Africa Travel Co
- Located In:
- Size:
- 20-50 employees (Founded in 1990)
- Member Of:
- ATTA, TASA, SATSA, ATTA US, SAYTC & SAT
- Tour Types:
- Budget camping tours with set start dates and a fixed itinerary (clients assist with camp chores)
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $70 to $150 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
Email Rex | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Not a good value
The advertised 10 day itinerary was actually 8.5 days.
If you don't do the optional tours, you'll be alone at camp for 15-20 hours over the trip.
If you do do the optional tours, the price of the trip doubles.
Pressure to tip. Even forced to tip $10pp once.
Bus: It's dirty because it doesn't get deep cleaned. It's dangerous because it's just a plywood shell with plate glass windows all around (good view though). And it broke down so we were stranded by the highway.
Guide: It felt like the tour guide and/or operator were going from kickback to kickback.
Cook: 3 out of 5 stars. Lunch was nasty sandwiches.
Safari: Incredible. Chobe is an awesome place, and the drivers (3rd party) are good at what they do.
Africa: Great experience, don't let ATC jeopardize it.
RO
Email Zsolt Kallos | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Lying
The bus was robbed and they took no responsibility. No compensation or anything. Here's what happened:
We stopped at Tubatse Crossing Mall. 2 trucks full of white people on their expensive phones with transparent windows. Even a blind person could spot us from miles. We were parking relatively far from the entrance because the public parking has a height limit that we couldn’t pass. No worries, we can walk a few minutes to the Mall entrance. They say to leave everything on the bus. Why? Because they are going to take care of it while we’re in the Mall. And we do, as they say. I believe most of us did. With only my phone and headphones in my pocket, we go to “hunt” some food in the Mall.
45 minutes later we arrive back. I see some people worried, and I hear somebody saying “Oh my God! Some backpacks are missing.” I was like definitely not mine, the most important backpack where we have ALL our combined documents, cards, passports… That cannot be happening. Then I run up the bus and to my worst nightmare, my backpack was gone. I was running up the other bus, hoping I’m an idiot, and confused my seat but no. It was gone. I come down, I start kicking the metal fence in my anger, and after rage asking the tour operators about where’s my backpack from this safe bus, I’m confronted with what happened.
While we were gone, they left 1 guy alone to take care of the 2 trucks. Trucks where each backpack had at least one laptop or iPad if not more. More than $100.000 on wheels. They thought that it was a good idea to leave a single unarmed man with all this value. And of course, 6 guys came with weapons, threatened him to open up one of the buses, ran up, and took whatever they could. Of around 50 bags 5 were stolen, and mine was one of them.
In the loving memory of my personal belongings that I believe I’ll never see again, here’s what was in the Nomatic backpack:
16” MacBook Pro M1 Pro 32GB, Oculus Quest 2, GoPro Hero 8, JBL Flip 6, Electric toothbrushes, around $1.000 in cash, cables, clothes, and even my favorite underwear.
Total value around $5.000. Still, this is something relatively easily replaceable.
The most painful part was that all of our combined documents with Mila were gone too. And when I say all, I mean it: Both Passports, Residence permit, Driving license, ID cards, 6 bank cards including our corporate one, and even my Albert Hein Bonus card.
We didn’t have luggage for months now to travel light, so I was left there stripped from all my belongings except what I had on me. There were 6 of us affected and 3 of us couldn’t continue the trip to the next country because of the lost Passports. So we couldn’t attend the 10-day
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Email Seamus McGeever | under20 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
fantastic experience and intro to east Africa with a wonderful leader
I've been on budget camping safaris in Southern Africa, so I was very familiar with what to expect (or not expect). But East Africa was new to me.
On my trip we did Masai Mara, Lake Nakuru, Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. Amazing experience.
One of the memorable aspects of the trip, was my guide Linda. She took so much pride in explaining and showing us Kenya and Tanzania, and genuinely seemed to have fun at her job and being unbelievably hospitable to me and everyone in our group, ensuring we had a good time.
Job well done!
Email Daniel | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
BEST VALUE ON THE MARKET for budget Camping trips
4.5 Star Review of Africa Overland Tours - Africa Travel Co (Leah, Noah, Gita) - Nairobi to Cape Town (42 days) - July 2019 - BEST VALUE ON THE MARKET for budget Camping trips
Note: if you don’t have time to read this in detail you can just jump to my “quick recommendations” at the end of my write up.
