Destiny Explorers

4.9/5 – 87 Reviews

$1,150 pp (USD)

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We Live To Explore!!

We Live To Explore!!

Destiny Explorers

4.9/5  
(87 Reviews)
Office In:
Tanzania Tanzania
Size:
5-10 employees (Founded in 2020)
Member Of:
MNRT, NCAA & TTBL
Tour Types:
Custom mid-range tours that can start every day
Destinations:
Tanzania TZ
We Live To Explore!!

We Live To Explore!!

Our focus is on tailor-made tours with a responsible approach, personalized and enriching experiences for the traveler while also benefiting the indigenous people, wildlife, and conservation efforts of the country. We actively support the community and grass roots projects where possible. A number of projects have been undertaken with our guests and corporate groups over the years for instance tree-planting, entrepreneurship studies to youth AND school fee support to the vulnerable children etc.

Reviews87

Destiny Explorers was responsive, competitive, & delivered on their commitments. Highly recommended!
5/5

My wife and I spent a couple months searching all the potential itineraries and various tour companies prior to selecting Destiny Explorers and an 8 day 7 night Safari to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary and my birthday. We were pleased with our selection of both itinerary and company. I felt they deserved a 5 star rating and would absolutely recommend them to anyone looking. With that said, I will attempt to lay out pros, cons, and various experiences we had which will hopefully help someone else reading reviews.

I'll begin by simply laying out our itinerary and lodging. Then I'll later come back to give my feedback on the parks and lodging.

Day 1 - Tarangire: Our itinerary started with pickup in Arusha at our hotel. While the majority of the trip was very punctual, the morning of the first day started about 45 minutes late (8:45 AM) because I believe our guide was tending to something related to the vehicle. We first stopped by a souvenir shop and local art gallery in Arusha. Then we drove for 3-4 hours to our first game drive in Tarangire national park. We spent about 5 hours on at portion prior to driving about an hour to our first night hotel at Eileen's Trees Inn.

Day 2 - Lake Manyara: The next morning we left around 8:30 AM. We went to a couple different souvenir shops in Karatu, and then drove an hour or so to Lake Manyara national park. We spent around 7 hours doing a game drive there before making our way back to Eileen's Trees Inn for night two. We were back around 7 or so.

Day 3 - Lake Natron: We left around the same time and went to another souvenir shop before going back to the one we had visited the day before to make some purchases. Then we had about a 4-5 hour drive to Lake Natron where we did a hike to a waterfall, went swimming in the pool caused by the waterfalls, hiked back and then drove about 30 minutes to the Lake Natron "beach". We walked across the salt flats to get closer to the many flamingos. After it got dark, we drove to our lodge the Safari Comfort Bungalow and got there around 7:30 or 8.

Day 4 - Serengeti: I got up and went back to the same "beach" for sunrise photographs with the flamingos. Then we got back to the lodge to get ready and on the road by around 9. The itinerary labeled this day as Northern Serengeti, but I think all the Serengeti days were somewhat blurred on what part of the park we actually were. The drive to get to the park entrance took around 5 hours. We then did around 5 hours of a game drive until getting to Narudi Tented Camp for our lodging around 5 or 6. We would have stayed out longer but it was raining.

Day 5 - Serengeti: This was supposed to be Western Serengeti according to the itinerary, but I think we stayed more central. We got up for sunrise leaving the camp at 6 AM. We did about a 3 hour game drive before returning to Narudi for breakfast and about an hour or so nap. We then left at 11:30 AM and did a 6 hour game drive before making our way to our next lodge at Tukaone Serengeti Camp which wasn't terribly far from Narudi. We got back there around 7 PM.

Day 6 - Serengeti: This was labelled as Central Serengeti on the itinerary. I think we actually stayed more central and Eastern. We started a little late but then did roughly 8 hours of exploring and didn't get back to Tukaone Serengeti Camp until 7:30 PM.

