Beyond the Bush: Safaris Are Giving Travelers Authentic Experiences With Community and Culture

Christopher Cameron

14 December 2024 at 11:00 am·7-min read

The stench of Mumbai’s Sassoon Docks lingers on your shoes, on your clothes, and in your memory like the blooming of a corpse flower. Opened in 1875, it’s this throbbing city’s oldest wet dock and one of its largest fish markets. Still today, groups of women gather there each morning to buy and process the morning’s catch. They crouch above the effluvium, peeling little crustaceans and gutting fish by their feet. The shells, scales, and innards pool into streets of piscine slurry that steam in the muggy subcontinental sun. In the thick atmosphere, stray dogs fight with seabirds for scraps of offal and urinate against the barrels of blood and salt water where waiting fish float. Along the harbor, the women circle and chatter, placing bids for individual fish, which they will resell in the city. The atmosphere is tense and bawdy. Men curse and tussle. The women, many of them just girls, flick prawn shells at the zoom lens of prying tourists. The tourists wince, trying not to breathe.

But the tourists aren’t here by accident; they’ve come in search of scenes of a daily life far removed from their own and to absorb sights as beautiful as sunset on the savanna and as startling as any lion kill. They are paying five-star rates, tens of thousands of dollars per person, to do it. Their private guides are experts of the land, its history, and its people, and come from it. The tourists are on a modern safari.

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Women process the fish in the Sassoon Docks.

From India to Arizona, what it means to be on safari is changing. By definition, a safari is simply “a journey.” It’s borrowed from Swahili but comes from the Arabic word for traveler, “safar.” It entered our language in the mid-19th century as England tightened its colonial grip across East Africa. That anglicized idea of “safari” as a guided hunting, fishing, or sightseeing journey in remote Africa remains—but the travel industry is now working to broaden the concept to any curated encounter that educates, enlightens, and builds compassion. Today, safari is a verb, and it means “authenticity.”

“They are different, obviously, and the way you operate an African safari is quite different from the way you operate a trip in India,” says Lisa Alam Shah, executive director of Micato Safaris India. “But while the essence is different, the thought process is the same. It’s about delving a little deeper. It’s easy to take people from one place to another. ‘Okay, here’s the Taj Mahal. Now, I’m taking you to this palace and your guide will tell you a little about the history.’ But the emphasis needs to be on connecting with the destination and the people a little bit more . . . You need to push the boundaries a little bit.”

For over 34 years, Micato, one of the foremost African safari operators, has also been taking travelers across India, on journeys that pair palaces and white-glove services with the Sassoon Docks, visits inside open-air laundries and sunrise markets, and appointments in artisans’ studios. The brand introduces its guests to the people in the neighborhood: the newspaper sorters, the food delivery men, the jewelry makers and perfumers, the spice blenders, the sculptures, the paan vendors and bhang eaters, the fabric printers . . . Indian royalty. The settings are urban Bombay, New Delhi, Jaipur, and Udaipur, and the encounters are human—still the spirit of safari is strong.

Many tourists gaze down into Dhobi Ghat, an open air laundry in Mumbai. Few go inside to meet the people keeping the industry alive.

In fact, the concept of a beyond-the-bush safari has now grown to such an extent that most of the “safaris” being sold by luxury travel agencies have nothing to do with the Big Five—particularly within Africa itself.

Wellness safaris take guests on a journey across a menu of healing ingredients rich with terroir and imbued with local custom. Segera Retreat in Laikipia, Kenya, Machweo Wellness Retreat in Arusha, Tanzania, and Bushmans Kloof Wilderness Reserve in Cederberg, South Africa, are just a few that offer these alternative safaris.

Rail journeys are also being re-spun as multi-stop safaris. Luxury African travel operator Mahlatini is pushing the idea aboard the observation cars of Rovos Rail, which whisks travelers out of the bush and into bustling capitals from Pretoria to Dar es Salaam.

Encounters with tradition are juxtaposed with the bustle of contemporary commerce.

Safaris happen under the waves in the Seychelles, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Madagascar. These safaris focus on marine species protection, diving, and snorkeling in healthy reef systems, turtle hatchling conservation assistance, and visits to remote, less-developed islands.

A salmon safari with a guided tour of their habitats, and an opportunity to witness their migration from sea to river, is part of a $100,000, two-week-long culinary voyage across Norway with UpNorway.

A boozy air safari over Mendoza’s vineyards and the Andes mountains aboard a private seaplane can be booked at the SB Winemakers House & Spa Suites in Argentina. On the border of Argentina and Brazil, a speedboat safari cuts through the lower portion of Iguazú Falls.

Palace hotels are oases to process the day.

In Utah, Amangiri has launched Camp Sarika, a 10-tent camp that attempts to offer a “Big Five” of adventure experience, with a via ferrata, UTV off-roading, aerial and canyon tours, and boating.

“Safari has morphed beyond a game drive vehicle to be so much more,” says Greg Fox, director and cofounder of Cape Town-based Mahlatini. “That’s what we are seeing in the business because people are looking for more. Travelers are more discerning and want to make more out of their journeys.”

He argues that what elevates a safari beyond a hither-to-thither journey is an authority guide (a chef, a naturalist, an artisan . . . any Virgil) that can show you how and where to excavate into the environment or culture. Moreover, he says, you can safari even within your own city.

Meeting with or even riding with the dabbawala lunch delivery men of Mumbai is glimpse inside the domestic lives of everyday people.

“I had never noticed, but Cape Town has a big jazz scene,” says Fox. “And I went on this amazing journey where we went to a house in the middle of the suburbs and sat with the most amazing musician and listened to his journey through apartheid. He showed us his recording studio and played for us and we ate food made by his wife. What a privilege.”

For most people, however, it takes experiencing at least one traditional back-of-the-Jeep game drive to get it.

“The first time I went to Africa, I was expecting to see animals,” says Shah. “But then you discover that these places are so beautiful, and you discover that the people are so nice. There’s such a simplicity and genuineness. I think it’s the people that make a place—all this history, art, and architecture.”

Nevertheless, as its definition expands—as it too often becomes marketing code for any upscale tour, no matter how truly authentic—will the very idea of a safari qua safari survive?

“I think the word “safari” probably is abused,” says Fox. “But I don’t see that as necessarily negative. Certainly not at the moment, because as long as it continues drawing people to places, to travel, to experience, is it a bad thing?”

Over Ramadan, the streets of Mumbai’s Mohammed Ali Road flood with observant fasters after sunset. The crowds shuffle forward in procession, hands pressed against the backs of the strangers inches in front of them, and on all sides. The road and its tributaries are flanked with hundreds of vendors cooking favorite dishes—barbecued chicken, curried goat’s brains, enamel-eroding desserts. The cacophony of car horns, shouts, and loud speaker prayers is deafening. Celebration lights flicker. It’s claustrophobic beyond, impenetrable and unnavigable, not only geographically, but culturally. There are no tourists here—except for two Micato guests and their guide, sitting with the break fasters, dipping bread into curry. It’s part of their journey.

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