You are going to have a great time! And you might as well start saving for the next one because you will want to go again.
Just you or are you bringing a companion(s)? How long can you be gone? How long so you want to be gone? What kind of shape are you in?
What do you want to hunt? Do you have much experience hunting? How comfortable/confident are you? You can shoot a LOT of plains game or you can probably do one or two dangerous game if you really shop around. I've been told volume gets deals. There are LOTS of package deals out there, almost endless PG package combinations and you might be able to find a lion/buffalo.
I would bet there are some deals floating around on lions in RSA... We are all fairly concerned that lion hunting could be banned. USFW may block importation of lions soon and if not, there is huge concern over the next CITIES meeting. So if that is something on your bucket list, perhaps now is the time. I was not ready for a DG hunt until I did PG first. But that is a personal question only you can answer.
Some outfitters have relationships with taxidermists and might negotiate that as part of a complete package.
What type of mounts do you want? Have you looked into taxidermy yet? My taxidermy bill alone will be about half of that budget but I am probably getting carried away. However you have time on that... And certainly can limit what you spend and still have really nice mementos of your hunt. I paid 50% advance on taxidermy and that was actually a month or two after the hunt. It will be about a year after the hunt before they are done and the balance is due. Then shipping expense. My biggest expense will be the space to hang them.... Working on that now.
Read some of the hunting reports. Send out some PM's if you need the "rest of the story". If you don't understand something, ask.
I do suspect your PM box is going to be full from outfitters and booking agents by morning
![Wink ;) ;)](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/twitter/twemoji@14.0.2/assets/72x72/1f609.png)