May ’12  from Florida South Africa Botswana Victoria Falls

Hi Stephen:

If this is too long, you can edited it.  Hope this works out for your newsletter.

As I told my husband, for my 60th birthday, we plan to go back to Africa and do the large migration.  We have 4 years to save and plan.  Talk to you in 3 years, ( I’d like to have a year to plan)

At Victoria  Falls

Going to Africa has always been a long time dream for my husband and I.  Although my husband and I have been all over the world, Africa was  the last continent to be explored.

 Since Africa is such a large continent and we knew so little about it, and most of our friends have never been to Africa, we started to explore possible Countries on the internet as well as tour companies that could help us.

My husband and I weren’t the usual American tourists, we never liked to take tours that we felt like cattle, being herded from one tour bus to another, so we decided that we would do an independent tour.

 We realized this would be a daunting task of planning 3 weeks and covering the highlights within this time frame. We wrote to several companies, and Stephen from Go2SouthAfrica, was one of the first and only tour companies to write to us back so promptly.

 We were impressed with Stephen’s knowledge of Africa and especially since he was South African, we decided we would visit South Africa being the main country of our 3 week stay.

 From the beginning of our planning up to the end of the tour, Stephen’s help and guidance with the planning was invaluable.  Although he was thousands of miles away,( he spends part of the time in Oregon and part in South  Africa) he never failed to keep in touch with us via emails and Skype.

 And most important, he was very adept at keeping to our budget and never pressured us to do anything more than we could handle financially.

Needless to say, having almost a year to prepare for this trip, we had utmost confidence in Stephen’s choice of itinerary and accommodations.

 Our favorite part of the trip of course were the safaris.  The houseboat on the Chobe river was just amazing.  Everything was perfect, the staff, food, the boat. The two days were just so magical, being able to float on the river and just admire the beauty while relaxing on the river.

The land safari at Sabi sands was also wonderful.  We couldn’t get over the quality of the staff, food and just overall friendliness.

All the hotels outside of the safari experience were also wonderful.  Each had it’s own unique style and decor.  We loved the variety of hotels and locations.

 The ones on the beaches, Umhmalanga and Jeffreys Bay were one of our favorites for the location and views of the ocean.

We also enjoyed all our guides on our personal tours, they were always on time and did their best to provide us with a lot of interesting and helpful information.

  South Africa is definitely one of the best countries to visit; especially for the first time American visitor.  It has so much to offer, landscape, good infrastructure, English being the main language, abundant wildlife and most of all friendly, hardworking people.

 We loved our trip so much, that Africa has become one of our favorite trips ever and we can’t wait to go back.

Having Stephen and his company as your “guide”, you won’t be disappointed.

Sally and Rico