2012 Tauck Africa tours and safaris are compelling and intriguing, from the Great Pyramids to the savannahs of the Serengeti. Adventures include hot-air ballooning over African plains, cruising the River Nile, game drives in legendary game reserves, and a camel ride in Egypt. From King’s Tut’s tomb to Victoria Falls, the Sphinx to a pride of lions in the Masai Mara, a tea demonstration at a private home in a Moroccan Berber village to a wine-pairing dinner in the Cape Winelands, these Tauck journeys and safaris are the best in Africa tours today!
On a big game safari in 1956, film star William Holden stayed at an inn on the slopes of Mt. Kenya whose view from the veranda so enchanted him that he bought the place. The Mount Kenya Safari Club attracted glitterati from all over the world, but Holden turned its attention from hunting to conservation (what he called the greatest work of his life), establishing a preserve, an “animal orphanage” and an education/ research center dedicated to saving endangered species. The Club is one stop on Tauck Tours Kenya safari, where you can visit the orphanage, stay at the famous inn, and take in that life-changing view.
Soweto began as a swath of makeshift hostels and matchbox houses for African who worked in – but were not allowed to live in – wealthy, colonized Johannesburg during the years of apartheid. But dirt-poor Soweto (an acronym for South Western Township) grew into a cultural juggernaut – a world trendsetter in pop music, fashion, dance, and theatre – a hotbed of activism, and a powerful force for change. With a population of 1.3 million, it’s still considered “the heartbeat of the nation,” and you can tap the unique vibrancy in its public spaces, cafes, markets, shebeens, historic sites like the Nelson Mandela house and Freedom Square, and at a youth dance performance celebrating local traditions.
Stone Town is one half of the capital city of Zanzibar (the other half being N’gambo, meaning The Other Side), but such a plain descriptive name hardly does justice to the Arabic, Indian, Persian and European influences in its great mansions of faded colonial glory, like the Sultan’s Palace and The House of Wonders museum of latticeworks and verandas, or rambling cobblestone streets lined with elaborately carved doors hiding secret gardens and courtyards. They might have named it Spice Town, after the island nation’s chief export, but some who frequent the beaches plainly call it Paradise.
Although not all information is published online yet, reservations are open for Tauck 2012 Africa tours. We anticipate having tour dates published online by the end of June, however you can use the 2011 itineraries for reference.
Tanzania: Serengeti to Zanzibar
South Africa: An Elegant Adventure
Kenya & Tanzania: A Classic SafariTanzania: A Grand Family Safari
Tanzania: A Grand Safari
Tauck’s in-depth African safari through Tanzania offers outstanding wildlife viewing of Africa’s Big Five on game drives that take you from Tarangire National Park to the famed Serengeti.