Been toying with doing first safari for over a year now. Was originally looking at this year or next. Then planned other things for this year, plans fell through.
I had done much searching sites, as someone else stated -- looked at uncountable numbers of sites. Mostly at packages instead of daily rate/fee.
My feeling is that time is a valuable thing to me (and the ph) and do not want to talk with a dozen PH's by phone or endless back and forth emails or waste their time either.
I felt that the prices listed were a general target to shoot for and that once I narrowed down my choices I'd talk more specifically with a few at most.
If the prices weren't listed, I didn't put them on my list to consider because I wasn't ready to start dialogue during my initial broad search. Thinking I couldn't afford it wasn't my main concern, it was not wanting to talk to numerous people in a preliminary search. Price is one way to narrow the list.
Well, a couple of weeks ago, when my other plans fell through, I pulled up my short list and contacted a few by email with some more specific questions.
I was down to 2 or 3 then. My wife, though, had her favorite from the website alone. I gave the PH I ultimately decided to go with my phone number and we talked a good while about other specifics. he was able to offer some other options and substitutions that He and I felt were to my benefit.
I should have the contract in a few days and hunt in July.
I didn't set out to book with only 4 months notice, but it's just how it worked out and my first choice of PH's had an open time slot that I could work with.
But, I concur with the majority, if at least a ball park price isn't given, I didn't consider it.
