Meet the Team - eTrip Africa
E-Trip Africa
- Located In:
-
United States
- Size:
- 20-50 employees (Founded in 2012)
- Member Of:
- ATA, IATAN, IGS, KPAP & CODE
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $200 to $1,500 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
Email Katie Sutton | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Organized, detailed, professional, well-run
We did a 8 day, 7 night safari with E-trip in late August 2021 with David as our guide. Our itinerary was Day 1/Night 1: arrive in Arusha; day 2/Night 2: Tarangire park; day 3/night 3: Laka Manyara, stayed on Ngorogoro rim; day 4+5/nights 4+5: central Serengeti; day 6+7/nights 6+7: northern Serengeti; day 8: fly from Koga to Zanzibar. We stayed mostly in tent camps (which I highly recommend to hear the animals that walk by your tent at night). It was a wonderful trip and I highly recommend booking with E-Trip and having David as your guide.
We worked with many other companies in planning the safari, but found E-trip the most helpful. Ben was always quick to respond to my many questions with very detailed answers, and he tailored our itinerary to fit exactly what we wanted to do by helping us make trade offs between lodging and safari costs so that we could get a trip that was what we wanted in our budget. Ben continued to be helpful in preparing us for our trip by continuing to answer all of our questions over email until we arrived. This made sure that we were well prepared and our trip went really smoothly as a result. He even helped us with recommendations for the Zanzibar part of our trip, even though we did not book that part with E-trip (we just booked everything on our own). Ben was really fair and honest and gave us a lot of confidence in booking with E-trip, particularly during the uncertainties of Covid.
We can’t speak highly enough of David as a guide. David was really knowledgeable and took care of everything so that we could just relax and enjoy the trip. We are vegetarians, and he made sure that we always got vegetarian meals. He also did a lot of little things to make our trip go smoothly, like wiping down the dusty windows of the truck every night, pulling up descriptions of the animals and birds in the books he had with, and tailoring each day to what we wanted to do and see. It is clear that he is very experienced, and is good at finding the animals to watch. He explains not only the names of what you are seeing, but also all of their behaviors. As we were leaving Arusha, we stopped at an Airtel store to get SIM cards for our cell phones. A few days into the trip, it was clear that there was a problem with one of the cards, and David went above and beyond to call back to the store many times to get it fixed for us, even though it had nothing to do with E-trip or our tour.
The only “problem” we had with the trip was that the outlet to charge phones/cameras in the car was broken, so we couldn’t charge our phones during the day in the car. We had brought a portable battery(highly recommend doing this) and charged at night in the camps and it was fine. If that is the biggest issue we had the whole trip, it clearly was a very well run safari. Thank you Ben, David, and E-trip!
Email Corbin Mosher | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Knowledgeable, passionate, helpful, and kind. Ben, Alladin, & E-Trip Africa took great care of us.
We planned an eight night Safari through E-Trip Africa. Well I guess I should say Ben did most of the planning for us based on our timeframe and what preferences were! He was extremely prompt and great to work with.
Our guide, Alladin, was not only very professional, experienced, and knowledgeable, but also just a great guy to spend a week with.
The trip for us consisted of one night at Arusha, one night at Tarangire Park, one night at Lake Manyara, two nights in the central Serengeti, two nights in the northern Serengeti, and one night at Ngorongoro crater.
We saw everything from lion and leopard clubs to elephant herds and everything in between. In the northern Serengeti we even saw the Wildebeest migration attempt river crossings while predators took advantage of the river choke points.
The food was delicious and the accommodations were comfortable. Definitely would consider it very similar to glamping.
Not only was Tanzania an amazing country to visit, all of the people we met there were kind and engaging. We would recommend this trip and company to anyone. Hopefully we can go back someday for Mt. Kilimanjaro and Gorilla trips!
Email Fran Scarlett | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Custom Dream Trip
E-Trip Africa is a small tour operator who is extremely responsive to the requests for taking a solo safari. Excellent and fast communications via email, very accommodating to my request for intimate luxury camps with elevated tents, etc. I looked at several tour operators and E-trip Africa offered the best price. Ben's knowledge of the different camps was also helpful in deciding on lodges so we didn't have to spend an hour driving to get to a park. If you stay in a park, there's wildlife outside your tent since in Tanzania the camps are not fenced.
Now, for the actual safari itself. The MOST outstanding travel experience of my life. My safari guide David Mushi is so knowledgeable about animal behavior, the numerous bird species and the ecosystems in the various parks: Tarangire, Ngorongoro Crater and Highlands and the Serengeti. I learned so much from him. He could tell me when a bird was about to fly so I could capture it in flight, or when a lioness was going to yawn so I could capture an incredible picture. His service was outstanding- I felt taken care of. All I had to do was show up at the time we agreed upon. He kept the vehicle pristine, ordered lunch boxes, had two liters of bottled water in the seat pocket every day without fail. I did not realize this prior to my safari, but your guide makes or breaks safari. Yes, the tents were very nice, the food at the camps was delicious, but when you are in a truck for 8 hours with a person who is at the top of their craft... magical. I am in awe of this man and how committed he was to making sure I had an outstanding experience. I highly recommend E-trip Africa and request David to be your guide. You will have a fantastic trip.
Email Jenny | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
The tour was well-organized and smooth!
E-Trip provided great communication through the planning of the safari, including completely changing the dates when Kenya had an unexpected lockdown. The guides were always on time, courteous, and knowledgeable. We enjoyed our safari.
Email Michelle | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Built us our dream trip!
