Planning a safari? Here’s what you should know before you go.

Safari tourism is bigger, pricier, and more popular than at any point in history.

Seventy-four million travelers visited Africa in 2024 with safari-hosting countries setting records, according to the most recently available tourism study, at press time. Average trip budgets are now around $6,000 per person—up 25 percent in recent years—and some of that revenue is funding social and environmental projects, including restoring farmland into wildlife habitats.

In Kenya alone, more than 230 conservancies protect roughly 34,000 square miles—over a tenth of the country, and home to nearly two-thirds of its wildlife—and many of these conservancies would not exist without tourism.

But going on safari doesn’t automatically translate to positive impact. According to Sue Snyman, an ecotourism researcher at African Leadership University, in Kigali, Rwanda, whether money benefits local communities and wildlife “varies considerably across countries in eastern and southern Africa,” she says. “Very few countries have a formal policy related to revenue-sharing.”

Her research has also found that ethical safaris “employ locally, build local capacity, and spend locally as much as possible,” she adds, but there are no formal requirements that lodge owners or tour operators give back to the communities where they’re based.

In fact, some types of safari tourism do the opposite, and from a simple Google search, it can be hard for travelers to figure out which is which. According to Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust founder Luca Belpietro, nearly every lodge or tour company promises virtually the same thing: that tourist bookings fuel conservation, uplift communities, and protect wildlife.

Belpietro’s company operates an air safari service and three lodges, which he sees as ways for outsiders to boost African communities through “fair partnership.” To demonstrate that partnership to guests, he pursued third-party validation, including a rating from Ecotourism Kenya.

He argues it can be hard for travelers to get a clear picture of a lodge’s impact, because “there is no independent body with real teeth” to audit hospitality-led conservation programs, he says. “The broader industry operates largely on the honor system.”

Snyman—also a vice-chairperson of a tourism commission at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global authority behind the Red List of endangered species—says asking tour operators about community and conservation projects and requesting policies could help a traveler decide where to book. But it doesn’t have to be intimidating. Here’s what we learned after talking to 40 safari operators.

1. They’re locally owned or locally accountable.

According to Africa conservation specialist Karl Langdon, who recently joined hotel portfolio Virgin Limited Edition as a regional director, one of the most important questions a traveler can ask before booking is about an operator’s ownership model. This determines who benefits from a traveler’s booking fees.

Lodges’ ownership models fall into two categories, Langdon explains. Some are located in national parks—state-managed lands—while others are located in conservancies. Conservancies may be community owned or privately owned (by a family or a foundation).

“National parks often protect critical biodiversity at scale,” Langdon says, while “private and community conservancies usually offer lower density tourism and more direct financial returns to local landowners.” In both models, “luxury is easy,” he says. “Stewardship is what counts.”

In Kenya’s Narok County, Maji Moto Maasai Cultural Camp is an example of the latter. Salaton Ole Ntutu has run the camp for more than 20 years. Tourism revenue from stays funds a school, a widows’ village, and initiatives protecting sacred lands and migrating elephants—priorities set by Ntutu, his family, and his neighbors. “Tourism only works,” he says, “if the land, wildlife, and community all benefit together.”

(See how nature is bouncing back in these rewilded landscapes)

2. They keep it small.

Another clear marker of ethics is the size of a hospitality operation: How big is the lodge and how many guests can be there at once?

Research links bigger guest footprints to worse outcomes for wildlife. A 2025 study found a decline in the population density of lions in the Maasai Mara as the number of tourism camps grew—a trend found to be independent of changes in prey or vegetation. Research into Mara cheetahs has found mothers in high-tourism areas raised fewer cubs, while African elephants’ stress hormones were 112 percent higher in months with higher tourism. 

Conservancies tend to have much lower guest density than national parks, with their stricter caps on safari vehicles and guests. On and around Kenya’s Laikipia Plateau, several adjacent conservancies operate at low-density benchmarks across a contiguous wildlife corridor.

Among these is Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, which holds a rare combination of UNESCO World Heritage Site status and IUCN Green List designation. At Lewa Wilderness—the ranch the Craig family turned into a conservancy in the 1980s—the benchmark is that 30 beds or fewer is “top quality”; 50 is “acceptable,” according to Will Craig. For the guest-to-conservation-area ratio, he says 400 acres per guest is “top of the line.” These numbers, Craig says, allow them to “leave room for the wildlife.”

Nearby, private conservancy Ol Jogi has a camp that operates an exclusive-use model: just one party at a time (a minimum of four people at $4,500 per person) on the 58,000-acre property. At capacity, there are more than 2,000 acres per guest.

The tourism model exists, according to owner Alec Wildenstein Jr., specifically and exclusively to “fund the conservation efforts,” which employ 300 staff and include a wildlife rescue center and a Montessori school for more than 200 local students—numbers laid out in Ol Jogi’s annual report.

Borana Lodge, on the neighboring Borana Conservancy, says they allow four vehicles on the conservancy’s 32,000 acres at any given time, compared to dozens of vehicles per sighting that may be present in national parks. Additionally, they say they put 24 percent of guests’ published nightly rate toward conservation initiatives.

“When clients ask ‘How many vehicles will we see?’ or ‘How exclusive is this area?’, those are impact questions in disguise,” says Reverie Safaris’ Hans Arnesen, whose company curates safaris at properties across 13 African countries. “Low-density tourism and well-managed protected land are what make those outcomes possible.”

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3. They offer proof.

The final filter is whether a lodge or travel company can back up its claims. Some brands post detailed annual reports. Others seek certifications from independent accountability organizations like B Corp, 1% for the Planet, and The Long Run. These organizations audit a brand’s impact and validate the claims they make, and as Long Run’s Rosie Stubbs puts it, membership can indicate the property is willing to be part of “a global community where impact is regularly reviewed, challenged, and strengthened.”

“A property can lose its designation if it no longer meets the expectations of the community, for example, if its practices shift away from conservation and community benefit, if harmful or extractive activities are introduced, or if impact claims are found to be misleading,” Stubbs says.

“Self-published reports can offer useful insights,” she adds, but “independent certification introduces external scrutiny and clear benchmarks.”

(Everything you need to know before booking your first African safari)

These third-party stamps of approval are a good start, Snyman says, but she flags there are “still some issues with equitable distribution and effective management.” Even without them, Nkuringo Safaris’ Lydia Eva Mpanga says, there is still a simple rule of thumb.

Mpanga began offering Uganda walking safaris from a community campsite almost 20 years ago, and she’s seen many new providers enter the space. “If the sustainability section of the operator’s site doesn’t have recent photos, figures, or audit results from the last 12 months,” she says, “it’s probably just marketing.”

Operators acknowledge that these factors—low density especially—come with a serious price tag. At responsible properties, price is driven by the work being funded. “One thing people often underestimate is the cost of silence,” says Joe Cloete of South Africa’s Shamwari Private Game Reserve. “Keeping a reserve quiet, wild, and safe is an expensive, 24/7 military-grade operation.”

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“When guests choose a responsible operator, they aren’t just paying for a sunset gin-and-tonic,” Cloete continues. “They are paying for the boots on the ground that ensure those rhinos are still there when the sun comes up the next morning.”