Africa is an amazing place as all of us know. Sure it has a plethora of social challenges, but from a natural beauty perspective, it's tough to beat. Many hunters travel to and from the continent without seeing much more than the airports and hunting areas. Others spend time touring before/after the hunt as time allows.

So would you ever consider traveling to Africa on a non-hunting personal or family vacation?

We have done that as a family in Namibia where we rented a truck and put 1000 kilometers on it in 10 days. Best family trip ever. Don't think I would consider that type of trip anywhere else but Namibia. Maybe Botswana?

Yes I would like to especially Mana Pools but only if it is in a price range which I think reasonable.It would be a hunting like trip without my rifle obviously.Probably for only a week and for not more that 2000US total, meals and lodging included.I would take a lot of pictures but I would feel sad that I was not hunting.

A storied PH once told me that hunting is but a fraction of the total African experience. He should know.

Absolutely!

I was in Africa for 2 weeks this summer. I did shoot four animals. Although fun, it was only a small part of the experience.

I now have more fun seeing the country, culture, meeting new people, and spending the time with friends and family.

If I do return, I will probably just be an observer.

Don't believe we would. We too love the culture, the food, the people and experience but at the end of the day, we are there to hunt. Driving around looking at animals just isn't the same as actually getting out and tracking and walking and spotting. No doubt the hunt is a small part of the entire experience but to us it's a necessary one.

We went in Nov 2016 for the first time on a non-hunting trip and just loved it.

Loved it so much we are going again in Nov 2017, even though we were there in May hunting.

Sure, I have done the super cheap Overland Safaris, horseback safaris in Botswana and South Africa and a canoe safari down the Zambezi in Manna Pools. Getting chased by elephants while on horseback and charged by a hippo in a canoe is just as exciting as any hunting situation.

Maybe. There's a lot of the rest of the world I'd like to see.

Dave

Spent 3 weeks there in May. I bird hunted for 5 days but the rest was just sightseeing. Wife and I loved it.

My wife and I were in SA for two weeks last April. We did a lot of sightseeing, and she chose not to hunt. She was able to ride a horse on the beach in the Indian Ocean outside Port Elizabeth, and we both got "hugs" from a trio of young elephants at a posh photo safari lodge. I spent about 5 days hunting, took 6 animals, but the tourist stuff, and interacting with our host family were the highlights. We are already booked to go back in two years.

I've been to Africa 12 times. All on hunts. I wouldn't go on a non hunting trip. Just doesn't seem worth it to me to endure the long flight for sight seeing. I did some sight seeing and fishing for Tigers, on the Zambezi, on trips when I tagged out early. Both were fun but I wouldn't make the trip just for those activities.

No. I enjoy the sight seeing while I'm over there on a hunt but I would not endure the 16 hour flight plus the expense with out hunting.

Nyae Nyae bull elephant hunt raffle
https://www.tsumeb-gimnasium.c...hant-hunt-in-namibia

I do BOTH when I go, so the answer would be not likely.

That's like going to a restaurant without eating. What's the point? The intrinsic extras that Africa lends to a hunt are enhanced by the fact that we go there in pursuit of something. Would you go to a river in Alaska during salmon season, and not bring a rod? The answer to that is also no. Perhaps I would feel differently if I had been there many times, and pursued all the animals that are there to pursue, but sadly, that isn't the case.

Zero interest to go to Africa and not hunt. I'd gladly do a week of sight seeing before hunt. I'd really like to spend some time in the Okavango before my next hunt.

I've had really good bird hunts in Africa. I would go for a couple weeks of bird and waterfowl hunting.


Absolutely no interest to make that trip and not hunt.

No..

I rarely go anywhere I can't hunt.

Nope. We always plan some tourist things as well, but have no interest in going if we are not going to hunt.

No

I do not want to go anywhere I cannot hunt. It is the only thing I get to do because I just want to.

I have spent a bit over a year in Africa in the dozen or so trips that I have made. Only about a third of that time was spent hunting.

Africa is a fascinating place and I think that 95% of hunters miss out on about 95% of it.

A dozen years ago, my then-20-year-old granddaughter and I spent a month bouncing around RSA, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Swaziland. I'd hunted everything I ever wanted from southern Africa on previous trips, and the only animal I took with her was a red hartebeest for a braai on a friend's farm near Kimberley. She and I will always remember that wonderful month.

Bill Quimby

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
Africa is an amazing place as all of us know. Sure it has a plethora of social challenges, but from a natural beauty perspective, it's tough to beat. Many hunters travel to and from the continent without seeing much more than the airports and hunting areas. Others spend time touring before/after the hunt as time allows.

So would you ever consider traveling to Africa on a non-hunting personal or family vacation?

Taking the family in 2019. Nigel Theisen will pick us up in Joberg...we are then going to do Kruger, visit a place we both know just north of Beitbridge, go to Bubye Valley Conservency, then to Vic Falls...fly home fron the Falls.

Not likely.
I have been twice to hunt and did enjoy the sights, but I went to hunt and would not have gone otherwise.

quote:

I do not want to go anywhere I cannot hunt. It is the only thing I get to do because I just want to.

The only change I will make is that I will add fishing to the hunting.

If I can Fish or Hunt, I am okay. If I can do neither, I Do Not GO!!!!!

On almost every trip I have ever made, I have arranged things so I could do both.

My first reaction was; Not a chance.

Then I got to thinking, I went to RSA with my family in 2010 or so. We spent a week at a friends game farm, not hunting but visiting, doing game drives and just spending some time catching up.

My wife actually shot an Impala while there, her very first big game animal.

The second week or 10 days, we drove to Kruger Park. Being a hunter and not a very good tourist, I was not expecting to really enjoy myself. But man, was I surprised. I really had a great time and would do it again.

