Tipping and Camp Etiquette
Tipping causes more quiet anxiety among visiting hunters than any other part of a safari, largely because nobody tells you the numbers. There is no fixed rule, but there are well-established ranges — and a few points of camp etiquette that matter more to the staff than the money does.
In this guide
Who gets tipped
Your professional hunter, the tracker and the skinner who work your hunt directly, and the camp staff — cooks, housekeeping, camp hands — usually through a shared box or the camp manager. On a bigger operation the driver and the person who looks after the skinning shed also form part of that group. Ask the camp manager or your PH on day one how they prefer it handled; it is a normal question and nobody is embarrassed by it.
Typical amounts
Common practice on a plains-game safari is roughly $50 to $100 per day for the professional hunter, $10 to $20 per day each for the tracker and skinner, and a lump sum of $100 to $250 for the general camp staff over a week. Dangerous-game hunts run higher. These are customs, not obligations — adjust for how the team actually performed and for what you can afford, and tip in cash, in US dollars, in small clean notes.
How and when
Tip at the end of the hunt, in person, in individual envelopes where you can. A word about what you appreciated — a tracker who never lost a line, a skinner who cared about your capes — lands harder than the note itself. Where a camp asks you to use a communal tip box, use it: they are usually splitting fairly across staff you never met, including night watchmen and kitchen hands.
Camp etiquette that matters
Be on time in the morning — the whole camp gets up around you. Follow your PH's instructions on the stalk without debate; that is what he is there for and safety depends on it. Shoot only what has been discussed. Do not photograph staff without asking. Keep firearms unloaded in and around camp, and clear the chamber before boarding the vehicle, every single time. Respect the animal in your photographs — clean it up, keep it dignified, and remember that a picture can be seen by an audience well outside hunting.
A note on the PH relationship
Your professional hunter is not a guide-for-hire so much as the person legally and practically responsible for you in the field. The hunters who get the most out of a safari treat that relationship as a partnership: say plainly what you want from the hunt, be honest about your shooting ability and range limits, and let them do their job. Overstating your marksmanship is the fastest way to a wounded animal and a bad week.