Trip Review: South Africa, Botswana, & Zimbabwe, Game Drive, Walking Safari

Making arrangements for our 2020 trip to Southern Africa was much easier than expected.   We were happy to deal with a local organization and local people, after reviewing the websites for the major consolidators and their pre-packaged itineraries. Our travel planner reached out to us - during the awake hours in our time zone (PST).  He worked to understand our interests, and put together an itinerary (customized for us) based on His knowledge of South Africa and Botswana -  we had none. Our travel planner continued to stay in contact with us as we began our travels and adjusted our arrangements as the airlines (such as SAA and its insolvency) were paring down their regional schedules.
Sadly - the panicdemic forced us to cut our travels short.   South Africa had shut down entirely and Botswana was closing its borders.  The Airlines had disappeared over night, and our return flight on Emirates had been cancelled. Even though our travel planner had not booked our travel to and from the U.S.  he stuck with us as we ‘planned’ and worked through our eventual repatriation through Harare to Dulles.  And even checked in with us during our “decompression” car trip across America to Seattle.  
Looking forward to working with our travel planner on our return -  and completing our escapade, and next time  we’ll bring friends and family!