How Micato Safaris Defines Luxury

Luxury means many things to many people. It’s hard to define what we consider luxury. I guess if I had to come up with one word, it would be stressless. We’ve looked at every stress point on our trips and tried to eliminate them, and that’s for many of our travelers, that’s the ultimate luxury, to leave behind all of the stress that we have back home and come on a trip on a safari on a vacation and not have stress. A safari really is a a timeless experience. The fantastic wildlife, the incredible landscape, seeing Africa for hundreds of miles with nothing in front of you, landscape and wildlife. All of that is very timeless, and then you sort of juxtapose into that with a new element. The tented camps, these tents are really a very large hotel room, just made with canvas walls. The cuisine, which obviously is in a whole different level now. How much to tip someone, when to tip, that’s all taken care of. You don’t have to worry about bringing too much because we provide laundry every day whenever you need it. So many of these friction points in a vacation, we try to eliminate, which maximizes your time with your family, with your loved ones, so you really can reconnect. Every little detail gets examined as we put together these somewhat complex safaris. We have people in every lodge that our guests are going to visit on a weekly basis. We don’t occasionally send someone to look at a lodge. What it is is five decades of refining our craft, and we can anticipate the needs of our travelers before they have those needs. For example, having a Micato safari director, a guide, going with you throughout your trip. So if you have a dietary preference, you’re not spending every meal discussing that with the kitchen. So then, of course, we hire the very finest safari directors. These are individuals that not only point out the big mammals, but also point out the incredible bird life that we have, the incredible insect life, the life of the dung beetle, for example. They have great stories to tell, and they’re great raconteurs. They’re full time with us. We don’t work with freelance guides. And then when you have people who work with you full time, you can invest in them to make sure that they’re really the best of the best. Recently, I was on a trip, the driver said, Let’s just wait here. I think something’s about to happen. She looks like she’s about to give birth, and then before we knew it, the mother elephant gave birth to a little baby. Now, that’s something you don’t really see very frequently because you don’t necessarily have great guides like we do who can understand animal behavior and then pace your trip to match what might happen, and those are those special moments that we just can’t predict. It’s not just about the wildlife. It’s about the culture and the experiences that you have on a safari. Our travelers get to visit the villages and markets. There’s a lot of opportunity beyond just a wildlife experience when you travel with Micato. It’s just the luxury of the experience. The ability of our guides to know when to provide an experience and to know when to pull back and to just give you the opportunity to sit there quietly observing Africa, observing the wildlife just without sound. And that’s something we take for granted. The constant noise that we have. Right? And and most of us live in cities, and then you come to Africa, and it’s complete silence. And the skies are as big as you can see, and the stars as bright as ever. And you don’t have ambient light coming into your photographs at night. It’s spectacular photography, spectacular sounds and sights and smells. And when it rains in Africa, you can smell the rain. For me, I can’t get that living in New York City. It’s the smell of the earth when it rains. So those are very powerful emotions that are aroused when you’re in Africa, and that’s something that people come back talking about this, far I talk about the luxurious experiences, but in addition, all of the other factors that go into making this a very, very rich tapestry of a vacation for so many people.