Going to Africa - Advice please!

[psycho_tabby]

I'm planning on going to Southern Africa in October. I'm going by myself so I think I'll book myself onto a small group tour for safety but the problem I have is that I have a stack of tour company fliers as tall as my arm. I've managed to TRIM it down to NINE different companies, but now I'm stuck. These companies all do small group trips, they all promote sustainable tourism and giving back to the communities, they all run tours that go to the places I think I want to go, and have all fairly similar prices (once you add in the park fees to the cheaper ones). The only difference I can see at the moment is that some are African companies and some are not and I really don't know if that is a good or bad thing.

What I want to know is if anyone has had ANY experience with the following list of travel companies (Good or Bad) so I can trim the herd a bit:

• Acacia Africa
• GAP Adventures
• Geckos
• Drifters
• Kumuka
• Intrepid
• Africa Travel Co.
• Swagman Tours
• Imaginative Traveler Ltd

Also if you have any advice about traveling in in Africa and whether going on a tour is a good idea I'd love to hear it. My current plans involve seeing some of South Africa/Cape Town then going up to Namibia and  Botswana and then maybe flying over to Tanzania and Zanzibar. The things I don't know is is I can plan to spend a few days in places like Cape Town or Zanzibar not on a tour or whether that is just too foolish and dangerous.