About me: traveled the world and worked 7 years conducting all aspects of group travel arrangements to South East Asia for school groups. First time ever personally being a participant on a group trip and not as a leader.
I thought I would do as I normally do and just do a bit of research, find out the must-see activities I wanted to tick off and book my flight, then see where my path takes me. But for some reason I decided to ask Africa Overland Tours (www.africanoverlandtours.com) a question through their web portal and wow was their response prompt. Before I go into my experience with them though let me explain for those of you that don’t know the difference between what a tour company is and what a booking agent is and why both a necessary.
The tour company owns the vehicle, employs the crew, sets the route/activities/itinerary and deals with the day to day on ground operations. These companies for individual group travel tours in Africa include:
1. Acacia Africa
2. Nomads
3. Drifters
4. G-Adventures
5. Intrepid
6. Dragoman
And of course, Africa Travel Co who I experienced 42 days with. I’ll go into detail about my experience with them below. Basically, all these companies follow the same routes, have basically the same tent and upgrade options and do the same activities. Do check the included and the optional activities though before confirming your trip that can affect the costing.
The booking agents help you find the best trip for you and have different price schedules for the different markets around the world that they sell to I.E if your reading this in Europe or China you might find the cost of your trip is different to that of someone in Canada or Australia. Some of these companies are:
1. Moja
2. Detour
3. Africa Budget Safaris
4. On The Go Tours
5. Africa Create
6. Escape 4 Africa (That I found the best deal with)
On top of that these companies have shell companies
/brands that they use to sell through. I bought through www.africanoverlandtours.com that’s owned by Escape 4 Africa I think? The reason they have these is because they want the flexibility to promote their products to different markets at different prices to maximise their profits, which is understandable. If you find the right deal through these, you won’t be able to go to the tour company and expect they will beat it. There is strategy behind having the companies and the agents.
I did a bit of research into the different routes not all the agents say they are booking you onto a Africa Travel Co tour but Africaoverlandtours were up front and for the days I had planned the companies that were most suited to my time free and experiences I wanted to have were G-Adventures, Nomads, Acacia, Intrepid, Drifters and Africa Travel Co. I saw one Drifters vehicle and no Dragoman so I will not comment further on them.
Let’s look into some differences between their set ups. If you are camping, I would only be considering two companies G-Adventures (premium option) & Africa Travel Co (budget option).
There is one true premium camping option on the market and that is G-Adventures. And you will pay a premium price for this adventure. The differences between them and the budget option was not enough to convince me though. They all have the same tents, routes and similar stops. The other kind of premium camping trip is Intrepid, but do not consider if your looking at paying the same as G-Adventures. G-Adventures are newer to the market and want to build their brand and reputation here. They operate in a type of luxury coach that would not look out of place in Europe. The rest all operate out of a converted truck (which personally I liked because of the table we could play cards around). Their food budget is great ($18 usd per day), includes nibbles, sundowners (wines & beers), money handed out sometimes in cafes instead of eating beside the truck I.e Outjo’s Café in Namibia. They don’t end up spending their budget and all food is purchased using their cards given. Which in the travel industry means no blank receipts can be written out for items never really bought. This auditing is very important especially for companies like ATC, Nomads and Acacia that don’t have the bigger food budgets. At the moment the wifi is hit and miss on G-Adventures though, they will be upgrading in January 2020 so that should not be such a problem if your reading this now. What I Cannot believe is that Nomads are offering trips at the same price as G-Adventures, their food budget is less than ATC’s I was informed by a G-Adventures guide, which is roughly $7 USD a day. Saying that, that budget is fine for a budget camping trip, especially because ATC travel with 3 crew including a chef! Nomads though only travel with two crew like intrepid and G-Adventures (guide & driver). At the end of the day this is what got me over the line in deciding to go with ATC.
What you get for $7 USD a day is basic drinks throughout the day I.E tea, coffee, milo. Breakfasts include: sausage, eggs, french toast, bake beans, cereals, which is more than sufficient! Speaking with another ATC truck in Tanzania though I believe their chef was a bit more creative with his food. Lunches were sandwich’s every day, with the cheapest of white bread, which got to me and a few others on the trip. We ended up buying our own bread. I mean a good German brotchen role in Namibia only costed 0.11 cents (usd). Dinners were really tasty and included a soup most nights, we only had 3 steaks throughout the 57 days though which I can kind of understand due to budgeting restraints. But overall, I would not say the full $7 was spent on us each day. In summary the food was sufficient for the price of the trip. I will though send a follow up email to their operations team regarding creating some minimum dish requirements on certain dishes (fish at least once, especially in Namibia where it’s super cheap) and asking questions as to their auditing processes. It is because of this I deducted half a star.
