Safari Guide of the Year Winners: Every Verified Winner, the Lodges They Guide For, and How the Title Is Won

Sarah Barratt of Thornybush Game Lodge is Safari Guide of the Year 2026, the second woman to win after Kimberlee Le Hanie in 2023; since 2018 the title has gone to guides from Londolozi, Royal Malewane (twice), Royal Madikwe, Ongava, Lion Sands (twice) and Thornybush. The competition, founded in 2011 and run with the Field Guides Association of Southern Africa (FGASA), is decided by a week of live assessments in front of judges, not by votes or entry fees. This page lists every winner that could be verified, the lodge each worked for when they won, the runners-up and 2026 finalists, and how the title is decided.

Verified 23 September 2026 · fgasa.co.za winners, About and results pages · SATSA and Tourism News Africa for 2026 · lodges re-read at their own sites

Who has won Safari Guide of the Year, year by year?

The verified winners of Safari Guide of the Year are Sarah Barratt (2026), Jason Gipson (2025), H.J. Esterhuizen (2024), Kimberlee Le Hanie (2023), Cameron Pearce (2022), Togara Charingira (2021), Riaan Fourie (2019), James Tyrrell (2018) and the first winner, Greg Lederle (2011). Winners and lodges come from the Field Guides Association of Southern Africa (FGASA), which runs the title, and from press reports where FGASA has not yet published a year. FGASA's own winners page still showed 2026 as “coming soon” on 23 September 2026, so the 2026 result is taken from SATSA and Tourism News Africa. No winners for 2012 to 2017 could be found at source, so those years are left blank rather than filled from memory.

Which safari lodges have produced the most Safari Guide of the Year winners?

Lion Sands and Royal Malewane have each produced two Safari Guide of the Year winners since 2019, and three of the seven titles decided since then went to guides working in the Thornybush Private Nature Reserve: Royal Malewane's Riaan Fourie (2019) and H.J. Esterhuizen (2024), and Thornybush Game Lodge's Sarah Barratt (2026). Of the eight winners since 2018, six guided in Greater Kruger, in the Sabi Sand or Thornybush. Singita and Shamwari have reached the final several times without a winner.

Two patterns explain most of the table. The field is South African by design: entrants need FGASA qualifications and membership, so Cameron Pearce of Ongava in Namibia (2022) is the only verified winner who guided outside South Africa, and well-known camp operators in Botswana, Zambia and East Africa do not appear. And the title belongs to a person, not a lodge. Guides move, so a lodge that produced a winner may no longer employ that guide; the lodge column records where each winner worked at the time of the win.

How is Safari Guide of the Year decided?

Safari Guide of the Year is decided by live assessment, not by votes: nominated guides with at least five years' experience and FGASA Field Guide and Trails Guide qualifications are interviewed, and the finalists then spend a week being scored by a judging panel on game drives, walks, tracking, birding, rifle handling, storytelling, hospitality and photographic guiding. The competition was founded in 2011, when the guide Mike Karantonis took the idea to FGASA, according to FGASA's About page. Each year's final is hosted by a different lodge: Kariega in the Eastern Cape in 2025, Mhondoro in the Waterberg in 2024, and Klaserie Drift's Amani camp in the Klaserie Private Nature Reserve in 2026.

Is Safari Guide of the Year a paid award?

No entry fee is published: FGASA's criteria set experience, qualification and employment requirements, and the only cost they mention is that entrants must be paid-up FGASA members; the prizes are funded by sponsors such as Ruggedwear, Canon South Africa, Swarovski Optik and Women in Safari Excellence. This is the main difference from the company awards covered on this site. The Travel + Leisure World's Best awards come from a reader survey, while Safari Guide of the Year is won by performing in front of judges over several days. A lodge cannot enter a guide who lacks the qualifications, and a large client list does not help a finalist on a tracking assessment.

Who won Safari Guide of the Year 2026?

Sarah Barratt of Thornybush Game Lodge won Safari Guide of the Year 2026 at a five-day final that ended on 24 June 2026 at Klaserie Drift's Amani camp in the Klaserie Private Nature Reserve; Otto Scribante of Singita was runner-up. Barratt is the second woman to win the title, after Kimberlee Le Hanie of Lion Sands in 2023 (Tourism News Africa). The 2026 final marked the competition's fifteenth anniversary and, according to SATSA, covered nine challenges: track and sign, birding, storytelling, guided walks, photographic guiding, hospitality, professionalism, advanced rifle handling and guided game drives. Getaway previewed the week before it began.

Shamwari placed two guides in the 2026 final, Samantha Snodgrass and Patrick Kepe, after Jan Dykema's runner-up finish in 2023. Singita's Otto Scribante is the company's best result in the finals checked, after Solomon Ndlovu of Singita Lebombo reached the 2022 final.

What readers get wrong about Safari Guide of the Year

Safari Guide of the Year is an individual title, so it tells you about one guide at one lodge in one year, not about every guide at that lodge or about the company that sells your trip. A lodge that describes itself as home to an award-winning guide may be referring to a finalist rather than a winner, or to a guide who has since moved on; the tables on this page record where each winner worked when they won. The title is also a southern African competition built on FGASA qualifications, so it says nothing either way about guiding standards in Botswana, Zambia, Kenya or Tanzania, where guides qualify under their own national systems. For guiding across Africa as a whole, the Safari Awards' Best Safari Guiding Team rates whole guiding teams at a property; it went to Jack's Camp in Botswana in 2026.

Three planning rules for booking a top guide

1 · Ask for the guide by name. When you book one of the lodges above, ask whether it can confirm a named guide for your dates and what that costs; the answer tells you more than a badge does.

2 · Check where the guide works now. Guides change roles and lodges. Confirm on the lodge's own site that the guide you want is still there before choosing the lodge for one person.

3 · Price the lodge, not the title. The title says nothing about what a night costs. The South Africa safari cost guide, the price-per-night decoder and the payment terms index set out what to expect before you pay a deposit.

What changed in 2026

The 2026 final produced a second woman winner, a third title in eight years for the Thornybush reserve, and Singita's best finish in the finals checked.

18 to 24 June 2026. The final moved to the Klaserie Private Nature Reserve, hosted by Klaserie Drift's Amani camp, after Kariega in the Eastern Cape in 2025 (FGASA).

24 June 2026. Sarah Barratt of Thornybush Game Lodge won, the second woman to take the title after Kimberlee Le Hanie in 2023 (SATSA).

24 June 2026. Otto Scribante of Singita finished runner-up, ahead of two Shamwari guides and Sanbona's Jordan Davidson.

As of 23 September 2026. FGASA's official winners page had not yet added the 2026 result. This page will be updated when it does.

How to price a stay at a winner's lodge

Get the lodge's own rate first, then a specialist quote and a platform comparison for the same dates. The Go2Africa, Safari.com and BookAllSafaris links below are affiliate links; none of the three is connected to Safari Guide of the Year.