Marula Hill
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Marula Hill · Field Notes
If you're new, start here.
Six pieces from the journal. The ones we'd hand you if you walked into the office and asked what kind of safari company we actually are.
They aren't a checklist. They are how we think.
Read in order, or wander.
Vikki & Sian
These are the six we keep sending to first-time visitors. Not necessarily our most-read.
Lodges aren't hotels.
A lodge doesn't sell you a room. It sells you access to the wilderness around it.
Cape Town, after.
The bush gives you a piece of South Africa. Cape Town gives you the rest.
The whole family, one address.
One villa, one vehicle, one guide. The seventy-five-year-old and the seven-year-old, both at home.
A safari for one.
Why a safari is the easiest way to travel alone, especially as a woman.
A safari by birdsong.
Seven hundred and fifty bird species. Carmine bee-eaters in their thousands. A different way to read the bush.
Yours, for the week.
When the vehicle waits for you and the chef knows your name.
Shape your safari
Give us a starting point
If you have read this far and still are not sure which of those six is yours, this is the shortest route in. Five questions about who is travelling and what you want the days to feel like.
It takes about a minute. What comes back is not a quote, it is the shape of a trip we think would suit you, and it tells us where to begin.
What does it cost to work with Marula Hill?
Our answer
There is no planning fee. Our commission comes from the lodges we book, and we are lodge agnostic: we recommend what suits you, not what pays us most. Tell us your dates, your budget window and what matters most, and we will tell you what is actually possible.
Why a small agency over a large operator?
Our answer
Large operators are excellent at logistics and indifferent to who you are. When you call a big company, you speak to whoever is rostered that day. When you write to us, you speak to Vikki, Sian or Roxanne. The same small team who plan your trip remember your daughter is nervous in small aircraft, that you do not eat shellfish, that you wanted to be back at the lodge before the evening drive. That continuity is the entire product.
We are travelling with children. Can you plan a family safari?
Our answer
Family safaris are a specialism. The work is in knowing which lodges properly welcome younger guests, which build the day around families, which have children's programmes that are more than a colouring book at turndown. There are also lodges we steer families away from, beautiful on paper but built for adult quiet. We know which is which.
What happens if something goes wrong while we are on safari?
Our answer
You have our direct line throughout the trip. Weather delays, missed connections, a lodge that is not what we promised it would be, a medical issue. We have handled all of these. The advantage of working with people who know the lodge managers, the regional airlines, and the on-the-ground operators is that things get fixed before they become problems. The phone gets answered.
How far in advance do we need to book?
Our answer
For peak season (June to October) and Africa's most exclusive lodges, twelve to eighteen months ahead is ideal. That said, we are also specialists in finding extraordinary last-minute availability: cancellations and special release rates that give clients access to lodges well outside their usual budget window. If you have a specific trip in mind, tell us now and we will tell you honestly what is achievable.
Start a conversation.
When you are ready to plan something specific, or want to talk it through. No deck. No pressure.
GUIDES
How safari pricing actually works
GUIDES
When to go on safari in South Africa
GUIDES
