I did it! 3 years ago. It was vastly expensive, but we weren’t kids, so we went for some comfort. In point of fact it can be quite spacey while you’re driven along in a truck, because there’s no guarantee you will see the “Big Three”: lions, leopards, and I forget the other one. You’ll see elephants, they’re everywhere. (Maybe the other of the “Big Three” is rhinos.) We didn’t see any of those three things. What we saw were hippos, many kinds of antelope, Cape buffalo, zebras, jackals, hyenas (oooooh – in the wild they’re gorgeous), little things called Bush Babies, a cheetah with 2 cubs, and hundreds of birds. Elephants and lots of giraffes; ostriches. This was in Botswana.
Get the BRADT Travel Guides to Botswana, Zambia, S Africa, Kenya, Tanzania… or cruise through the guides in the store. Do a LOT of research!! It makes a difference.
In terms of safety, it’s not in the best interests of the tour companies to have their clients eaten, so they’re very careful with you. If you want stories, I’ll tell more in private – I don’t want to bore everyone else. But even your beach lovers
would enjoy this. There’s a lot of downtime in the evenings watching what they call “bush TV”, which means sitting around a campfire talking with the guides, and drinking really terrible cordials (and beer). Now that’s a good time.