African Bundu Safaris was formed by the owner, Dean Foster, in 1996. Prior to 1996, Dean had travelled extensively around Southern Africa – as a child with his family, then after school – as a Scout Leader when taking groups of Scouts on camping trips – from the Cape Cedarberg Mountains to Namibia and Lake Malawi & Mount Kilimanjaro. When he was a school teacher, he travelled even further taking groups of pupils with colleagues and parents on further camping safaris through Botswana, Namibia and Tanzania – thus gaining valuable knowledge on neighbouring countries, routes etc.
It was in 1996 he formed African Bundu Safaris and studied as a Tour Guide, passing exams & qualifying for the most popular tourist regions in South Africa and also in Namibia. During these initial years, he was guiding clients on various safaris to safari lodges using mainly his customised 4×4 safari vehicle. After living out of a suitcase for a number of years, the number of bookings had increased and more time was required in the office for the planning of safaris – and so he sold his 4-wheel drive vehicle, built an office in Durban and concentrated on improving the services of Africa Bundu Safaris. It was also during these years that African Bundu Safaris & Dean were twice awarded the Car Rental Award of the year and also was appointed as the Tourism Ambassador for KwaZulu-Natal.
In 2006, Dean moved to the beautiful eastern Free State, where he built a lovely house and new office in the small mountain village of Clarens, and he is now happily settled here, with his two large dogs. He has friendly neighbours, and currently the one lovely neighbour, Niki, works in the mornings for African Bundu Safaris, maintaining and updating the websites. The neighbours also look after the house and dogs when Dean has to visit lodges on educational trips, to personally update his knowledge and experience on the various establishments that we support.
African Bundu Safaris offers the following services:
- Customised safari holidays throughout Southern and East Africa
- Self-drive holidays in rental or own vehicles
- Flying safaris in Southern and East Africa
- Bookings on small & large group overland scheduled safaris
- Accommodation booking into wildlife & Safari lodges, Bed & Breakfast establishments, Guesthouses and hotels – that we support (those that include a commission inside their public rates, so we do not have to mark up the price)
Our main accommodation website has a massive collection of establishments, ranging from 1 to 5 star and our dedicated safari website has over 150 scheduled safaris to choose from.
If there is anything that you cannot find – please do not hesitate to contact us.