Traveling 9 to 5

Changing how you spend your 9 to 5

  • About
  • Destinations
    • RTW
      • 2012 RTW Itinerary
      • Our 2012 RTW Packing List
    • Africa
      • Botswana
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
    • Asia
      • Cambodia
      • Hong Kong
      • Indonesia
      • Laos
      • Singapore
      • Thailand
      • Vietnam
    • Europe
      • Spain
    • North America
      • Costa Rica
      • Mexico
      • United States
    • South America
      • Argentina
      • Brazil
      • Ecuador
      • Peru
  • Travel Resources
  • Eat
  • Exercise

Photo Essay: A Day on an African Safari

July 25, 2012 by Caroline Eaton 4 Comments

5:30 AM – This is actually a late wake up for most safari-ers. Some private lodges and organized tours will get you up at 4 AM to start viewing the animals at their most active times. Our personal self-drive safari was more realistic with a 5:30 AM alarm…and even this was pushing it, but we never had trouble seeing animals every morning!

Our morning brew

We would always boil water first and make sure we got at least one morning cup of coffee and then we would start packing up the tent (almost always in the dark). This became such a routine we started timing ourselves and got pretty quick by the end of our trip.

Camping at African Ranches Traveling 9 to 5
Try to put this away in the dark!

6:00 AM (ok, most likely 6:15 or 6:30) – We get in our car and leave for our morning game drive. We would always have a destination picked out, usually a waterhole or other good starting point. If you are driving yourself and are nervous about not seeing animals because you don’t have a guide, DONT BE. We did 95% of our drives on our own for 3 weeks and saw hundreds of animals up close and saw just about every animal we hoped to see!

We saw many beautiful zebra, they are one of our favorites
An ornery hippo on the banks of the Chobe
Kudu, with its beautifully twisted horns

8:30 AM – Round two of coffee and some breakfast. During our drive we came across designated Stretch Points where you are supposedly safe to get out and walk around. We would use these areas for mid-morning breaks to get some extra coffee and make a quick breakfast (usually oatmeal).

A helpful sign in the middle of the wild

We always took full advantage of photo opportunities during our stretch breaks. 🙂

A cart-a-wheel-er spotted in the wild

10:00 – 11:00 AM – The animals are less active during the heat of the day so no use in wasting your gas, we would head back to camp around this time. Since you woke up early now is your time to take a quick nap, sleep when the animals sleep! We were pretty bad about this, and sometimes would drive until 2 in the afternoon.

Mid-day at the campsite

12:00 PM – Eat lunch. We always kept it simple, in a few weeks we will post some of our camping recipes for you…get excited for bean, rice and noodle dishes! 🙂

Caroline can do wonderful things with just one pot

2:00 PM – The showers are heated by solar power, so the middle of the day is the best time to shower. If you wait too late the hot water might run out or too early and it hasn’t reheated from the night before. This was always a great time for us to shower before leaving on our evening drive!

Solar cells at Ngepi camp in Namibia

3:30 PM – Leave for an evening drive. Once again, waterholes are always great places to start. We would always check with the guards at the gates to find out what has been spotted and where it was. Usually if you start driving around, other guides or fellow self-drivers will point you in the right direction if there is anything exciting walking about. A couple times we were alerted to prides of lions or a leopard and raced in the direction of the predators.

The always curious ostrich
Elephants going for a dip
You HAVE to see a giraffe drinking from the river!

6:30 PM – Depending on how far we had driven, we would sometimes have an hour drive or more to get back to camp. There aren’t any lights in the park and when the sun goes down it gets dark really fast. We figured “not driving at night” was just a recommendation, but quickly realized how dangerous it would be with all the unpredictable animals around. Plan to be back at your campsite before sunset.

One of the many spectacular African sunsets

7 PM – Get the fire started and begin cooking dinner. While Josh started the fire, I would open the tent and get the blankets up. Dinner was usually some type of meat we found at the grocery (if the fire was good enough), a rice or veggie side dish and a cold beer or glass of wine to end the evening.

Beef brisket over the campfire
A cool beverage to end the day

9 PM – In winter, it gets cold fast. Once we ran out of firewood for the night we would retire to our tent to keep us warm. If going to bed at 7:30 PM isn’t your thing, you’ll want to buy a lot of firewood.

Success!

Try not to leave the tent until morning, and then start all over again!

How did your safari days look? Is this what you imagined a safari to be?

Filed Under: Africa, Botswana, Self-Drive Safari

Comments

  1. Chuck says

    July 25, 2012 at 11:50 am

    Great story telling and I love the pictures….I can feel the day like I was there!!

    Reply
    • Caroline says

      July 26, 2012 at 7:55 am

      We loved our daily routine! There are plenty of more photos where those came from 🙂

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Travel Interview With Traveling9to5 says:
    September 3, 2012 at 10:01 am

    […] best experience on the road was our recent self-drive safari through Botswana and Namibia. We honestly had no idea what we were getting ourselves into and no […]

    Reply
  2. World Travellers: Caroline Eaton from Traveling 9 to 5 says:
    April 22, 2014 at 5:27 pm

    […] rented a truck and drove ourselves through Botswana and Namibia in Southern Africa on a self-drive safari. We camped for over 3 weeks and drove through the bush completely terrified since we are both from […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Follow Us!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Categories

Advertisement

Advertise Here
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Featured Links

Hosting by Bluehost
  • Archives
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Inspire
  • Travel
  • Photography

Copyright © 2025 · Modern Portfolio Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in