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No matter how fast the world turns, there’s wonder awaiting on a Micato safari. The golden beams of first sunlight on the savannahs. The first majestic appearance of an elephant… and then the second, the third, the ninth, and so on. With astonishing regularity, being whisked by your Micato Safari Director to the right place at the right time to witness, say, a mama zebra giving birth from beginning to end (more on that later).
Micato opens the door to these moments of wonder and arranges for you to do the wondrous, which may also include hiding out in a private estate like the one above, helicoptering to an otherwise inaccessible mountain, and then, because you can, riding a bike along the glorious mountain trails. And, of course, every day during our 60 years on safari, we’ve orchestrated game drives, morning, afternoon, and night, arranged up-close-and-personal encounters with majestic mountain gorillas, impish penguins, soul-eyed rhinos, and multitudes more safari animals great and small.
These and other adventures comprise the 2025 Micato Hot List, incomparable safari experiences made more so because they’re conceived and designed with the signature style and unsurpassed service that have inspired Travel+Leisure readers to vote Micato Safaris the #1 World’s Best Safari Outfitter a record-breaking 10 times.
Enjoy.
There’s something undeniably magical about having an entire safari villa to yourself, which is why, for a second year in a row, we unreservedly pilot this experience to the #1 spot on the Micato Hot List.
It’s not just the privacy of these estates—it’s the sense of ease, of being completely at home in the wild, with every detail personalised just for you, every need and want either tended to or anticipated by your Micato Safari Director and, in many cases, butlers, housekeepers, private chefs, and other doting members of your household staff.
And then there are the views, like those of the Borana Conservancy from Laragai House. Built as a country retreat for the brothers Valentine and Michael Cecil, both British lords, the house is an amalgam of aristocratic elegance and no-nonsense comfort and, like all the other dwellings in Micato’s carefully selected roster of Private Villas & Estates, is both exclusive-use and defined by thoughtful luxuries.
Laragai House, like many of the safari villas we love, has a private pool very enviably situated. Take a moment to imagine yourself here. We’ll wait.
Here poolside or perhaps in your firepace-equipped drawing room or on your secluded outdoor veranda you can partake of local delicacies prepared by your private chef and, we’ll suggest, sip a perfectly French pressed-cup of Kenyan coffee, as you try to decide if tomorrow morning before your game drive you should head to the on-site gym for a workout. Or get in a game of tennis with your family on your private court, or maybe both. Decisions, decisions, all of them the good kind.
We especially love the private villa experience for multigenerational families or groups of friends seeking to make the most of their time together. A milestone celebration to mark those “big” birthdays and anniversaries coming up in your family. That long-overdue reunion of the Special People in Your Life–and only those people, no other travellers getting into your pool or your business so that you can prolong the precious Just Us vibe you have with your loved ones: This is where the exclusivity and comfort of a private safari villa especially shines.
From the Winelands of South Africa to the heart of the Serengeti and beyond, we’re certain we can help you pinpoint a private safari villa to your liking. Together we’ll find one that suits you and arrange to whisk you there in true Micato Private Custom Safari style.
If you’re reading this article, we’ll hazard a guess that you’re a flier who has seen land from the sky a fair amount, and have perhaps thought, “interesting,” or, “neat.”
This is not that.
Seeing our safari lands by helicopter safari has rendered many a Micato guest almost breathless as they cut through our fantastically huge skies and soar above the mountains, valleys, and streams, the beguiling patchwork of unspoiled conservation areas… and for adventure-seekers and fitness enthusiasts looking to level up their helicopter safari experience, we’ve got two hyphenated words for you:
Heli-biking.
You read that right. A Micato Safari Specialist can tailor-make an experience for you in the sky: taking a helicopter in style to a remote, pristine landscape to cycle in a world that feels like your very own.
Pilots for these adventures, naturally, are seasoned–some have chartered the likes of David Attenborough and National Geographic explorers–and after flying you to a remote spot, you’ll alight along a trail by bicycle, guided, of course, by an expert who has been here before and is beyond excited for you to be among the lucky few to see it.
You might cycle through the stunning Chyulu Hills, passing by volcanic hills and ancient lava flows, spying giraffes and zebras with the mighty Mount Kilimanjaro in the background. Or the Loisaba Conservancy, biking over rolling hills and amid acacia forests, keeping an eye out for elephants, gazelles, maybe a painted dog or two. But the ultimate adventure: alight on the lower reaches of the continent’s second-tallest peak, to spend a morning cycling on Mount Kenya itself.