In terms of clientele we were lucky no matter who you travel with it will be a mixed bunch. We travelled from Nairobi to Zanzibar with 17 (50 plus except the three of a)from there to Vic falls with 11 and from there to ape town with 21 (mainly 22-35 with 3 others being 50 plus) So we never had a full, full truck. I was told by African Overland Tours that ATC trucks guarantee that they run no matter what the number of participants, so you can be lucky, and this could happen. The Intrepid and G-Adventures were full when I saw them, but they have 4-8 less seats. Another thing to consider is that ATC are doing many Chinese charters. I have heard stories of sometimes there being a mix of western and Chinese and that is not great for group dynamic, they do try and filter the groups though. G-Adventures and their fancy coaches will no doubt target that market eventually.
Another thing to consider and very important to the trip is the quality of guide. G-Adventures and Intrepid is where most of the guides who are the best and worked already a while for the other companies (Acacia, ATC, Nomads, Absolute) will end up. So, you will have the best chance of travel with a great guide if you travel these companies. Reason being are that their benefits are awesome, and pay is substantially better than that the other companies. I spoke to one guide that when he was recruited to G-Adventure he was up against 500+ applicants. You need experience to work for them!
Saying this you can be lucky, we definitely were having Leah as our guide. BEST guide in Africa!!! She I would hope would one day consider jumping across companies, being only 3 years new to the industry she still has a bit to learn about the destinations she is travelling to, as it was her first-time past Vic Falls. Fantastic recruiting by ATC and if that is the quality of all your new guides, that is a big thumbs up from me, made for an amazing adventure. There were a few people that came with us from Nairobi with us and after Vic Falls took a different truck with a new guide through to Johannesburg. He had been with ATC 10+ years and after having Leah for 21 days were less impressed from the conversations I had with them. At the end of the day it is luck of the draw.
Finally, there was a change in our itinerary mid adventure (taking out our second visit to Chobe National Park) that myself and the others that were affected were less than impressed by. This was initiated by ATC and the communication follow of information internally within the organisation was not great. I will say though that when I pushed, their operations team resolved the issues and we were more than happy with the outcome. Thank you for this!
QUICK RECOMMENDATIONS (for camping not accommodated overland tours):
1. Firstly, DO IT, with whichever company you choose, just do it. It is just an awesome experience and is for all ages.
2. If your looking at any particular itinerary through a website contact www.africanoverlandtours.com and at least ask them the question as to what they can do price wise. Their service when we had an issue arise on tour was second to none.
3. ATC being African based and one of the longest running overland companies were awesome and based off my experience I would say at least consider them as your value option!
4. Word of warning: Don’t go with NOMADS. They cost more than ATC and are not worth the extra money in my opinion. They have a very bad reputation when it comes to paying their staff and suppliers (camps). Got some inside word on them a few times during the journey from camps and ex guides.
5. If you have just finished school and are 18-22 and you want to pay extra just to be with some people your age, go with Acacia. But really, having a mixed group of people that we had (20-68) was awesome. If you’re in this age range of 18-22, your probably budget conscious, so save the dollars and just go ATC.
6. If you want to pay extra few thousand for the premium option and travel in a European styled coach instead of a truck. I would recommend G-Adventures over Intrepid at this price bracket.
7. You always hear about Kenya/Tanzania. But the VIC Falls to Cape Town route (21 days) was my personal favourite of the journey. The Delta, Chobe, Etosha, Fish River Canyon, Cape Town and just Namibia in general blew me away!
8. Have an awesome trip, just say yes and get out there and do it. Africa is an amazing continent and these overland companies really have nailed the East/Southern Africa route.
Email Olga and Rick | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Badly planned itinerary
Travelled from Vic Falls in Zimbabwe to Zanzibar. Apart from the first two and last two days the itenerary was planned very poorly. Back to back days of 7-13 hrs driving with 4AM wake up and getting to the next camp just to have dinner and go to bed is far from the great experience we expected from trip notes. The whole group felt the same. Half of camps were completely unnecessary and this trip requires serious improvement to make it at least half enjoyable.
