Affiliate Disclosure

The Safari Atlas is free to read, and it stays free because some of the links on this site earn us money. We think you deserve to know exactly how that works, which links are commercial, and – most importantly – what we do to make sure it never changes the advice we give you.

Last updated 23 July 2026

How we make money

The Safari Atlas is published by The Safari Atlas. We don’t charge readers, and we don’t sell safaris ourselves – we are a publisher, not a tour operator or travel agent. We fund the site in two ways:

• Affiliate commissions. Some links to tours, activities and accommodation are affiliate links. If you click one and book, the company may pay us a small commission.
• Safari enquiries. When you submit an enquiry form on this site, we may pass your enquiry to one or more vetted safari operators, who pay us a fee for the introduction or a commission if you book.

That’s it. We don’t sell advertising space to the highest bidder, we don’t publish sponsored articles dressed up as editorial, and we don’t accept payment to include a lodge, park or operator in a guide.

Affiliate links

An affiliate link is a normal link with a tracking code attached. If you click it and go on to book, the company you book with pays us a percentage of what they earn. Our current affiliate partners include selected travel booking platforms and vetted safari operators, and we may add or remove partners over time.

Two things are worth being clear about:

• You never pay more. The commission comes out of the company’s margin, not your pocket. Booking through our link costs exactly the same as going direct.
• We don’t control the price or the product. Once you click through, you are dealing with that company under their terms, not ours. Their prices, availability, terms and cancellation policies are theirs, and can change without notice.

Safari enquiries and operators

Many of our guides include a short enquiry form. If you submit one, we may share the details you give us – typically your email address and what you tell us about your trip – with one or more safari operators so they can send you a costed proposal. Those operators pay us for that introduction, or a commission if you end up booking with them.

This is a real commercial relationship and we want it stated plainly: we are paid when readers become enquiries. What that payment does not do is decide which operators we work with. We only pass enquiries to operators we consider reputable, and we apply the same checks we set out in our guide to choosing a safari operator. If an operator stops meeting that standard, we stop sending them enquiries, regardless of what they pay.

How we handle the personal information you give us in an enquiry – what we collect, who we share it with and how to ask us to delete it – is set out in our Privacy policy.

How we protect our independence

A disclosure is only worth as much as the practices behind it. These are ours:

• Recommendations are made before commercial links are added. We decide what to recommend on editorial grounds first, then check whether a commercial link happens to exist. Not the other way round.
• No pay-for-placement. We do not accept payment for inclusion, position, ratings or favourable coverage, and we do not publish sponsored content disguised as editorial.
• We publish the unflattering bits. If a park is crowded, a season is poor value, an upgrade isn’t worth it or a popular add-on is overpriced, we say so – including when saying so costs us commission.
• We recommend spending less when that’s the right answer. Plenty of our guides argue for a cheaper tier, a shoulder-season date, or skipping an add-on entirely.
• Commercial relationships don’t affect facts. Park fees, regulations and seasons are checked against official sources and reported as they are.

Our full editorial standards are set out in our Editorial principles, and mistakes are handled under our Corrections policy.

How to spot a commercial link

You don’t have to guess. Commercial links on this site are:

• Visually distinct. Affiliate and partner links generally appear in the highlighted “next step” boxes within our guides, rather than being hidden inside ordinary sentences.
• Disclosed on the page. Guides containing commercial links carry a disclosure alongside the first such link, as well as this site-wide page.
• Never disguised as editorial verdicts. Our recommendations sit in the article text; the commercial invitation to act sits in its own clearly marked box.

Enquiry forms are also commercial: submitting one may result in your details being shared with an operator who pays us, as described above and in the Privacy policy.

Prices, fees and figures

The prices, park fees and cost ranges we publish are researched independently and are not supplied or approved by any commercial partner. Park and conservation fees are checked against the relevant park authority’s published schedule, and we link to those sources at the foot of the articles that cite them.

All figures are for planning only. Fees, exchange rates, seasons and operator pricing change – sometimes at short notice – so always confirm current prices and exactly what a quote includes with the operator before you book. We are not responsible for the prices, availability or terms offered by any third party.