Day 7 - Ngorongoro Crater: We started by departing for sunrise at 6:30 AM to make our way from Tukaone to Ngorongoro Crater. It took roughly 4-5 hours to get to the entrance if I recall. We spent around 4 hours doing a game drive around the crater before spending an hour or two to get back to Eileen's Trees Inn for our final night. We got back to the hotel around 6:30 PM.

Day 8 - Lake Eyasi: We left the hotel at 5 AM and drove about an hour to an area near Lake Eyasi. We were introduced to the Hadzabe Tribe of hunters who taught us some of their click language and about their hunting tools. Then we went out on a hunt with them followed by them making a fire and cooking the birds that they killed. The tribe did some dancing and singing for us and we left around 10 AM. We drove a short distance to visit with the Datooga Tribe. They taught us about their culture and then showed us their blacksmith livelihood where we participated in the process of making arrowheads. We spent around an hour and a half with them prior to making our 4 hour journey back to Arusha. Once back in Arusha, we went back to the first souvenir shop and purchased a few more items prior to getting dropped off at our exit point around 4:30 PM.

Now for my breakdown of the various components of our experience.

Destiny Explorers & Issa Hamisi: When I first reached out through SafariBookings.com, I reached out to 3 different operators at the same time with the same message to see how various companies would respond. Issa was very quick to respond and gave better responses than the others I reached out to. I listed several questions in my initial outreaches to the various companies. Most all of them only answered some of my questions and most gave somewhat copy/paste answers. Issa was similar to this but was more intentional to answer than others were. After my first batch of outreaches, I reached out to an additional 5 or so. I didn't realize that Destiny Explorers was in my second batch of outreaches also. This is easy to happen because I was looking through the various itineraries and packages and not so much just looking at the tour operators. It was after this outreach that I got a similar response to my initial one, but Issa also reached out to let me know that it costs his company each time I send a new inquiry vs continuing to work with the initial one. This is a good thing to note if you are using SafariBookings.com. Before it was said and done, Issa had a 30 minute Whatsapp call with me and was very accommodating to answer all my questions. One minor thing that either wasn't communicated or that I missed was that no drinks other than water would be included throughout the trip. I knew that this was the case while in the vehicle, but I was surprised that nothing beyond water was included with our dinners either. At a few of the locations even the water was an extra charge.

I would absolutely go through Destiny Explorers again in the future and was pleased with the process. The costs were competitive and it wasn't a nickel and dime experience. When I asked about modifying the itinerary or changing some of the lodging, he was able to provide clear pricing that facilitated us making an educated decision at each step of the way.

Our Tour Guide Eliona Tarimu: Eliona was a very kind and considerate guide. He is an older gentleman who had clearly been guiding for a very long time. This was evident at multiple times throughout the trip. He knew many of the other guides and they clearly knew him as well. The was the same for park rangers at the various parks. I believe this made for some elements of the trip to be a bit smoother. He was also a clean-conscious guide. He kept the jeep clean inside and out as much as possible, and I believe even took the time to clean it throughout the trip. He invited us to take our shoes off and stand up on the seats when we wanted a higher viewpoint. This meant we were also on the ground in our socks often. We didn't mind though because he kept the vehicle clean which was appreciated. He was also very intent to make sure we were well taken care of with food, water, and interacting with others on our behalf if needed.

If I were to list some ways that Eliona could have made the trip better or potential areas of improvement, I would start by encouraging more communication. We didn't always know what to expect when it came to drive distances or "how much longer" type things. We also didn't really know what we should be expecting. There were certainly many times we did get those things shared with us, but I think there could have been more. It was also very difficult for us to hear and understand him. He speaks good English, but he does have a thick accent (for us). But beyond this making it hard to understand, the jeep has a great deal of road noise so it was hard to hear in general. To make it more difficult, he didn't always speak up and often as facing forward while talking because he was driving - but we were sitting behind him. I felt he could have shared more information about the various animals which also would have been helpful. He shared many things about smaller animals or even birds, but not much about the big game.