For more about heli-biking and other worthy pursuits we like for families on safari, peruse the Four Best Graduation Safari Experiences to Book Now.
Let’s be clear: Quiet wasn’t perfected in our safari lands. It was invented here.
It’s not a scientific fact so much as a collective hunch we’ve developed during 60 years on safari, that Quiet found its sweet spot on our savannahs during a time of year so special that we gave it a name: Quiet Season.
Spanning November and March–though excluding the busy December holiday pocket–Quiet Season is when fewer people tend to travel internationally. There are significantly smaller number of travellers in our airports, towns, and most definitely in our gamelands. It is a marvellous time to be on a Micato safari: As always, temperatures are moderate, the savannahs are lush, and the landscapes and sunsets are breathtakingly vivid.
During Quiet Season, you will also witness many wildebeest, zebras, and antelopes calving, along with elephants and lions, who give birth year-round.
Our Micato Safari Directors, as indefatigable and knowledgable as they are gracious and kind, will, as always, be by your side every step of the way and, along with your driver-guide and whomever else is lucky enough to be with you, may be the only other humans in sight on the savannahs at any given moment. Which is why we were tempted to call this special time Peace & Quiet Season, but we decided that the peace was implied and you best experience it for yourself.
After waxing on about private retreats only a few paragraphs ago, we debated whether to bring up the idea again and decided, confidently, yes, being as Micato’s Botswana and the exclusive-use camps you will find there are, forgive the expression, a separate animal.
Like the villas and estates we recommend above, the covert sanctuaries we like for Micato guests in Botswana guarantee thrillingly complete privacy. And not incidentally, the country itself has been likened to a modern-day Garden of Eden with an undeniable natural phenomenon: The lush and dazzling Okavango Delta, that vast, fan-shaped network of wetlands formed where the Okavango River meets the Kalahari Desert, a fortuitous intersection that creates the perfect environment for an astonishing concentration of wildlife.
Micato guests can safari in the Delta’s complex waterways by vehicle, foot, or, famously, by mokoro or dugout canoe, accompanied by their well-versed Micato Safari Director. And before we digress too much, our point: A home away from home we like for our guests in Botswana is Sitatunga Private Island Suite, which, as the name suggests, is an oasis all your own on a private island nestled deep in the Okavango Delta.
The private island hideaway takes its name from a resident creature… well, we’ll let founding proprietor Dereck Joubert explain:
The first time I saw a sitatunga antelope, I fell in love with these shaggy creatures. They live in the nearby reeds, islands, and inland delta. With their elongated hoofs, they seem like an impossible animal, really. When my friend Lance Dixon and I scouted this island, we saw a dozen of these animals and the name “Sitatunga” leapt out at me.
In addition to running superb luxury safari camps, Dereck Joubert and his wife Beverly, founders of Great Plains Foundation and the Big Cat Initiative, are world-class conservationists and Emmy-winning documentarians who bring a tremendous élan to the world of safari and the entire conservation movement.
Sitatunga Private Island Suite may be booked as part of a Micato Custom Safari.
And before we move on, apropos of Botswana, you can also explore it with Micato on Botswana’s Timeless Wilderness and our Passage Through Botswana and Zimbabwe.
Crouching amid the shoots of a bamboo forest, you feel your breath catch as a silverback gorilla comes into view. He might take a nonchalant snooze against a leafy chaise, wrestle with some of the youngsters, or—making time stand still—gaze directly at you.
Gorilla trekking is among the most exclusive encounters in the world: Only about a dozen habituated gorilla families live in the velvet-green Volcanoes National Park, and no more than eight people may visit any given gorilla family each day.
Differentiating a gorilla trek from a Micato gorilla trek is that we can make your expedition through these lush mountains private just for your group. As part of your immersion, you can visit the gravesite of Dian Fossey, paying homage to her legendary work and the book/movie that inevitably will be on your mind during this journey, Gorillas in the Mist. Micato can also arrange private visits to the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, a multi-purpose, state-of-the-art facility for the study and conservation of our beloved gorillas.
