The key word is private: private carriage, private compartment, private dining, private excursions, and — for a full charter — an entire train that belongs to your party alone.
Four Levels
- Rail Privé Journeys
- the entry point, booked cabin by cabin aboard a scheduled departure
- Private Carriage
- a carriage reserved for a family or small group within a scheduled journey
- Full Train
- a complete charter, in which every passenger aboard belongs to the same party
- Grand Expeditions
- train, private aviation, safari, marine and island, sold together as one continuous journey
The Pride of Africa
Our core rail benchmark is Rovos Rail — “The Pride of Africa”, founded in 1989. Its wood-panelled trains carry no television or radio in the suites; guests are meant to watch Africa go by. It sells the luxury of time rather than the luxury of speed.
Suites run in three tiers: Pullman, a compact en-suite cabin of around seven square metres; Deluxe, at around ten square metres, adding a small private lounge; and Royal, the flagship, at around sixteen square metres — roughly half a carriage, with its own private lounge and a Victorian-style bath.
Headline journeys include the Cape Town Journey, from Pretoria to Cape Town through the Karoo; the Victoria Falls Journey, via Limpopo and Matobo National Park with a Hwange game drive; the Namibia Safari; and the Dar es Salaam crossing, from South Africa through Zimbabwe and Zambia to Tanzania.
The Africa Privé Grand Journey
A route for a full charter: Cape Town, the Winelands, the Great Karoo, Kimberley and Pretoria, then Kruger, Victoria Falls, Hwange, the Zambezi and the Okavango — one continuous private journey by rail, air, road and water.
The Privé Train — a complete charter for thirty to forty guests, with private suites, dining, bar and observation carriage, its own chef and sommelier, and safari excursions and aviation connections built in, chartered for seven, ten, fourteen or twenty-one nights.
