South Africa Highlights & Safari Reviews

5 Rating 173 Reviews

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smarTours is a leading provider of direct-to-consumer, affordable travel experiences to exotic global destinations. The Company offers travelers curated, pre-packaged itineraries to over 50 destinations across the globe. By offering tours directly to consumers, the Company provides premium-quality experiences at value prices, and as a result, has cultivated a highly passionate and loyal community of repeat travelers. More than 200,000 travelers have taken a smarTours trip since the founding of the Company in 1996. smarTours is… the smarter way to see the world.

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Phone:

800-337-7773

Email:

info@smartours.com

Location:

500 7TH AVE, 8TH FL,
NEW YORK
New York
10018

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“I believe you already have the accommodation and transportation well cover. My believe is the tour guide is a very important part of the overall experience.”

Helpful Report

Posted 10 months ago

Thank you for sharing your feedback!

Posted 10 months ago

“I’m extremely thankful to my Tour Director Louis Lock. After using my credit card at an airport pharmacy, I thought I had put my credit card in my pocket book. We were going to board the plane in fifteen minutes when I realized I did not have my credit card. Louis ran up the escalator and retraced my steps, stopping at stores along the way was able to find my card-. It appears that I dropped it . A cleaning lady handed the card to Louis. Due to his quick thinking and movement, my card was returned to me. I an truly grateful. And cannot thank him enough. A great guy!”

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Posted 10 months ago

Wow! We are delighted to hear that Louis was there to save the day!

Posted 10 months ago

“Smartour Review In general, between my wife and me, we have enjoyed 7 or 8 Smartours, and they have all been excellent experiences including terrific guides. We were lucky on this trip as Jeremy Poole was by far the best guide we have ever had. He made it the most educational trip we have enjoyed. We learned all the natural history from geology to climate to all the animals and major plants we saw. Perhaps most important, the sad political history of South Africa was laid bare by Jeremy who carefully and dispassionately explained the history of South Africa as well as the other countries we visited such as Eswatini. My family of 9 plus 3 friends who had joined the trip constantly commented on the excellence of Jeremy’s lectures. Cape Town The first day was perfect as we toured the most interesting areas of the city leaning about the history. The cable car trip was fantastic, and Jeremy did a great job explaining the view and the unique geological and biological features of Tabletop. The trip through Bo-Kaap was also excellent and very informative. Finally, it was nice to have the chance to wander around the Waterfront. The second day was a long, wonderful excursion to the Cape of Good Hope with ample time to walk in several different places including the rare colony of African penguins. We then spent several hours in the amazing botanical gardens with Jeremy’s very enlightened and interesting leadership. He really is a natural teacher! The third day was mostly open but ended in what I consider a very rare opportunity for a tour such as this: a visit to a local family for dinner. One thing I most appreciate about Smartours is the fact that they make a real effort to include cultural experiences. This not only enriches the experience, it also serves a very important role in helping visitors truly understand a different culture. In our case the dinner with a local family was one of the real highlights of our trip. The food was excellent, and the host loquacious, extremely articulate and knowledge about the racial history of South Africa (his mother was white and his father ‘colored’) so he was able to offer a unique perspective of apartheid that we found fascinating. All of this was presented in good humor, and a great deal of knowledge about American history as well. It was a very successful experience and I applaud Smartours for including this as part of the package tour. The next day was a flight to Durban and an interesting day again made all the better by Jeremy’s enlightened narrations over a long bus ride to the Emdoneni Lodge where we stayed for two days. I want to praise the lodge and its staff for a wonderful stay. They prepared a very large birthday cake for my granddaughter and presented it with the entire staff coming out to sing to her. In addition, for a small fee, we were able to tour the various cat operations. I have long been interested in the smaller cats and this experience was a highlight for me. The next day included wonderful visit to a classical Zulu village where we learned a lot about their culture. Again, Smartours’ focus on cultural immersion was important and very well done. We then did a tour of Hluhluwe-Imfolozi park. I had never really heard about the park, but the tour was superb and included a large number of forest elephants and most amazingly, an almost never-ending exposure to white rhinos! On several occasions they grazed right up to the side of our vehicle. We also saw water buffalos, all sorts of antelopes and even a dung beetle that we watched. When we attempted to drive around its ball, it seemed to attack the vehicle and did not stop until we backed up, at which point it resumed pushing its ball off the road. The next day involved driving through the impoverished Swaziland (now Eswatini) that came to life via Jeremy’s excellent background lecturers. The lunch stop was interesting with good food and interesting things to see. We had been warned that Piggs Peak Hotel had suffered greatly from the pandemic, but we found it delightful. The smiling staff was unendingly helpful, and our group considered the hotel to be among the best. We stayed two nights at the Sabi River Sun Resort, an outfit that obviously caters to wealthy visitors to the Kruger Park. I found the hotel replete with a beautifully manicured golf course and very high-end cabins as well as the hotel itself to be disappointing. It is probably the only one available to Smartours, and it is professionally run, and is perfectly satisfactory for lodging. But we had been staying at hotels characterized by happy, always smiling and very helpful staffs, but in the two days I never saw single staff person smile, nor for that matter, the wealthy guests. The staff almost seemed proud of the fact that they have no ATM machine (the town is too far to walk for one), and our group was strongly of the opinion that the food here was by far the worst of the trip, overcooked and tasteless. But we had been advised to spend a little more to take one of the normal tour vehicles rather than the bus to see Kruker and that was VERY much worthwhile. The entire Kruker experience was every bit as good as advertised. It is a tremendous park with easily viewed animals, and the two days there were, next to Chobi, the highlight of the trip for us. The guides were extremely knowledgeable and helpful. Eventually we had to leave and move on to Johannesburg where we stayed at an excellent downtown hotel. The Johannesburg stay included another of Smartour’s brilliant cultural experiences. This included a long fascinating visit to Soweto and a long visit to Nelson Mandela/Apartheid museum. I considered that museum to be the most powerful museum experience in my 83 years. It alone is worth the trip! We paid for the Victoria Falls extension and Chobe River day, and they were very much worth the relatively small extra fee. Unfortunately Smartours did not include Jeremy, I think because we were one short of the 10 they wanted to include him. I think that was shortsighted of Smartours as we very much missed his commentary and his ability to make sure that we got what we paid for and that we knew about some of the extra tours available to us. The Victoria Falls Safari Lodge was spectacular. We all appreciated the wonderful staff, the view, and all the attention such as having mosquito nets set around our beds at night. I was fascinated with the monkeys playing on my balcony and we were all fascinated with the wildlife that accumulated at the small man-made lake in front of the lodge. The day long Chobe tour including land and river was by far the best day of the entire trip, and it is well worth a separate trip in my mind. We found an optional elephant package for an afternoon, and that too was one of the top highlights of our entire trip. It is expensive, but very much worth the cost. But the afternoon included opportunities to actually fondle the elephants to the extent that my family was able to get between massive ears and the body and stoke the ears. The elephants are in more or less natural settings (they were being rehab-ed in natural settings) and we were very much thrilled to be able to hand feed them special elephant treats. My only complaint is that they never send me the video I had purchased! To summarize, this tour and some of the optional tours we signed up for were lifetime experiences for all of us. I always marvel at how well Smartours manages to arrange the trips. The lodging is always excellent and the tour guides knowledgeable and very helpful. This is especially true of Jeremy, what an absolute treasure.”