From above, the Maldives’s more than 1,100 coral islands in the Indian Ocean beckon like a strand of pearls, draped across the deep blue suede of a jewellery box—each individual islet as precious, and sometimes inaccessible, as the rarest of deep-sea treasures.
And, in what we humbly suggest is welcome news to luxury travel aficionados who have long had the Maldives–and Micato–on their bucket lists, we’re happy to share that the impossibly turquoise waters of the Maldives are now eminently accessible as a four-day getaway, from either Delhi or Mumbai, when you travel with Micato India.
We’re delighted to bring guests here for a super-inclusive wellness escape that coddles and cares for you in every way. After your stay with Micato in Delhi or Mumbai, you’ll embark via seaplane to the warm waters of Noonu Atoll, to a private lagoon where the Soneva Jani retreat awaits.
We arrange for Micato guests to stay in some of the most unique lodgings in the world: spacious overwater villas complete with everything from a private freshwater pool to a swing on the outdoor deck and a slide straight into the sea below—because, we’ll say it, connecting with your inner child is just as important for healthy wellbeing as all the rest. (And speaking of children, your little ones of all ages are welcome here, a distinguishing trait in a locale often framed as honeymooners’ paradise.)
Here, you’re all the way across the world—if you fancy some world-class unwinding after your astonishing Micato India journey, this is the place to do it.
We know our guests put their hearts—and hands—into efforts they believe in, and so do we. That’s why Micato includes Phinda Private Game Reserve on many of our Custom Southern Africa safaris as well as Jewels of Southern Africa.
And for our Custom guests, we can specially arrange the life-changing experience of standing alongside big-hearted conservation experts to protect the beloved rhinoceros.
Drawing upon long-built relationships, Micato arranges for guests to join the front lines of wildlife preservation for a rhinoceros dehorning mission, working with dedicated conservationists who dart rhinos from a helicopter—a stirring manoeuvre of skill and precision in itself, that ensures the animal comes to no harm.
Meanwhile, back on the ground, guests can assist in notching the rhino’s ear or fitting a tracking device, as well as monitoring vital signs. If needed, a veterinarian carefully cuts down the rhino’s horn (never fear, this humane measure is as painless as clipping one’s fingernails—although hopefully done with less fuss) to protect it from the covetous gaze of poachers.
Our guests tell us these rhino missions move them like few experiences ever have: “You could see the wonder on their faces as the conservation crew touched the rhinos,” says Micato Safari Specialist Diana Meehan, who herself was brought to tears by the awe-inducing proximity to a mighty, and yet so vulnerable, wild rhino. “It was otherworldly… it’s an experience you really feel, because the dedication of the crew doing the tagging is so tangible.”
Experiences like this remind us that as guests of Micato, we’re not mere spectators—we’re family and advocates, cherishing the delicate balance of our natural world.
A yoga mat beckons in a secluded green space, and soon enough, you sink into a few rejuvenating poses. At times, you close your eyes to find your inner peace, and at others, you keep them wide open because you will be downward dogging in the awesome shadow of the Taj Mahal.
Your host for this experience, of course, is Micato India. And your green space, as you gaze at the aforementioned white-marbled masterpiece, is at the Oberoi Amarvilas.
To be so close to this piece of history, your senses come alive: as you flow through sun salutations for an early-morning class, the first rays of light warm your skin as the gentle call of birds strike a chorus from the grounds’ gardens. The gentle murmuring of guests reaches our ears—hundreds of travellers, journeying to this testament of love harboured by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, in memory of his late wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
Or, perhaps restore your body in a gentle evening practice as soft lavender blues of dusk cast their hue on the pearly palace that, in this quiet moment, feels like it’s all yours… and at the same time, we realize this is why we travel, to be part of moments like these that feel bigger than ourselves.
Afterward, a perfect cup of chai stirs our spirit as a sitarist strums live background music. Beyond the Taj Mahal, among the toughest acts ever to be followed, rest of Agra awaits; and in the good company of your Micato India Travel Director, you will indulge in whatever strikes your fancy, be it perhaps visiting a marble inlay studio, shopping for astoundingly-detailed crafted rugs, or simply chatting up the locals, all of whom seem to know your Travel Director like an old friend, because he is.
We hope you’ll agree—at Micato we’re experts (dare we say—obsessive?) when it comes to creating memories for our guests that are unique to us and feel deeply personal to you.
