What is the difference between parks and reserves

Therefore, day-trippers are not permitted to enter a reserve. As a result, the number of visitors allowed at any given time is kept relatively small.

Most lodges in Game Reserves use purposely built 4x4 jeeps that can handle the rough African terrain. Off-road driving is permitted, and your guide and driver will get you in the best place to have a mesmerizing wildlife encounter. Guided bush walks are also permitted in Game Reserves. You may go on a short walk close to the lodge or a longer one spanning some good hours — complete with a meal in the bush — or you can even spend several days on the trails.

In general, there are fewer safari tours taking place in Game Reserves, which allows visitors to freely experience the African wilderness. First of all, you need to decide whether you are willing to pay more for exclusivity and freedom.

If you are looking for a unique safari experience, you should book a lodge in a Game Reserve. Couples going on their honeymoon who want to be pampered and enjoy high-end accommodation should definitely stay at a lodge in a Game Reserve.

If you dream of a romantic sunset followed by a dinner in a bush, this is your best bet. Do note that National Parks offer a variety of accommodation options, from affordable campsites to high-end lodges and anything in between but the activities you can do during your stay are limited.

You are likely not able to go on a bushwalk in a National Park and the wildlife encounters are more fleeting. In many cases, you may end up scrambling to get a good photograph thanks to the many vehicles waiting for their turn at the wildlife encounter.

You may certainly opt to experience both and, as mentioned prior, you can do so by staying in a private conservancy adjacent to a National Park. On a budget? No worries, you can still experience a wildlife trip of a lifetime on an affordable safari in Africa.

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Australia India Nepal Sri Lanka. The extraordinary Rubondo Island in Lake Victoria was made into a haven for endangered chimpanzees. To most of us, a national park, game reserve, or conservancy are all the same. National parks are large, publicly-owned protected areas that usually cover vast distances. Due to their large size, national parks are home to a much larger number of wildlife and offer much more variety in terms of landscapes than a game reserve or conservancy would.

Game reserves are privately owned pieces of land whichmay also be maintained by governments or communities and aim to sustain largepopulations of wild animals. Selous Game Reserve : Roho ya Selous. Conservancies are pieces of land that are owned and then leased from local communities.

What makes a safari in a conservancy so special is the privacy and intimacy they offer. Conservancies only allow permitted vehicles that belong to the conservancy on safaris. This makes them National Parks very accessible to visitors. Most game reserves use purpose built 4X4s in order to traverse through the wild African terrain and get you into the best possible position to view the animals.

Private game reserves are just that, private. Private game reserves only allow game viewing vehicles from the lodges to be used, and the rules about where you can drive are very different from the rules at National Parks. In private game reserves, game viewing vehicles are allowed to drive off-road to allow guests to search for big cats or to track specific animals.

This means that at private game reserves you get to see amazing animal interactions that often occur out of sight of main roads and would definitely be missed at most National Parks. Unfortunately, visitors to a National Park have to abide by the rules that are set by the Park. Or if you wanted to see a Mara River crossing of the great migration you will have to venture into the national parks and its well worth it do so!

Keeping all this in mind what should you do? Stay in a national park or private concession? Why not share your time in between both and get the best that both have to offer. The great thing about booking your safari with a tailor made destination expert like Eclipse Travel is that we know all of the destinations, parks and reserves inside out, and can custom make the perfect trip that suits your interest and budget to make sure you have the most memorable African safari experience possible.

If you want to find out more about the destinations in this article, or have any questions in general please contact us.