Good Earth Tours & Safaris

Unfortunately, Can’t Recommend

This review is long but explains why we would not recommend GoodEarth after two weeks and two excursions with them. We were on back to back safaris with GoodEarth; we did the Kilimanjaro Machame Route Hike and Serengeti to Masai Mara safari from June 25-July 10. We really REALLY wanted this company to work out for us as we spent collectively nearly $12k (USD) on everything and it seemed promising. However once the tour was handed over to the Arusha based team - things quickly fell apart.

It started at the airport for pickup. We landed 4:30pm on a Sunday and were told we’d be greeted by our driver with our names on a sign. We waited and waited and reached out to all the WhatsApp numbers we were given multiple times before we were informed the hotel driver had the wrong name on the name plate. So we waited for nothing. That was our first impression.

We had sent an email to the Arusha office a week prior to landing about renting gear for Kilimanjaro but they weren’t prepared at all. We had to scramble at 9pm Sunday for our Monday morning climb. The morning of the climb - our tour guide, Fredy, forgot to bring some of the gear with him. On our way to the trailhead he asked US to purchase the gear he forgot to pack. We gave him a stern “No”, then he went and found the cheapest gear possible and it leaked our entire climb. Fredy was nice enough, but an EXTREMELY lazy guide. He needed to make frequent stops, was always late, and didn’t want to do anything for himself. At every meal he would call a porter from across the camp to come serve him food that was right in front of him. The entire time on the mountain we listened to him whining and ordering the porters around. It was deplorable, honestly. The last straw for me was when we missed our highly requested and once-in-a-lifetime sunrise on summit day by an hour because Fredy “didn’t want to be cold”. Luckily, Nestory was the assistant guide and respected our time on the mountain. Most of our hike up and the entire hike down was led by Nestory, as Fredy was too tired, too late, or too slow to meet our needs. We were so grateful Nestory was there and we should’ve insisted on him being lead guide on summit day to make the sunrise. The porters were great, especially Reuben and Ola. And Paul, the chef, was amazing - he even went out of his way to make us local food when we requested it. We were extremely grateful to reach the summit and for the rest of the climbing team.

As an apology, the company paid for our laundry and gave us free hats, which was really nice, but the time and opportunity lost (and money spent) were gone forever.

On our safari we ran into issues with the office apparently not paying the park entrance gate fee, causing an hour delay on our game drive at Serengeti. (Luckily the ranger in the gate office eventually had mercy on us and let us in.) At another gate, GoodEarth somehow didn’t realize the gate didn’t accept cash. So I had to use my personal credit card to pay our entrance. ($320 USD.) We were also delayed at that gate for an hour.

We did send our issues to Ndashy (the manager), but he only referred us back to Rose in the office. Rose was incredibly sweet but perhaps was overworked, hence the disorganization and mistakes.

No matter which company you choose, the type of guide you get is the luck of the draw. Your guide makes or breaks your experience… During our Serengeti safari we had Elias, who checked in with us frequently and made sure we were ok. He wasn’t quite as charismatic as other guides we’ve had, but he’s good. If you’re the quiet type, he could be a nice fit. Elias also helped me surprise my husband with the hot air balloon ride I had secretly booked to celebrate our anniversary. He was so clever in helping me convince my husband we were going for an late night/early morning game drive and I’m forever grateful to him for that! My husband had no idea and the surprise was priceless. We can’t recommend our Masai Mara guide - I’ll leave it there.

Maybe we were just very unlucky with GoodEarth. But it was significant enough for us to not choose them again or recommend them to loved ones. Beside that, obviously the animals and nature were absolutely unforgettable and we hope to visit Serengeti again…