Spending time with the mainland’s famous penguins at Boulders Beach is a treat in itself, but a twist that makes this penguin encounter a specially-arranged Micato Hot List penguin encounter is when we equip you with a kayak, and, in the craft beside you is a leading conservationist and ornithologist on hand to answer your every question.
Since Boulders Beach is part of Table Mountain National Park, you’ll be kayaking in pristine and protected cerulean waters as you scan for the surprisingly graceful swimming birds. Call it a custom, water-based game drive, if you will.
Then, we’ll take in the same landscape from above during a thrilling helicopter ride. As we soar above the bustling sprawl of Cape Town at its most serene, a treasured vista of coastlines, neighbourhoods, and mountains, we guarantee you’ll fall in love with this city if you haven’t yet.
Sipping wine, gazing into the distance, contemplating the future… that could describe any given Wednesday, perhaps. But, being as this is the Micato Hot List, let’s consider this a world-class Wine Wednesday in, not incidentally, some of the most stunning wine country in the world.
For this experience, we will transport you to the Constantia Valley, part of the just-referenced Cape Winelands, where early settlers first planted grapes in South Africa more than three centuries ago. Our team on the ground has access to the best wine experts who can share fascinating history and wine knowledge—paired, of course, with tastings of reserve bottlings and some of the most valued labels from the region’s finest vineyards.
We might start, for example, at Groot Constantia, the country’s oldest wine estate, founded in 1685. We’ll explore the grounds’ Cape Dutch manor house, where antique wine vessels carry tales of vintages that once graced the tables of European royalty. An extravagant wine flight awaits us in the vintage vault for a memorable tasting—merely one part of an overall splendid day.
We’ll also arrange for a special visit to the valley’s crown jewels: Klein Constantia and Buitenverwachting. At Klein Constantia, the iconic Vin de Constance—a dessert wine purportedly favoured by Napoleon—awaits your palate, while Buitenverwachting’s oak-shaded stoep, or terrace, invites us to linger over crisp Sauvignon Blancs.
On a day like this, any interest of yours can be indulged—from enjoying a meal with an elite sommelier, to sitting down to a private meeting with a wine collection advisor to discuss cellaring strategies, to chatting with graduate researchers about the impact of climate change on the local vines. Standing on the very land where South Africa’s winemaking legacy took root, we recommend a toast to the region’s multicultural past—and bright future.
Micato guests have the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in the subliminal quiet of nature on our new Quiet Skies Safari—covered, if you’ll allow a moment of boasting (we couldn’t resist) by the eminent editors of Time magazine. On this awe-inducing journey, we travel to Namibia, a land of shifting sand dunes and brilliant nighttime stargazing.
At Sossusvlei Desert Lodge, a haven of stone-and glass villas with unobstructed views of desert and sky, we’ll take in astronomer-guided talks at the spectacular observatory (pending advance arrangements) and journey into haunting landscapes, visiting sites like the Sesriem Canyon and Big Daddy Dune. And it’s imperative, we dare say, to spend an evening skygazing from the retractable skylight, viewed from the oversized bed in your villa.
Thereafter you will be transported to Kwessi Dunes in the heart of the NamibRand Reserve, named Africa’s first Wilderness Quiet Park in June of 2024. Here you’ll explore the otherworldly red dunes, embarking on hot-air balloon rides over the desert, morning and early-evening bush walks, and silent yoga and meditation sessions as early dawn illuminates the landscape.
In 19th-century India, even kings took pleasure in cooking—particularly when it involved khad, the traditional practice of marinating a leg of lamb, and then digging a hole in the ground to bury the meat, and lighting a fire atop it, letting it cook for up to eight or nine hours. A patient, long-anticipated wait would be rewarded with the aroma of this delectable dinner, ready to be consumed.
Making—and of course tasting—this Rajasthani delicacy is not to be missed. We’ll organize a comfortable, and naturally, private, drive out from our luxurious quarters in Jodhpur for the stunning wilderness of the sandy Thar region, dotted with villages and home to blue bull antelopes and a variety of birds. When we arrive at Mihir Garh, a magnificent nine-suite fort once frequented by legendary riders of the Jodhpur Polo team, decorated military advisors, and cavalry leaders of old, the cooking begins. Guests also try additional local snacks, cocktails, and even dishes made from the recipe book of the proprietor’s mother, the late Thakurani Sahiba Jayendra Kumari. By the end of the evening, you’ll feel like royalty.
