Safari vs Links & Golf
Two kinds of place, side by side — who each one suits, what each one costs, and where they concentrate. The setting decides the tone of the whole week, so it is worth deciding on purpose.
Design a retreatSafari
Big-game conservancies — game drives and once-in-a-career awe.
- Venues
- 20 private estates
- Typical group
- 10–450 guests
- Indicative budget
- $1,200–$2,000 pp/night
- Concentrated in
- Africa & Middle East
- Best for
- leadership, celebration, team building
Links & Golf
Championship courses — invitationals and clifftop rounds.
- Venues
- 15 private estates
- Typical group
- 20–500 guests
- Indicative budget
- $500–$1,000 pp/night
- Concentrated in
- Southeastern United States · Australasia · British Isles
- Best for
- team building, leadership, celebration
Anantara The Royal Livingstone Victoria Falls Hotel
173 colonial-luxe rooms strung along the Zambezi, with private lawn access to the lip of Victoria Falls and conference space for up to ~450 delegates. This is the rare safari-adjacent property that hosts a full company at one address — plenary, gala under the spray, then sundowner cruises and game drives in Mosi-oa-Tunya as breakouts.
Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve
Four distinct lodges on one of the Big Five's most reliable traversing areas, owner-operated since 1979. Bush Lodge (the flagship, ~25 suites + conference facility) anchors the plenary while Earth Lodge, Selati Camp and Little Bush Camp absorb breakout groups — a coordinated full-reserve buyout that scales past the single-camp ceiling without losing the genuine wilderness feel.
MalaMala Game Reserve
The largest private big-five reserve bordering Kruger, MalaMala shares a 19-kilometre unfenced boundary with the national park and runs three camps — Main Camp, Sable Camp and Rattray's Camp. Taken together they host a full company on one of the highest-density wildlife tracts in Africa.
Sea Island Resort (The Cloister)
A Forbes Five-Star private island with the Cloister and Lodge, ~400 rooms, three championship courses, and 30,000 sq ft of flexible indoor meeting space that handles groups from 5 to 500. It fills the links/golf hole at a scale Pebble and Pinehurst don't quite match — an entire Georgia barrier island as your campus.
The American Club, Destination Kohler
A Forbes Five-Star resort home to Whistling Straits, the Lake Michigan links that hosted the 2020 Ryder Cup, plus Blackwolf Run. Its 241 Tudor rooms and 24 meeting rooms host groups up to 850, with the Irish Barn overlooking the closing holes for golf banquets.
Trump Turnberry
A century-old Scottish links resort on the Ayrshire coast, home to the four-time Open venue Ailsa Course and King Robert the Bruce, below a landmark clifftop hotel and lighthouse. A 500-seat ballroom and coastal activities make it a full-scale corporate golf destination.