Email Jenna | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Rude and dismissive guide
It pains me to write a bad review! I took the trip from Dar Es Salaam all the way down to Cape Town, with two different sets of staff: tour guide, cook and bus driver. I can't say enough good things about the second part of the trip, from Victoria Falls to Cape Town. The campsites were beautiful, the food was AMAZING and our guide was extremely knowledgeable. However, the first few weeks of the trip were quite painful, due to our terrible tour guide. He was rude, talked back to customers, wouldn't tell us how long the bus trip would be, and openly mocked customers. My bag got stolen at one campsite (no one's fault at all!) and I couldn't find our tour guide to tell him, he was at the pub having a drink. When I did tell him, he simply kept saying that it 'was not possible' and refused to help in any way at all. I had to contact the reception team at ATC to get a letter (they were quick, sympathetic and professional.)
Overall, my experience was good regarding the campsites, food, locations, and administrative staff. However our guide was so terrible for the first three weeks that it is impossible for me to give ATC more than two stars. :( If you are considering booking a tour, ensure that your tour guide is NOT Frances. I'm sure the rest of the guides are great, and this is just one bad apple. Ensure that Frances is not your guide before leaving.
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Email Mace | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
What started out in frustration ended in satisfaction.
This is a follow up to a previous review posted several weeks ago regarding lost keys. At that point, I felt that Africa Travel Co. had chosen to forget about the matter. I was pleased to receive a follow up email from Matt at ATC informing me that they hadn't forgotten. They arranged for a U.S. traveler to bring the keys back to the States and then mail them to me domestically. This unfortunate episode will fade. What won't fade are the remarkable memories of the trip. Our tour dynamics were amazing. Will, our guide was sarcastic and fantastic. His knowledge and love of Africa was obvious. He, along with our driver Stevie and our cook Monga created an inclusive environment for a pretty diverse tour group. We brought our two teenage sons and were concerned that there wouldn't be anyone for them to interact with. It was just the opposite. This was very much a family trip and all of the kids bonded quickly. As has been stated in other reviews, this is not a trip for everyone. ATC makes that clear in their materials. It's a trip that demands participation and engagement. After sleeping under African stars, you're up early and moving all day. You're pitching in to help clean, cook and manage the campsite. I found this expectation to be a bonding agent and not a chore. If you have an adventurous spirit and a lot of energy, then you should be good to yourself and take this trip with ATC.
Email Ian | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Let down by inept and inexperienced tour leader
The tour was from Nairobi to Vic Falls. The driver and cook were terrific but the tour leader was inexperienced and failed to integrate those who went to Rwanda with her with those who joined later in Kenya. She just refused to manage any form of seat rotation which saw on a day where we were on the road for 16 hours, 6 newbies share just six seats while 9 others (who had been with the tour leader earlier, enjoyed sprawling out over 18 seats. Some having 4 seats to sleep across while 6 others sat upright in single seats with the bags under their feet. After the 16 hour day and the following 14 hour one, I suggested the tour leader enforce some type of seat rotation. Didn’t happen. Lots of other examples of her inexperience. She was also easily influenced by some of the travelers. She would give instructions only to have a couple of strong characters challenge her plans and more often than not she would give in and accommodate their complaints. One example of her favouring some of the travelers was when she dragged out of a bar a couple when they were 5 minuets late for dinner but 3 nights later, one of her “gang” was 20 minutes late for the evening meal so she had a plate made up and kept warm for him. The truck was getting on a bit and the tents/mattresses are a bit tired. But overall the trip is good value but would benefit greatly by having an experienced tour leader. The food was great. The tours fantastic as were the game drives.
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Email Mace | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Driver, guide and cook were excellent. ATC cut our guide loose 2 days early and the trip fell apart.
What started out as the trip of a lifetime ended in frustration. Our safe wasn't emptied and car keys were left behind. No big deal right? Drop them in snail mail and take care of your customer who spent thousands on the trip. Months went by and finally a rude email arrived saying that they wouldn't send me my keys. Such a small gesture left a really bad taste in my mouth. Once they get your money, they're done with you.
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Email Laurie L. | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
I wouldn't trade the wonderful adventure and experience that we had for anything!
I would give this a 5 star rating but am giving it a 4 star because it was a budget tour - not anyone's or anything's fault. The itinerary was perfect and generous, and I would not have been there had it not been for the affordability. If you like luxury and don't like rustic, this is probably not the place for you and you should plan to spend a lot more money. We were camping and if you like to camp and help cook/clean/pack/unpack - this was an absolute joy. Go with a positive and adventuresome spirit and you will LOVE it!
I would like to add that my friends and I did this together and we are in our 60's while most of the travelers are young - probably due to affordability. I think it is important to be fairly fit and healthy.