Shadows of Africa

4.9/5 – 145 Reviews

$4,591 pp (USD)

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The Amazing Shadows of Africa Guiding Team!

The Amazing Shadows of Africa Guiding Team!

Shadows of Africa

4.9/5  
(145 Reviews)
Offices In:
Tanzania Tanzania
Kenya Kenya
Rwanda Rwanda
South Africa South Africa
United States United States
Size:
20-50 employees (Founded in 2010)
Member Of:
ATTA, TATO & TTB
Tour Types:
Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
Destinations:
Kenya KE
Rwanda RW
South Africa ZA
Tanzania TZ
Uganda UG
The Amazing Shadows of Africa Guiding Team!

The Amazing Shadows of Africa Guiding Team!

We are Shadows of Africa, an international team dedicated to sharing the beauty and wonder of Africa with the world. With both local offices and international offices, our team is a multicultural, multilingual family who are passionate about Africa’s wildlife, culture, and natural beauty. We live and breathe the African experience, and we are here to bring that experience to the world. We specialize in tailor making your tour to ensure you get the perfect safari!

Reviews145

Amazing Safari in Kenya and Tanzania
5/5

We had a truly once in a lifetime experience with Shadows of Africa. The team helped us organize a 10 day safari in Kenya and Tanzania. Karen, our project manager, was amazing, super helpful and quick to reply, provided us with super detailed information and helped us adjust the itinerary as needed. Our guides Titus (in Kenya) and Gerald (in Tanzania) were incredible - they helped us see so many animals (they also knew a ton!), took really good care of us and were super fun to spend time with. We were also very happy with the logistics and the choice of lodges. Super grateful for such a fantastic and smooth experience!

Exceptional trip
5/5

for the first time in our lives we entrusted ourselves to a travel agency for a trip, we were very hesitant, but following some videos seen online and after reading many reviews, shadow of africa was our decision.
It was a wonderful trip and Sonja, the girl who followed us, proved to be extremely professional and patient, answering our thousand questions and giving us lots of useful advices.
all the accommodations were wonderful, we stayed in the heart of the Serengeti first and Gorongoro after with our driver, Dickson, who proved to be exceptional as a driver, as a guide telling us a lot of things about Tanzania and his people, but above all rest assured that he knows the animals perfectly, he anticipates their moves and always arrives first in wonderful places. we saw leopards and lions a few meters away, as well as all the other animals. thanks to dickson we saw all the big five and we will never stop thanking him.
Everything with Shadow of Africa worked perfectly, the drivers all proved to be extremely professional and provided us with a lot of informations, answering our many curiosities.
all the excursions carried out with Tales of Zanzibar, their partner, were magical, we were accompanied by professional people, in love with their work and who gave us unforgettable moments.
our week ended in their office, where Bernard welcomed us with his incredible smile to say hello in person.
we always felt pampered and with the knowledge that everything was perfectly organized so
we give 5 stars to shadow only because we can't give 6. thanks so much to all your stuff

The best over all travel agent in Africa
5/5

This is the real review from my true heart and want to share with all of you. I planned the Africa trips before one an a half years ago, I study and discuss with a lot of travel agents. Finally, i choose Shadows of Africa to plan my 13 days on Kenya and Tanzania trips. The staffs of Shadows all respond very quick and will give you useful and professional idea to you. We are very enjoy the trip. All the staff and guides from Shadow are very professionals, helpful, kindly and funny. Our trips is running smooth. (just have one communication problem but also fixed quickly). Thank you Megan😘, you are so helpful and give me awesome advice. We are so lucky to travelling with Shadows of Africa💯.

All the Safari guides are professional and politely . They all take good care of us. Driving skill are very professional, comfortable and safety. Knowledge of wildlife is professional. They know what we want, and know how to let us take a good photos and videos in safe and very close distance. Thank you Alex😊, Frank❤️💋 and Moses😍.

Especially Frank. He is so funny😘， easy going😜 and kindly. Sometime he will give you big surprise🤣🤣. He had an eagle eyes, can see 3km distance Rhino and leopard without binoculars . He let us collect Africa Big 5 (few times) and 5 times river crossing in our Tanzania safari . Frank is perfect guide i never seen before. Thank you so much. I think if you want to have great safari in Tanzania, Frank is your guides looking for. 💯💯💯💯💯

We want to say thank you to all professionals staffs from Shadows of Africa. Hope all the best to all of you.❤️❤️🌍🌍. We are so honestly to said that, if you are planning to travel in Africa, Shadows is best choice to you. 💯💯💯💯💯💯

Virgin Safari Experience with Shadows
4/5

Planner: Chris Walker
Local Staff: Ben / Joyce
Guide / Driver: Jackson (with Nick being the driver who transferred us from the airport to our first accommodations)

====================================================

TLDR:

Pros - (1) Staff was responsive and did their best to accede to our requests. (2) Actual safari experience was great with Jackson being an experienced guide (17 years under his belt), ability to spot animals and knowledgable enough to answer all the questions that we had about the culture, wildlife and Tanzania.