One area that I'm not sure if it was a pro or a con was his driving. He was a very cautious driver. I couldn't tell if it was due to being an older gentleman, wanting to make sure his guests were comfortable, or trying to make sure to avoid vehicle issues. I drive a big 4x4 truck back home and enjoy off-roading. Many of the roads on this safari were very rough and filled with potholes. We saw many other vehicles with flat tires or dealing with troubles. I think part of why we didn't have those problems was because his driving. At the same time, if it was dark he would drive extra slow because the shadows caused by the headlights made every road imperfection look much worse than they were. He was also very timid with downhill drives to the extent he seemed concerned he would lose control if he didn't hold the brakes the entire time going downhill. The only reason the overly cautious driving would be mentioned is because I was wanting to capitalize on as much game drive time as possible. I felt we could have gotten from park to park faster which may have given a little more time in the park. Again though, we didn't have vehicle issues like many others.

Overall Eliona was excellent!

Lodging

Eileen's Trees Inn (Karatu): This is a nice hotel with great accommodations and a great staff. They were very helpful and always had big smiles. The rooms were comfortable. We had hot water mostly, but it did run out during one shower (my wife took hers first). The food was buffet style and very good each meal we had and we would happily go back here. We also did an hour long full body couples massage ($35 each) on our last day. My wife said hers was excellent. Mine wasn't so great but overall we were very happy they allowed us to schedule last minute and came to the room for the massage.

Safari Comfort Bungalow (Lake Natron): Very nice hotel and experience somewhat similar to Eileen's Trees Inn. Water was hot. Room was clean and comfortable. Meal was a prepared plate vs buffet, but food was very good and staff was very friendly.

Narudi Tented Camp (Serengeti): This was probably our favorite accommodation. The room was a great tent with wooden floors, a nice warm shower, and even a little seating area in the tent beyond the king sized bed. We heard a lion attack a wildebeest that night and of course heard plenty of other wildlife which made it even more exciting. Meals were buffet style and very good. They were working on their main tent area which meant our meals were in a smaller more temporary location. It was nice nevertheless and the staff was wonderful.

Tukaone Serengeti Camp (Serengeti): This tented camp was more advanced than Narudi. Instead of a zipper door on the tent, Tukaone actually had a full wooden door with lock and all. The room was large and the bathroom had its own wooden doors as well. The staff was probably least attentive at this location compared to our other lodgings. You weren't allowed to walk alone at night when staying at any of the places inside the parks (for safety reasons of course). At Narudi they gave a flashlight and you signaled the staff for them to come walk you to dinner and back. At Tukaone, they took it a step further and gave each room a walkie-talkie radio. But then every time we used the radio to call the staff, nobody would respond. This made it less impressive for sure. A couple times I finally just walked without them because they weren't responsive. The first night there we actually didn't have any water at all. After about 15 minutes for trying to reach someone, they came and got it working. But then we didn't have any hot water. We tried reaching someone but no luck. The next day they were very apologetic and did get the hot water working. I think one of the reasons for the trouble was an elephant had been in the area the day prior and messed some things up (at least that was the explanation). Food at Tukaone was buffet style and very good. They also have a great bar and lounge tent along with a fire place that was used each night. I think had it not been for the lack of responsiveness and water troubles, this camp would have been very high up on our list. With some good management, it would easily be a top location. One more example that just highlights that the staff just wasn't quite there yet. Every hotel we got to greeted us with a warm wet towel for our hands, a glass of juice, and an easy-going attitude looking to serve us on our schedule. Tukaone had a strict 7:30 dinner time. When we got there the first night at 7:10, they were stressing that we needed to be to dinner at 7:30 and then proceeded to sit us down to tell us the rules of the camp and where things were even though we wanted to get our things to our tent and clean up prior to the hard 7:30 dinner time. They did offer juice but no warm wet washcloths like the other locations. That's all minor but anecdotally describes the staff flavor compared to the other locations.

