About SafarLane
An independent travel guide for Africa and the Middle East — and a plain account of how it pays for itself.
What this site is
SafarLane publishes route and destination guides for the parts of the world most South African travellers actually fly to: southern Africa, East and West Africa, the Gulf, the Indian Ocean islands and Europe.
The guides answer two questions that are surprisingly hard to get straight answers to — when should I go, and when should I book. Which months are busy, which cheap months are cheap for a reason, how far ahead a particular route tends to sell out, and when a good week to travel is a bad week to buy.
How we make money
We are an affiliate of Travelstart. When you follow a link from this site and make a booking, Travelstart pays us a commission. You pay exactly the same price as you would going direct — the commission comes out of their margin, not your fare.
We do not sell tickets. We hold no inventory, take no payments, and cannot change or refund a booking. Everything transactional happens on Travelstart’s site under their terms.
Why we do not show prices
Airline pricing changes throughout the day. Any figure we printed would be wrong by the time you read it, and a stale price is worse than no price — it sets an expectation the booking page then contradicts.
So we publish the things that stay true: seasonality, booking windows, flight times, which airlines serve a route, and the practical details that change a trip. For the actual fare, we send you to the booking site, where the number is live.
Where our guidance comes from
The guides are written from published route information, airline schedules, seasonal weather patterns and well-documented demand cycles such as school holidays and religious calendars. They describe typical patterns, not guarantees. An unusual year, a route change or a new carrier can move any of it.
Where we are uncertain, we say so rather than rounding up to false confidence. And on anything with real consequences — visas, entry requirements, health rules — we tell you to check with the relevant authority instead of trusting us, because those change without notice and getting them wrong ends a trip at the airport.
Contact
Corrections are genuinely welcome — if a route guide is out of date or simply wrong, tell us and we will fix it. Email privacy@safarlane.com.
See also our privacy policy and terms of use.