Cons - (1) Could have better advised us on certain locations / activities that we have decided on (i.e. weather conditions, things to pack for certain activities and plausible experience with the location / activity). (2) Last minute changes which we have agreed to but would have been a better experience if this was avoided altogether (nitpicking here but just to explain why it was not a 10/10 experience).

Overall - 9/10

Our Itinerary - Arusha - Taranguire National Park - Lake Manyara National Park - Ngorongoro Conservation Area / Crater - Lake Natron - Northern Serengeti

Period and duration that we went for - September (Dry Season, mornings and nights can be cold but day time will be hot) - 8 days

Full Review:

Just a day or two before our trip, we were informed that there will be some changes to our accommodations due to availability which we have agreed to. Though this did not affect the entire experience but could have been avoided.

Our virgin Africa safari trip finally happened after 9 months of planning and anticipation. Our first interaction with Shadows of Africa ("SOA") was with Chris who was really helpful and responsive to all the queries and requests that we had. After going through all the quotes from the different agencies and the suggested itineraries based on what we were looking for, we found SOA's offerings and pricing to be the most ideal.

When we first arrived at the airport, just having this trip as our virgin trip to Africa, an unknown place for us, we were relieved when we saw Nick holding up a sign that indicated that he was there to pick us up to bring us to our first accommodation. Overall, the transfer experience here was great as Nick was able to engage us throughout our ride and shared many interesting facts about Tanzania and the people in Arusha.

Fast forward, in terms of our accommodations, we really like Olerai Lodge (which we later found out to be owned by SOA), Acacia Farm Lodge and Mara Luxury Tented Camp. We found the other 2 accommodations (Rift Valley & Lake Natron) which were offered by Africa Safari Group to be sufficient but we were not blown away by the aesthetics, food variety and reliability of electricity.

For our experience at each location, our advice will be to skip Lake Natron altogether given the experience of the activities there, accommodation options and most importantly weather (hot throughout the year). If you are really pressed for time, you could consider just doing Northern Serengeti for the great migration and wildlife (you will pretty much see everything here except the Rhinos which is more likely to be found at Ngorongoro Crater). Even though we really like Ngorongo Crater and Lake Manyara National Park

Just highlighting here that we could have been better advised by Chris for Lake Natron, to make sure that we would have the best experience.

Activities wise, we have visited the tribe (Hazadbe) and had a Masaai guide to bring us to Lake Natron and the waterfalls. In our opinion, we feel that these activities even though it was not all bad, can be skipped once again if you are pressed for time.

In terms of communication, on the actual day for the start of our safari adventure (Day 2), we felt that communication could have been done better as we were left stranded for quite awhile before being informed that we will be transported to the office for our briefing.

For transport, if your budget allows for it, we would recommend taking the domestic flight options for a better travel experience especially after many days of safari in which you would have to wake up quite early every day for.

All in all, even though it just fell short of a perfect experience, we definitely enjoyed our virgin safari experience with SOA and would recommend it for others to try.

Nzuri sana - Very Nice!
5/5

We have chosen SoA because of Karen's swift responses and patient to our questions. She's not just selling, but providing service. All along she responded quickly, when negotiating the plan, budget, then queries on visa after the down payment, further questions after full payment, so on. We never felt any impatient from her. In fact, all its staffs, Joyce, Reuben, Johnson, and Alex are so nice and professional. We would like to give our applause to Alex. He's so experienced and guided us to see everything we are looking for, such as the big 5 (though rhino is miles away 😅) and river crossings. Especially, he's so confident where the wildebeest will cross the river and we can have one of the best positions to see it. Fantastic!

What to complain? Our car was broken down when Alex tried to drive us to a group of lions. So we need to lunch in the car and watch the lions sleeping a hundred meters away😕. Again thanks Alex who quickly arranged us be taken to the rest site by another car, and then back to our camp. We saw close bonding and collaboration amongst the guides 👍

One suggestion I think can make tourists like us feel more comfortable - take along foldable table and chairs so that picnic will be more enjoyable 🥰

Other Safaris & Tours36  – Offered by Shadows of Africa

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Disclaimer

  • This tour is offered by Shadows of Africa, not SafariBookings.
  • This operator reserves the right to change rates advertised on SafariBookings.
  • If you request changes to this tour, the advertised rates will likely change.
  • The exact order, contents and rates of this tour are subject to availability.
  • If an accommodation is fully booked, the operator will suggest a comparable alternative.
  • This tour is subject to the terms & conditions of Shadows of Africa.