This entry “Getting More for your $$$” first appeared in a Dispatch, the updates sent to all Society members. You can join for free here.

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Imagine you want to eat in a beautiful, fancy restaurant. You’ve been wanting to eat there for years. When you look it up, everyone on the internet tells you that you need to eat there at 7:00 pm, because that’s when the food is best. For what it’s worth, it’s also the same time they were told to go there, and the only time that they went. The company booking your reservation makes more money if they get you in at that time, so they aren’t going to discourage it.

But, if you instead go for a 6:30 pm seating, you only pay half the price. The food and the service are exactly the same. Unless you had specific time constraints, wouldn’t you go at 6:30 pm instead?

Discounts discount

At The Explorer Society, we don’t discount our trips. In fact, discounting travel annoys us a little bit. Our theory is that if you can afford to take 20% off the trip, why not just make it 20% cheaper to start with? We get the marketing concept behind artificial time pressure, but come on.

Instead, we always try to be as transparent as possible. We want you to trust us with your travel dreams, so why would we make you question whether we are giving you a fair price? And in full transparency here, there are times when one of our supplier partners may offer discounts or sales on their products. This is often something like an Antarctic cruise, usually an early-bird discount. When this occurs, we pass on any offers in full to you. But for trips we tailor ourselves, we just don’t discount for the sake of discounting. And, being frank, the trip costs what it costs. Some things cost a certain amount to do, or eat, or have.

And on another note (and another gripe of ours), that’s also because the trips have been designed by one of our quartermasters, not by the marketing team. It hasn’t been designed based on what will look good in an advertisement, be it itineraries that don’t make sense, false promises or inflated discounts. It’s been designed to be the best trip it can be for you, and that is what that trip costs. Whether or not it is of great value is a different question.

Cost vs Value

We should probably explain that last sentence.

There is a big difference, to us, between ‘Cost’ and ‘Value’. The ‘Cost’ is what you have to pay for something, and the ‘Value’ is what something is worth. A trip to a destination you have dreamed about for decades might end up having a high cost, but if it fulfils that dream then it’s great value. An overpriced hotel in a busy section of Bali, although a quarter of the cost, wouldn’t be as good value-wise. It is also sometimes in the eye of the beholder. Business class seats might be overpriced to some people, a necessary item for others.

For example, take this Complete Southern Africa trip. At $13,700 per person, it has a higher starting price than many other trips to the area. Yet, it also includes time in Cape Town, the Cape Winelands, Pretoria, a private Kruger reserve, Victoria Falls and in Chobe National Park. It also includes a luxurious trip on the famed Blue Train. Oh, and also a few days on a beautiful little houseboat in a game-rich area. It’s quite a lot, all custom-made and without a large group. So, when you add that all together, you can easily argue that despite the higher cost, it also has greater value.

The opposite is also true. Overpaying is quite common, where people spend too much in order to impress others, be it real people they know or people on the internet. It’s a modern case of ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’. Or they might overpay because they have been told that unnecessary items are necessary, or that certain brands deserve their price premium. Or they may simply overpay because they didn’t know there was another option. This leads us to our next point.

When to go matters, just not how you think

That long preamble aside, it doesn’t mean that there are no bargains to be had. You don’t have to discount something for it to be a great deal. Often, when it comes to travel, you get the best value for money by simply going at a different time of year.

Put simply, the seasonality of a destination plays a massive part in its price.

Some places, like Antarctica, have a fixed season. This is pretty obvious, as you can’t easily sail through pack ice. However, most places simply have a season that is based on the movement of people, not on the quality of the destination. With about 87% of the world’s population living in the northern hemisphere, and the major holidays of the year being in the summer, the northern hemisphere summer holiday travel often dictates the high season across the world. Europe, the USA, and vast parts of both South America and Africa, all vastly different areas with different climates and different appeals, all have their high season at the same time.