Vehicle

One of the things I asked a lot of questions about before booking was the vehicle. We read many reviews that gave us some concern about how important the vehicle is. After going, I think pretty much all the vehicles looked the same. There were some styles that had the whole front and sides of the jeep open with the seats elevated as the rows went back. I would have hated that for multiple reasons. Ours was the regular Land Cruiser with the roof that raised when out on the game drives. It was well maintained and clean. The seats were comfortable and there was an extra cushion on each seat making them that much more comfortable. I don't think any of the safari vehicles have air conditioning because you drive with the roof open. It would have been nice during the drives going from park to park, but it didn't work because the rough roads cause regular issues. Overall the weather was very nice and we only felt hot maybe one day. It was nice to have a power inverter built into the seating area so we could charge devices, but I was disappointed that the refrigerator didn't work. Something was wrong with the unit, so instead Eliona would put frozen water bottles in the cooler each day which was a bit of a makeshift fridge effort. It works decent for the most part, but there was a day or two he couldn't get ice. There was also a piece of plastic used for one of the window slides. Eliona had mentioned that the window had broken the day or two before. The fix was this piece of clear plastic which worked overall, but didn't have a proper latch and didn't slide open and closed easily. That made it a bit of an inconvenience trying to deal with it and also the rattling noise because it couldn't latch.

Parks

First of all, I was pretty surprised how very different each park was. I anticipated we would be visiting 4 different parks that would feel like the same park with 4 different names. This is definitely not the case. Each park is very unique.

Tarangire: The was a good first park to go to. We got to see lots of elephants, giraffes, ostriches and others. This was the only park out of all of them where we saw the big baobab trees. These are very cool trees that I wish I would have known we wouldn't see again. I was hoping to get a good sunset photograph of a landscape with these trees. I think of all the parks we went to, I would probably place this park at the bottom of the list although I'm very glad we went and certainly enjoyed it.

Lake Manyara: It was a completely different type of landscape here. It felt very tropical and like a rainforest which made for a new environment to see and photograph the various animals. Following an elephant walk through the rainforest is more enjoyable than following him walk through an open field. We so most animals here minus lions and rhinos. We only saw one cat, but it was a leopard up in the tree which was great.

Lake Natron: The description on this day was a bit inaccurate. It referenced a few hour hike to get to the waterfall which would imply a similar distance back for a 4-6 hour hiking session. It was in fact about a 30-40 minute hike to get there. I was fairly disappointed on the timing at this location because we didn't know we needed to hurry to get to the flamingos. By the time we got there, the sun was already going down which made us miss getting photographs of the flamingos with the vibrant pinks caused by the sunlight.

Serengeti: This was the most exciting of the various parks. More info what to expect would have been appreciated. I think we could have seen a bit more if we didn't go East on the second day because we needed to take that same route to get to Ngorongoro Crater on Friday. We were glad we stayed in the park as it gave us sunrise and sunset opportunities. It also added the excitement of hearing the animals outside our tent each night.

Lake Eyasi: We could have easily skipped this part although it was fun and unique. We were somewhat spent by mid morning from getting up so early. We actually didn't even go to the lake because I felt a little pressed to get back to meet our transportation that was getting us back to Nairobi. We enjoyed the uniqueness of hunting with the Hadzabe people though. Had I known in advance that we were going to need to get up at 4:30 for a 5 AM departure on this day, I would have planned our sleep or other sunrisesd/sunset moments differently.

Souvenir Shopping

Each of the places we went had some great options. The shop in Arusha was impressive, large, and very clean. The pricing here is fixed and I think more expensive than the others. The one we liked the most was the second shop we went to near Karatu. It was called Safari World. Everything there is negotiable. I think a good target is roughly 50% off whatever the first numbers if not more. The quality options for the wooden carvings was very good here also. The Tanzanite Experience shop was higher priced with very little selection compared to the other places. The smaller shops on the drive had a lot of things, but the quality wasn't as good as the other locations.

The best tour guide in Tanzania, excellent quality at a good price.
5/5

We had an unforgettable experience with Destiny Explorers during our safari adventure in Tanzania. From the very beginning, their team impressed us with their professionalism, kindness, and passion for sharing the incredible beauty of their country.

We visited breathtaking places like Ngorongoro, Tarangire, Serengeti, and many more, each one more spectacular than the last. Our guide was not only extremely knowledgeable but also incredibly warm and attentive, making us feel safe and welcome at all times.

