A peek at the Nimali safari experience

What are safaris with vuga like? Well, we've dubbed them "Luxury Travel" and have adopted this as our new Nimali mantra - making sure every safari is packed with "sense-sational" experiences that leave guests madly in love with Tanzania, its people, and its breathtaking wilderness areas. This is why we give a guide to some of the things you can expect to see, hear, taste, touch and smell on our Mt Kilimanjaro, Serengeti and Mara pages.

So, let's delve into what makes a safari for the senses and what you can expect to feel when you're out in the wilds of Tanzania with vuga!

The magic of the African wilderness...

There's something inherently mysterious about Africa that stirs up a longing to explore her legendary landscapes and encounter her charismatic wildlife, triggering a secret wanderlust in all of us! The notion of "wild Africa" is hard to resist, but in our experience the expectation of it is always surpassed by the reality! In other words, being on safari is nothing like you imagine it to be. It's SO much better!

Africa has away of getting under your skin, bombarding your senses with pure, unadulterated magic that leaves you feeling as if you've just woken up from a long sleep and discovered how incredible life really is. And how everything you thought was important is, actually, not even remotely so.

This feeling of awakening is like a lightbulb going off in your brain as you leave urban existence behind and arrive at your Nimali lodge and start to connect with the world around you in new and exciting ways. It's a "wow" moment that we really love to share with you as you take that first, proper look out over the endless wilderness around you and realise that you're far from home, but somehow "home" nonetheless!

This is when your senses begin to adjust to everything around you, heightening imperceptably to the new environment of raw, untamed, natural beauty. It's like a fog clears from your brain and all of a sudden, colours seem more vibrant, sounds more resonant and smells more fragrant. All of which triggers amazing emotions of wellbeing and happiness! Which is why a safari is renowned as being truly good for the soul!

By the time we've settled you in and you're heading out on your first game drive, you're head over heels in love with Africa and excited at the prospect of exploring more of it.

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Leaving normal behind

At Nimali we don't do normal. We prefer exceptional, which is why we focus everything at our disposal to ensuring your safari is truly superlative through experiences that involve all of your senses. It's not until you come on safari with us that you realise just how little you actually use your senses in everyday life. They become numbed by the daily routines our lives are built around, so when you are suddenly as far as it's possible to get from those routines, it can be quite a shock to the system. But it's a good shock and one that feels incredible.

These days our eyes are used to focussing on screens of various sizes, so when confronted with Tanzania's vast landscapes for the first time it's not unusual to feel visually overwhelmed. Taking the enormity of everything seems hard but your eyes quickly adjust and go into "panorama" mode, picking out the awe-inspiring details of the wilderness around you, from colours and hues to patterns and textures.

Ears that have been bombarded with untold decibels of ambient noise for most of their lives are suddenly bewildered by silence before they begin to pick out the subtleties of the African bush - a soft breeze moving through tall grasses, the call of a bird and chirp of a grasshopper.

Gone are the smells of concrete and traffic and the untold pollutants so prevalent in cities, replaced with nature's scents - warm earth, fragrant plants, animal musk... You're feeling unfamiliar textures all around you - rock, sand, bark, rich leathers and woven fabrics, the warm African wind and intense sunlight on your skin... And your palate is delighted with new flavours that speak to the rich diversity of Africa and her people.

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Authentic, immersive and fabulous!

Nimali's Luxury Travel ethos is forged in our commitment to offering genuine Tanzanian hospitality in truly remote wilderness areas that effortlessly connect guests to Mother Nature in all her wild glory.

We like to think we do this with no small amount of flair and style, adding luxurious elements that complement the natural beauty all around us without overwhelming it or stifling it.

A Nimali safari is a celebration of our Tanzanian heritage and culture and is as much about our people as it is about the environment around us. Perhaps the most important sense we focus on is our sense of belonging to one, global family united by love for one another and the planet beneath us. When you come on safari with us, you become part of the Nimali family too and will always have a place in our hearts.