Women-Only Safaris | Girl in the Wilderness

Girl in the Wilderness creates African safaris for women who want more than a lovely lodge, a hurried photograph of a lion and an invoice featuring several mysterious conservation levies.

Join a women-only small-group safari, travel independently on a privately designed solo journey, gather your favourite women for a private adventure or take the wheel on one of our supported self-drive expeditions.

Every journey is planned in Africa by people who know Africa, with honest advice, sensible logistics and the sort of firsthand experience that cannot be acquired by reading lodge brochures from a desk several continents away.

Antje Mouton - Original Girl in the Wilderness

I’m Antje Mouton, an South African & Africa-Based safari specialist, photographer and the woman behind Girl in the Wilderness.

I have been travelling through Africa, planning complicated journeys and leading women into the wilderness since 2011. Over the years, I have worked behind the scenes of safari operations and alongside teams connected to National Geographic, Animal Planet and Discovery Channel. This has taught me a great deal about wildlife, logistics and the remarkable number of ways a perfectly sensible itinerary can fall apart when designed by someone who has never actually travelled it.

Girl in the Wilderness grew from a very simple belief: women should not have to wait for the right partner, the right friendship group or some mythical future moment before seeing Africa.

I understand that planning your first safari can feel overwhelming, particularly when you are travelling alone. There are unfamiliar destinations, tiny aircraft, luggage restrictions, malaria questions and an alarming number of lodges all claiming to offer an “authentic African experience”. My job is to help you separate what looks good online from what will genuinely suit you.

We could have chosen a lioness. Lionesses are magnificent, photogenic and already heavily employed by women’s brands everywhere. Instead, we chose the spotted hyena.

Hyena clans are led by females. They are intelligent, fiercely social and built around complicated relationships, cooperation and an unmistakable understanding of who is in charge. The females are larger than the males, rank above them and raise daughters who inherit their position within the clan. Frankly, the branding opportunity was too good to ignore.

Hyenas are also wonderfully misunderstood. They are often dismissed as scavengers, villains or slightly unhinged creatures laughing in the darkness, when in reality they are formidable hunters, devoted mothers and some of the most fascinating animals in the African wilderness.

That resonates with us.

Women are frequently underestimated too. We are told that travelling alone is dangerous, that adventure belongs to the young, that Africa is too difficult or that we should wait until someone else is ready to come with us. We disagree with all of it.

Girl in the Wilderness is about finding your clan without losing your independence. It is about women supporting women, making space for one another and occasionally laughing far too loudly around a campfire.

The hyena is clever, resilient, deeply connected to her clan and entirely unconcerned with being everybody’s favourite animal.

Exactly our kind of girl.

Every woman arrives at Africa with a different idea of adventure. You may want the companionship of a small group, the freedom of a solo safari, a private journey shared with people you love or the satisfaction of taking the wheel yourself.

Girl in the Wilderness offers four distinct ways to experience Africa, each combining expert planning, honest advice and the right level of support. Choose the travel style that sounds most like you, or ask Antje to help you work it out. There is no wrong answer, although volunteering to share a Jimny with the friend who packed six suitcases may require further discussion.

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