Traveling with my wife, I felt completely secure thanks to their attention to detail and commitment to our well-being. Every moment of our journey was filled with wonder and discovery, and Destiny Explorers made it all seamless and enjoyable.

If you’re looking for a truly authentic, memorable, and safe safari experience, I wholeheartedly recommend Destiny Explorers. They turned our dream trip into a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

A once-in-a-lifetime trip we won't soon forget!
5/5

What can I say in a review that will really get someone to book with this company? For us, it was pricing and customization. I reached out and immediately started a dialogue with Issa. He was attentive to what I wanted for our first safari ever (hopefully not our last!), and was determined to fit it into our price range. I had conversations with MANY other tour operators, but they didn't seem to be able to cater to my wants within my budget like Destiny!
And I am SOOOO glad I booked with them. We were even a little under budget for what our top line was. Amazing! Issa and the Destiny team made our entire safari incredible. We were offered a few "side events" like an air balloon ride and a bush walk with a ranger. We opted in for both. Let me tell you that the hefty price of the balloon ride was absolutely worth it. I was super hesitant to do it, but when my husband told me off-handedly that he would like to do a hot air balloon ride someday, I HAD to do it. I kept it a surprise from him for MONTHS, and Destiny helped me keep the secret literally until we were pulling up in front of the hot air balloon! I told Issa to keep it a secret, and Issa told Daudi (our guide) to keep it a secret, and everything went off without a hitch. My husband was THRILLED. Thank you, Destiny, for helping to keep that secret!
Speaking of Daudi (David)... a better guide we could not ask for! He was attentive to our needs, and always made sure we had enough water every single day, that we saw everything we wanted to see, and that we were comfortable. He made sure we always got a box lunch if we didn't have a chance to pack one ourselves.
He knew the names of every single animal and it seemed like every bird as well, and even humored me in speaking a little Swahili with me so I could practice.
He was an incredibly safe driver, and even in some rough terrain, I never felt worried. Our car had a minor trouble (it didn't break down, but we had to stop at a mechanic for a few short minutes in the Serengeti for a solder job). He stopped at a lodge with a mechanic and the lodge welcomed us so nicely and gave us WiFi and tea and cookies while we waited for the mechanic to finish working.
We were able to go to Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro, and Lake Eyasi to visit the Hadzabe (a MUST).
Tarangire was elephant heaven. It was a fantastic first day.
Lake Manyara was a bird-watchers paradise. We saw so many unique birds and animals! We didn't get to see the tree-climbing lions, but...!
Serengeti we did! Daudi said he had never seen them there before and we were the only tourists around, so we spent about an hour observing the Serengeti tree-climbing lions!! We also had an up close and personal visit with a pack of juvenile lions who took naps under our vehicle on a hot day!
Ngorongoro was awesome. A small-ish area for so many animals! We got to see rhinos, and TONS of hyenas.
Lake Eyasi was an awesome day as we did a cultural tour among the Hadzabe tribe. We got to go on a hunt with them, shoot their bows, make fire, and so much more! I felt some "cultural" 'tours' can get a little kitchy and touristy, but this felt very legit and like we were the only visitors they'd hung out with. Very welcoming and a very personal experience. Lovely souvenirs from them as well!
We are SO GLAD we chose Destiny Explorers- and you will be, too!

Excellent, met all expectations
5/5

We chose the 6-Day Stunning Tanzania Adventure private tour and it was amazing. Our guide David adjusted to our schedule as needed and tried his best that we get the most of the safari. He was knowledgeable and very good driver.
The lodges chosen were breathtaking.
Only downside was that they forgot to send someone to pick us up at the airport as had been promised, but was then sorted out.
Would definitely recommend.

Nikolas was our guide - helpful - friendly - knows everything about tansania and there safari parks.
5/5

Ruaha - Nyerere - Mikumi
Wonderful - everything was perfekt - thank you very much

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  • This tour is offered by Destiny Explorers, not SafariBookings.
  • This operator reserves the right to change rates advertised on SafariBookings.
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