This isn’t so much of an issue except the high season seems to have become shorthand for ‘the best time to go’. After all, if everyone is going at that time then it must be the best time, right? And often, the answer is simply “No.” For most places, there isn’t a best time to go. There are different seasons, each with different benefits and downsides. If you want something specific, then there might be a specific time to go.

As we mentioned recently in our Autocomplete article, if you want to see the part of the migration when the wildebeest jump the rivers, or a particular festival or event, or the Fynbos season in South Africa, then there is a season for that. If you want to see the animals and the landscapes and the people and the culture, then you can go anytime. The lions are territorial and don’t leave the country for holidays. They also don’t swap in prettier lions for the high season and leave the raggedy ones for quieter times. We are big fans of the low season, now often more commonly known as the green season. It is the most affordable time to go, with the fewest amount of other people around.

But, we do know that the low season frightens a lot of people. With such a lot riding on the trip, and all those hopes and dreams developing over time, it can be hard to overcome the peer pressure and trust in us. So, that is where the second option comes in – the shoulder season.

Getting great value

The benefit of booking in lower seasons is quickly obvious when you start looking. This is also where clever planning has its moment in the sun. Take this Luxury Victoria Falls & Botswana package as an example. If you go in July, this 5-star luxury trip through Zambia and Botswana costs well over $21,000 per person. However, by going only four weeks earlier, the price is less than half of that. Everything else is the same, from the inclusions to the lodges to the wildlife. The only difference is the season. You save over $10,000, per person, by simply shifting it four weeks.

The same **applies to this popular trip in East Africa**, taking in Kenya and Tanzania. By riding the shoulder season here you can save about $2,000 per person compared to one week later. Seven days difference, for $2,000 per person. In fact, the amount you save is the same cost as upgrading to having your own private driver and vehicle. Seven days means the difference between a group trip and a private vehicle with a private guide. Which one is better value?

We all have two shoulders, with the high bit in the middle. For every high season, there is a shoulder on either side. This means going later sometimes works as well. In Egypt, where it gets hot in the middle of the year, shifting your trip a week or two earlier or later means great savings here too. The weather barely shifts in two weeks, and yet the price drops considerably. Add on Jordan as well and you can see the savings compound.

It applies across many countries. This **Zimbabwe and Botswana Exploration trip** involves the Okavango Delta and the Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana with Victoria Falls and Hwange in Zimbabwe. Not only do you get a 40% discount in the Delta for going earlier but you also get a stay/pay deal in Hwange, meaning you end up saving quite a bit. All just for choosing a different season.

Stripping it back

Research is important. Too much information is also overwhelming and paralysing. We deal with it with our enquiries every day and, let’s not forget, we also went through it ourselves on our first trips. Research is like salt on food. A little bit is good however overdo it and you’ll have a heart attack.

In that vein, here are some other truths.

You don’t need to see the Big Five to have an incredible trip. These animals aren’t any more special than the others not included (like the hippo, the cheetah, the wild dog etc). It’s a marketing spin from colonial times that has way too much weight put on it.

The famous national parks are famous for a reason. But the reason isn’t always “because they are better”. It could be because they were more accessible historically, or a movie was set there that people liked, or because they sound good. A great safari is a great safari, irrespective of where it took place.

Someone else’s amazing trip doesn’t make it amazing for you. Your friend had a great time on their trip. But what they did is just ‘what they did’, it doesn’t mean that it is right for you. To bring back the restaurant analogy, if you are dreaming of delicious pasta and your friend previously had a great steak there, it doesn’t mean the steak is a better choice for you. Eat your pasta.

At the end of the day, you just need to know the most important thing: The “Why”. By this, we mean “Why are you going?” The time of year, the specific destination, and the endless opinions, are all of it secondary to the motivator behind the trip. Once that is established, then design the trip best suited to fulfil that Why with the requirements (e.g. budget, time frame) you have. And, if you can fulfil that Why and save 40% in cost, enabling you to possibly fulfil it a second time later on, then one more question is raised.

Why not?