Pause with us for a moment.
“The Bodhi tree stood, weighty with age and lively with the colourful flags that adorned it,” describes writer Kunzang Choden in her masterpiece novel, The Circle of Karma. “There was an awesome sense of piety … heightened by hundreds of flickering butter lamps and the sweet smell of incense that hung in the air …”
This year, the homeland of Gross National Happiness beckons Micato guests as we whisk you away to Bhutan, a land shaped by the crags of the Himalaya foothills. From fortress-monasteries to verdant green valleys, we’re pleased to host guests in one enchanting destination after another: the capital of Thimphu; the historic Punakha city; and the serene Paro Valley, all crafted to nurture inner contentment. This peaceful country is synonymous with the exact opposite of mass tourism—in fact, there’s almost no tourism at all.
An eight-day Bhutan journey with Micato, departing from Delhi or Mumbai, is available to Micato guests travelling on The Soul of India, Splendours of Northern India, or Royal Palaces of India. And, of course, we’re happy to include Bhutan as part of a Micato India Custom Journey.
Witnessing first-hand the game-changing work of AmericaShare, the non-profit foundation of Micato Safaris, and our affiliate, Huru International—of which Micato is a major donor and proud supporter—is often cited by Micato guests as the highlight of their journeys.
While visiting the Micato-AmericaShare Harambee Community Centre, Micato guests visit the libraries and computer labs—funded largely by our travellers—and meet the student beneficiaries of our education programmes, which include a School Scholarship Programme and The Micato One for One Commitment.
Huru International keeps girls in school during their periods by supplying them with reusable sanitary pads, produced in Huru’s Global Headquarters in Nairobi, using proprietary technology developed by Huru. To date more than 450,000 girls have been the recipients of over 2,700,000 reusable sanitary pads.
As for the experience itself, Micato guests visit Huru Global, which employs more than 100 Kenyans. There you’ll meet the young women from Mukuru who are trained to sew sanitary pads and school uniforms. Also, the Huru Skills Development Program has trained more than 400 impoverished young women to use industrial sewing machines, making them highly valuable skilled employees for Kenya’s burgeoning textile industry. This visit is especially meaningful to families with teens and young adults who get to interact with young Kenyans.
Another exclusively-Micato experience for our Southern Africa-bound guests is a visit to Red Hill. Micato-AmericaShare’s educational outreach in East Africa inspired us to find a community in South Africa where we could have a lasting impact, and we chose Red Hill, a community south of Cape Town with 1,500 makeshift households. Red Hill doesn’t have much in the way of community services, so AmericaShare established the Red Hill Library and Community Centre.
Red Hill has come a long way from its beginnings as a modest library. A lab outfitted with computers offers classes to the community, where trained librarians and other dedicated staff offer résumé writing classes and enable community members to apply for jobs. Micato staff also lead literacy and numeracy classes to students as well as creative writing workshops, knitting circles, and more.
Many and good are the reasons to go on a Micato safari. But one especially great reason is sometimes eclipsed by the glamour and excitement of the fabulous animals, the stunning landscapes, the warm and vital people, the gorgeous camps and lodges, by what Isak Dinesen memorably described as safari’s tendency to make you “feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne–bubbling over with gratitude for being alive.”
These words, from Tom Cole’s essay Safari: A World Apart, are the perfect ones with which to conclude our round-up, because while safari is an experience, it is also in many ways a state of mind, a break from the everyday world and an escape to ours, where you and yours can reconnect and reset.
We’ll boldly go so far as to say that a Micato safari is a reset your mind, body, and spirit… so much so that before your safari comes to its bittersweet end, you may already be planning your next Micato adventure in your head, which our guests often find themselves doing.
And, of course, we love that our guests are plotting their return to Micato’s Africa before they even leave. Because for us, if there’s any word we like more than “Welcome,” it’s the phrase, “Welcome back.”
If one or several of the experiences on our list pack appeal, we’re standing by. Have your travel advisor get in touch or give us a call so you and one of our Micato Safari Specialists can plan your Micato Hot List adventure together.
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