Contacted three tour companies. E-Trio Africa was first to respond. Followed up quickly and was $10,000 cheaper than the others. I asked another tour company to get the price down & keep it under a certain amount and they couldn’t E-Trip Africa did! I respected and was thankful for the opinions and suggestions that I was given about our trip. I felt like they truly worked with us and knew how to give us the experience that we were wanting. Their relationship with Lemala hotel chain appreciated. We loved staying within the same chain of beautiful properties during our trip. While we were there the safari vehicles had tour company logos on spare tire. You will see there are endless picks of companies and hotels but just put your trust in this company like we did and you will not be disappointed. Thanks for a dream vacation. Totally telling all our friends about you. Thanks
Email Maureen Chao | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Outstanding customer service and planning
Just returned from a 12 day trip to Kenya, three adults and three kids. The trip was all paid for and set up for April, and then two days before we were supposed to go Kenya suddenly changed their travel restrictions and the whole trip fell apart. We had internal flights and reservations at four different lodges and hotels. I was sick thinking about all the money we would lose given the various cancellation policies for the flights and hotels. We could have been totally out of luck but Ben and his team at E-Trip immediately went to work for us. They ended up negotiating a later trip for us in June, and lobbied with each provider on our behalf. In the end we got to take the whole trip and didn't end up losing any money at all. And there was outstanding communication the entire time, from the planning process and through all the changes we had to make as flights continued to get cancelled and changed, even when we were on the trip. First class customer service, with the customer put first, which was really refreshing.
The tour was well set up, the drivers and guides were super, we had lots of connections with internal flights, etc and every one of them was seamless. I had total confidence in the arrangements, and also knew we would be taken care of if something were to go wrong. I would definitely book a trip again with E-Trip Africa.
Email Justin Selb | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Very knowledegable and very friendly
This was a once in a lifetime trip with my father who is 70 (I am 39) to visit mountain gorillas in volcano national park of Rwanda for two days, and then to do a big game drive safari through the serengeti reserve for 3 days in Tanazania. Ben with e-trip Safari was a consummate professional from the beginning, sensitive to our needs of my father's health considerations, and our desire for a higher-end experience. He can accommodate nearly any budget, and provides the best people on the ground you can hope for. We had a once in a lifetime adventure among the silverbacks in the mountains of rwanda, and the big game in the serengeti including big 5 and a million + migration of wildebeest. Ben put us in the most amazing and comfortable lodges and camps you can imagine, the kardashians would have been impressed. Highly recommend e-trip africa for your African adventure needs!
Email Keely | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Absolutely wonderful!
Can not say enough positive things about E-trip Africa, we had a wonderful time, the service was great. I felt that if I needed anything I could reach out at any time, response time was quick. Co-vid tests were arranged seamlessly. Properties were beautiful. We saw the big 5 and tons more. Trip of a lifetime!
Email Peter Bacon | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
A great safari, from start to end.
My wife and I travelled to Tanzania in early January 2021, pre UK lockdown, to continue our long standing educational project work there. We also allowed ourselves time for a safari before returning home, but had made no arrangements prior to arrival in Tanzania. We sent out email enquiries with an outline itinerary of collection from Bunda, 3 nights in Central Serengeti, 4 nights in Ndutu and 2 nights in Tarangire to 7 Tanzanian safari operators, and received 5 responses, including a very quick response from Ben at ETrip Africa.
Due to the pandemic tourism in Tanzania has significantly declined and not all camps are open so many of the operators offered similar camps to one another, but ETrip did offer us some different, and slightly more up-market, camps at a reasonably comparable cost. We followed up on several of the itineraries proposed and during this process ETrip offered us further savings based on additional discounts offered from the camps which made them one of the cheaper options. We also asked Ben to look at a better alternative in Tarangire which he did with little price difference. At all times ETrip were open about the pricing and discounts that were being applied.
We were very happy with all our communications throughout this planning stage and chose to take our safari with ETrip, at which point we were sent a comprehensive itinerary with advice about the safari and full and clear breakdown of costs, with payment details. We were able to pay by bank transfer to an American bank account via internet banking.
We had indicated we had an interest in birds and Ben had proposed that Alladin should be our guide. Alladin came and met us at our hotel in Bunda the night before our safari started to make arrangements to pick us up the next day.
The safari car was a relatively new Land Cruiser with pop up top as used by most safari companies and was in the best condition of any vehicle we have used on the 10 or so safaris we have enjoyed. It was well fitted out with convenient drinks holders, and large seat pouches and a cool box and charging points. We had no mechanical issues with the car all trip. ETrip also provided two pairs of good quality binoculars for our use in the car.
Our guide Alladin was excellent, he was a very good driver, a good game and bird spotter, and good company throughout. We enjoyed every day of the trip with him and had some great game viewing, and with the small number of visitors we were often the only car at a sighting.
The camps proposed by ETrip were all very good, we suspect in non COVID times they would have been outside our usual budget, but it made for a very nice to experience for us. On several nights we were the only guests at some of the camps.
We are extremely happy that we chose ETrip Africa, everything from their initial communication to the follow up when we finished the trip was spot on, and we will definitely be contacting them again the next time we are lucky enough to think about a safari in Tanzania.
FR
Email Olivier | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Very Good Tour and Travel Agency
We booked a 10 days Safari in Tanzania with E-Trip Africa and everything went well. They arranged everything for us prior to departure and made sure all was ok for my Mom who's in a wheelchair. It was really easy to communicate with them and they respond really fast to any questions you might have. Everything went as planned. Our driver Alladine was very kind and professional, driving safely and pointing us to all the different animals and places to see. The accommodations booked via E-Trip Africa were always of high standards, with people taking great care of us. Do not hesitate to book a trip with E-Trip Africa. I greatly recommend it to all of you.