After Kruger, drove through some typical RSA tourist places. We saw Pilgrims Rest, the escarpment, all the waterfalls, the Blyde River Canyon, Rourke's Potholes and many other places along the way. I was very glad we saw the things we did.

Lots of things I've been fortunate enough to have seen whilst hunting as well, The Okavango Delta, Bangweulu Swamp, The Kafue Flats, the Bakos in CAR.

I've been a VERY fortunate man to have seen the things I've seen and done the things I've done.

I would say '"no" because ...

1. Wife has no desire to go to Africa. If we are going to a different country as a family, it's going to be a destination we would both enjoy. Pretty much all my extended family falls under this umbrella as well.
2. If I have non-family vacation time granted to me, it sure as heck isn't going to be spent alone on a photo safari. I'm going to some country where I can hunt. (If I was single, this would still be applicable too.)

Shooting critters > Not shooting critters

Fellas:

For the past few years I have enjoyed up to two weeks before or after a hunt to vacation. Before my hunt in South Africa with Mark Sullivan in July of 2018 I will spend two weeks in Zim seeing friends, seeing the country, shopping, etc. In 2019 it is planned for a full month in Zim and perhaps not hunting but just seeing the sights.

One reason I want to do this is I've read seveal travel books from the Southern Rhodesian days with lots of photographs and want to take pics myself to compare Zim then and the present. (It was an amazing country and economy).

As hunt prices rise and so many in the hunt and taxidermy business use very tactic in the book to separate hunters from their money, I'm leaning to more touring and less hunting in the 2020s. (Steve Ahrenberg's article The Client was an eye-opener).

Hunting or vacationing, it's all been great. I have no family to leave anyting to and, after a big sell off, I hope my blood pressure and bank account hit zero on the same day. Until then, my memories are priceless.
Cal
PS. One thing that I prefer not to do is to hunt with a rifle that is not my own. Renting rifles does not appeal to me.

Not a chance. I could go on a safari and not shoot anything and be fine with that but I cannot just go to go.

My wife refuses to go to the Dark Continent and my friends won't go unless we are hunting.

It is an awe inspiring place but other places would call more if I was not on safari.

Great question by the way.

Kabisa! In fact, I've thought about just that. I haven't spent enough time enjoying the other things available. Fishing, beaches, parks, and this year, an art gallery/antique shop in Arusha. Lots of nice stuff for a trophy room. Always wanted to go to Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia. Who needs Paris?

Lavaca,
Paris indeed!
I have made several trips there and much prefer Sydney , Australia.

Different strokes for different folks.

In the last decade my wife, Sandy, and I have spent nearly one year in South Africa and Namibia, not hunting. We find it to be a fascinating land. We hunt for a week and then explore the country for a couple of months. Sometimes with a guide and sometimes on our own. We seldom spend time in the bigger centres, unless it is to go to a museum or historical site. We have seen a lot of amazing places. We even went up the Sani Pass into The Kingdom of Lesotho once. We hid from a swarm of African Bees at the battle is Blood River site. Sandy stepped on a Spitting Cobra at the battle of Spion Kop site. We had lunch at Roarks Drift. We love exploring South Africa.

I could never understand how most hunters go to Africa and never take an interest in the land and it's people. From Soweto and KNP, to the bush and the colonial history, it's an awesome place. There is lots more for a North American to experience in South Africa besides hunting.

No, as simple as that

Two years ago whilst touring Kruger National Park with foreign clients we noticed a car with a single person in. He was looking into the bush but I couldn't make out a thing. So I asked him. Wild dogs he replied. I got very excited and after a few second I saw them sleeping in the tall grass.

He is from Fort Lauderdale, comes to South Africa four times a year. From the airport he flies straight into Kruger where he spends two weeks - then back to the US. And that he does since several years already. I wanted to know why he doesn't move to South Africa. Well, I love the US but I can't be without Kruger either. I still admire that person a lot, what a fine man.

http://www.kapstadt.de/schindlers-africa

Absolutely, husband did Kilimanjaro in 2013, I joined him afterwards for the Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti.

Not a chance.

Well, more than forty years have passed since I left Ethiopia and Kenya to start university. Only safari hunting brought me back, and that was to a new country, which absorbed my interest. South Africa has more "pull" now, and I have yet to show my wife where I grew up. On the other hand, the last safari (2007) was with my daughters and hunter wife. They enjoyed RSA. FB pics and others' trips back to Ethiopia have been enough for me so far...Kenya was never home.

Yes for sure. I am thinking about doing just that. My family loved the non hunting Zim trip in 2015. I would love to see more of Africa and I have shot everything on my list except Lion and I will never spend that much money on a hunt.
My daughter keeps finding these unbelievable airfares on good carriers to Nairobi, etc. for under $800 round trip, so maybe that is next.

If you couldn't hunt, could not care less about photographic safaris, etc. but an avid fisherman,
there are not many places that can compare Tiger fishing as on the Kilombero River in Tanzania.

Depends on what you mean by cannot hunt.

I could see myself going to Africa without hunting only if hunting was banned worldwide or I couldn't afford to hunt anywhere, but I could afford photosafari.

Unfortunately, to me what I have seen of photo camps it is way too processed an experience to me. Visit a tourist trap Masai village? No thanks... I have been to real ones.

If I couldn't hunt Africa, I would hunt somewhere else. If I burned out on hunting, it would depend on what my new interest was... if like some here it became fishing, sure a few weeks on the coast of Mozambique would interest me... but I can't see that happening. I do enjoy some things other than hunting on a trip over there, but just not as much as hunting.

And the countries that have banned hunting won't get my tourist dollar, despite the other interests I have as my personal protest.