Helpful Report

Posted 11 months ago

Wow! We are delighted to receive this detailed feedback Paul. Thank you for traveling with us!

Posted 11 months ago

“Jeremy Poole was an excellent and knowledgeable guide - perfect for my travels across South Africa. He knew the best places for meals, souvenirs, and shopping and always gave safety reminders. The dinner with a local family was memorable. A suggestion to attend a 14 course African meal with entertainment was worth every penny. The guides on three days of safaris were very well trained, so when a herd of elephants gave warning signs that they were NOT happy, the guide moved out of their path. This was a well organized trip giving us an overview of South Africa.”

Helpful Report

Posted 11 months ago

We are delighted to hear this! Thank you for traveling with us!

Posted 11 months ago

“Generally a great trip with some room for improvement - especially in the area of Optional Tours.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

Thanks for your feedback Gail!

Posted 1 year ago

“I highly recommend this tour”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

Thank you Linda!

Posted 1 year ago

“An eye-opening tour from beginning to final drop off at the airport. Wildlife viewing was spectacular. We saw the Big Five on two separate game drives. A bonus was the smaller 4x4 vehicles used. Everyone had a clear view of wildlife on both sides at all times. Never once did we feel our safety was at risk. Hotels were upscale and accommodations were roomy and generally up to date. Meals were tasty and typically offered several options. We came home with great appreciation for the work of the dedicated conservationists and the people of South Africa working for social and economic change in their country.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

Thank you for your lovely review Nancy!

Posted 1 year ago

“N/A”

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Posted 1 year ago