drops the Kruger beds line to about £270 to £305. Discover Cars’ R381 is an average of every car it lists in Johannesburg (from R235 a day); it is not a quote.

In Namibia the car is a third of the trip. Namib Trails includes insurance with a N$30,000 excess; zero excess is N$450 a day more, another £243 over 12 days, worth paying. The Windhoek fare is KAYAK’s cheapest month, so treat the total as a floor: in the dry season via Johannesburg it is nearer £900 each (about £680 plus KAYAK’s £170 to £250 for the hop). The low season car rate (N$2,170) takes £108 off, and NWR’s Etosha camping drops to N$460 a person from November to June. A double room at Okaukuejo is N$2,380 a person with breakfast from July 2027, about £107. The self-drive guides for Namibia and Botswana cover the driving.

The Botswana week is the version the brochures don’t show you. Okuti’s rate is fully inclusive, which at Ker & Downey means meals, drinks, activities, laundry, park fees and evacuation cover, so there is nothing to add but flights and tips; Oddballs includes park fees too. I routed back through Maun because those are the published fares; a camp to camp hop is possible but needs a quote. Expert Africa’s Tsessebe safari, seven nights in three sister camps with every transfer and park fee, lists at £6,760 to £9,060 a person before international flights, so booking it yourself is not where the saving is in Botswana. The saving is in the month: Machaba Camp charges US$754 a person from 11 January to 31 March 2027 against US$1,381 from May, and Mombo goes from US$3,062 to US$5,345. February is also when London to Johannesburg is cheapest (about £590 against about £900 in December). The flights guide has fares by month.

What a night costs: SANParks camp, private lodge, fly-in camp

Where	A night in pounds	What you get
Skukuza campsite, Kruger	R423 the pitch (about £19), from 1 Nov 2026	your own tent, shared ablutions and kitchen
Skukuza bungalow, Kruger	R2,220 for two (about £100)	self-catering, two beds and a kitchenette
Sabi Sabi Bush Lodge, Sabi Sand	R29,600 a person (about £1,334) plus R450 levy	all meals and drinks, two drives a day, walks
Oddballs, Okavango Delta	US$2,300 a person for 3 nights (about £575 a night), July to October 2027	meals, drinks, activities, park fees and the flights from Maun
Okuti, Moremi	US$1,410 a person (about £1,056), high season 2027	fully inclusive with park fees; US$740 (about £554) in January and February
Mombo, Okavango Delta	US$5,345 a person (about £4,004), June to October 2027	everything except champagne and imported spirits

The gap between the first row and the last is more than two hundred to one. South African and Namibian lodges price in rand, Botswana’s camps in dollars, so the exchange rate between booking and paying is part of the price.

Tipping in rand

Tip once, at the end of each stay, in cash. Expert Africa’s South African figures, per guest per day: R120 to R250 for the guide (about £5 to £11), R60 to R120 for the tracker (£3 to £5), R50 to R150 for the staff box (£2 to £7). Away from the lodge it is R10 a bag for the uniformed airport porters, about R20 for a hotel porter, R100 for a full day tour, and R5 for the petrol attendant and the car guard, so keep R5 coins in the car. A couple at a private lodge for seven nights gets through about R5,000 at the middle of those ranges, roughly £225, and nobody at a lodge can break a £20 note. In Botswana it is US$10 to US$20 a day for a shared guide and US$5 to US$10 each for polers, trackers and the staff box, in small dollar notes. The tipping guide has the Namibian figures and who takes cards.

A UK package or book it yourself?

What the UK operators were listing in October 2026, each per person: Rainbow Tours’ Garden Route and Kruger self-drive, 15 nights with flights, car and a stay at &Beyond Ngala in the Timbavati, £8,055 to £8,805. Audley’s 11 day Kruger self-drive and safari adventure from £6,610. Expert Africa’s 14 night Discover Namibia self-drive £3,520 to £4,580, excluding international flights, fuel and park fees, which at my figures adds about £1,000 a person. They use lodges my budgets don’t, so they are not like for like. For a fly-in Botswana trip an operator pays the same camp rates you would, and the Tsessebe price sits right on top of my own sum. For a self-drive in South Africa or Namibia the brochure price buys private lodges and someone to ring at 2am; the SANParks and NWR camps are what make it cheap, and no UK brochure sells them.

A package gives you two things your own bookings don’t: one contract under the Package Travel Regulations 2018, which apply when at least two kinds of travel service (a flight and a lodge, say) are combined for one trip by one trader or at one point of sale, and ATOL. Book it yourself and you can mix a week of SANParks camps with two nights somewhere grand.

What ATOL covers, and what it doesn’t

ATOL is run by the Civil Aviation Authority and protects a package that includes a flight, bought from an ATOL holder; you should get an ATOL Certificate when you pay. If the company fails while you are in the bush, the scheme helps you stay in your accommodation where possible, refunds what you spend replacing protected parts of the trip (lodges, car hire, transfers) and arranges a flight home. If it fails before you go, you claim the money back.

It is not insurance, and the CAA spells out the gaps. A flight bought direct from British Airways or Virgin Atlantic with an e-ticket is not ATOL protected. Lodges or hire cars booked on their own are not. Cancellations, delays, illness or a bad lodge are matters for the operator and your travel insurer. Check the operator’s ATOL number on the CAA’s site before you pay a deposit, use a credit card, and buy insurance that covers medical evacuation, the one safari cost that can outrun everything in this guide.

Every figure above was checked between 7 and 26 October 2026. Lodges and hire companies reprice each year, so get the quote in writing, in the currency you’ll pay in, before the deposit goes.