Lili’s first safari!

“Since May 2023, my wife Celine and I have been co-owners in beautiful Limpopo-Lipadi. In the spur of the moment, I had decided to explore Limpopo-Lipadi with my dad. We had made had a very positive contact with Paul and Sylvia (sales agents and co-owners of Limpopo-Lipadi) and the interest in buying a share was immediately there. Finding a date to travel there with my wife turned out not to be feasible, so I went to Botswana with my dad, from Belgium, for 3 days.

Ever since I took an FGASA 1 guiding course in South Africa 15 years ago, the dream had been there to one day find a place in Africa where I could go with my family. Limpopo-Lipadi lived up to what we were looking for in many respects. Child-friendly, at your own pace, low malaria risk, stable country, driving yourself, more than just the big 5, etc. And suddenly the pieces of the puzzle fell into place and our dream became reality.

Once back home, my wife wanted to discover what we had gotten ourselves into, so we decided to plan a family holiday with our daughter. Lili was 16 months old when we traveled to Botswana, and it was of course quite a journey for her. It was also an adventure for us as we brought everything from Belgium, from toys to highchair, from cot to car seat. On top of that, my wife was pregnant with our 2nd child at the time. Everyone we talked to about our trip to Botswana thought we were crazy, but we continued anyway. A lot of preparation was put into this trip, but it was worth all the effort.

We received a very warm welcome from the staff upon arrival and we immediately felt at home. Lucky was our guide and Lili fell in love with him on the spot. He was so calm with her and made every effort to help out, so that she could always see the animals clearly from the game viewer. We had mounted her car seat and that way she sat a little higher and safe.

Initially we had hoped to do 1 safari of 2 hours per day, but after 10 days the counter was on 2 safaris per day of at least 2-3 hours. We left early and she ate her breakfast in the car, and after that Lili would fall asleep. Once she woke up again, she enjoyed the coffee stop to play with everything Africa had to offer. Her absolute favourite ‘toy’ turned out to be the elephant dung. Her favourite animal was the impala and at night in the dark she loved nothing more than chasing the mopane moths in the lodge.

The world stood still for us for 10 days, and that feeling is what it’s all about at the Reserve. Seeing that there are still places in the world where the world revolves around nature. Our idea is that you are never too young to fall in love with Africa, never too young to introduce children to nature and make them appreciate it.

We look back with great pleasure on our first stay as a family at Limpopo-Lipadi. We couldn’t have imagined a better introduction to Africa with our daughter than at Limpopo-Lipadi. All the staff were so calm, understanding and attentive to both us and our daughter. We are already counting down to the next time we can be there.”

Want to be a part of Limpopo-Lipadi’s adventures? For discreet information on share sales, contact generalmanager@limpopo-lipadi.org. To book a safari, request our rates via reservations@limpopo-lipadi.org or via WhatsApp: (+267) 76770191.