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Kenya & Tanzania Safari 2025

Rodney

My spouse and I are considering the Kenya & Tanzania Safari in 2025. My spouse has mild scoliosis and pain in her lower back due to deteriorating discs. We are wondering about the arduous nature of the game hunts and 4-wheeler treks in order to determine potential discomfort in light of the physical conditions described above. Any insight derived from your experiences would be appreciated. Thank you!

Comments

itskr

I have lower back issues. I did bring a blow up cushion, but never used it. Be aware the ride can be very rough. I have mild scoliosis and arthritis in my lower back. I don't have disc issues . It's really hard to say how rough the rides will be. There are a lot of deep ruts in the roads

Sealord

We have done this trip three times. My wife just had an injury of some sort that we have not sorted out. So our fourth trip is in jeopardy. Her problem would be sitting in an airplane or a safari vehicle for many hours. You do not have to do all of the game drives. It is a beautiful trip. Many of the drives are required to stay on roads that are not smooth. If you are not comfortable doing a speed bump, forget about it. The normal game drive is a thousand speed bumps.

I probably should have said doing speed bumps without slowing down.

British

There are no game ‘hunts’. 😀. Safari vehicles are usually converted Toyota Landcruisers. As stated above, you never know how the roads may be
I suggest consulting with your doctor.

AlanS

Rodney
April 13

Classifying the routes taken during game drives as "roads" is rather kind, and a bit of a stretch. Most, except those near the camps are nothing more than unimproved dirt tire paths, some with significant ruts, pot holes (some deep ones disguised as puddles), and very irregular terrain. The "puddle" shown was deep, deeper than 1 ft. and a tractor was needed to pull us out. Everyone had to get out of another vehicle in the same spot. I don't know if the passengers avoided getting their feet wet and muddy. After being alerted to game via radio, the drivers will race off via the shortest path to get there before other vehicles.

As British says, consult with your doctor. The husband of a forum participant, had to be medevaced due to back issues aggravated by the game drives. They ended up arranging their own flights home because there was some issue causing delay with the Tauck medevac. He was transported, surrounded and stabilized by pillows in the back of a safari vehicle during the 25 mi. / 55 min. drive from the Four Season Serengeti to the Seronera airstrip. The airstrips are mostly dirt and the aircraft small. I don't remember if they eventually were medevaced via Nairobi or Cape Town. You might want to PM mazalea.

senorai

Rodney, we did a Tauck South Africa/Botswana trip as well as a Wilderness Safari Namibia trip. We did not encounter "speed bumps" at all such as above. Husband has similar issues to your wife. Perhaps time of year makes a big difference as the photos above look like rainy season.

Kazootripper1

As I type this I’m sitting in the Nairobi airport finishing up our K&T Classic tour. Through out the tour I thought how best to describe the “roads”. As others have said, they are mostly poor, rutted dirt tracks. On multiple days I was able to log 800+ calories burned and 45+ minutes of exercise on my Apple Watch mearly sitting in the Landrover. We survived but some days were brutal. The last day, ballon ride, it was over 2 hours of pounding. Consult your doctor as others have advised, but be aware there are few times that they are not bumpy. Cushions help, but mine did little to mitigate that last ride. Great trip otherwise. Wonderful up close views of animals and some truly once in lifetime experiences .

rwilso15

I just got back from K&T on 9/24/24 and what an experience! This is a great adventure and you will experience sights seen nowhere else in the world. But although you will be in the "Tauck Bubble" 100% of the time you will have to forgo some creature comforts like smooth tarmac roads to see what is to be seen. Roads can be like driving over 20 ft wide washboards with rocks embedded at times. Is that something you can endure? Only you with your doctors recommendation can make that determination. Having done it and experienced the "roads", I would sign up tomorrow to do it again. Its that good! Pictures of some of the highways and byways experienced attached for reference.

British

There are far more properly paved roads outside of the parks than when we first went to this area in 2007. Some are in far better condition than our major roads in Pennsylvania where there are large potholes all over. I believe it was the Chinese who financed the road building.
Namibian roads are almost all wide gravel roads, which when traveling in a jeep type vehicle at normal speed are very noisy. Fortunately our jeep had a microphone for the driver to talk to us, so it was not an issue and we loved the adventure.
On our summer trip to Tanzania, we organized a limo from our usual place to take all nine of us all the way to JFK. The limo service had combined with another company and they turned up with something that looked like one of those ‘buses’ that take you from the airport terminal to the airport parking areas. The roads from us, north west of Philly to JFK were so bumpy and the bus rattled so much, I exclaimed it was worse than our upcoming safari….and it was and not even any animals to see.
Africa, a great adventure! Make it your next vacation while you can!