It Started in Africa
- Located In:
- Size:
- 20-50 employees (Founded in 2010)
- Member Of:
- IATA, TATO & TALA
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $150 to $550 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
Email Ketan | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
A very memorable family Safari
Although I recently saw quite a few bad reviews about It Started In Africa (ISIA), I have just returned from a fantastic 5 day safari (1 night Tarangire, 2 nights Serengeti, 1 night Ngorongoro) followed by 3 nights Zanzibar organised by Bernard and ISIA.
Bernard was very attentive, and I communicated with Bernard a lot via email prior to selecting him and his company. He had given us many suggestions about our possible itinerary although we had done a lot of research ourselves on parks, lodgings, timings etc. ISIA organised everything, including airport transfers, hotel bookings and informed lodgings about food restrictions.
Our guide and driver, Martin was also excellent. He was a mature gentleman but most importantly not reckless when driving which was a massive plus point as I saw lots of other drivers from other companies driving like mad through dirt roads. He was also very knowledgeable and knew where to go to find animals which is why we were very lucky to see the “Big 5” on a 5 day safari.
Luckily, we went off season so the queues at park entrances were not bad, but please note the bureaucratic nature of park staff and procedures is a Tanzanian government issue and not ISIA’s. As one of the previous reviewer states – Its Africa after all! So do not have any preconceived ideas about how it should work or comparisons with the western attractions. One must go with the African flow!
At one point our car developed a fault, so Bernard was willing to replace the vehicle if necessary. Luckily it required a 30min minor fix, so we were on our way quickly and not impacted much.
I would definitely recommend Bernard and his team as they gave a memorable safari and holiday!
RU
Email Ekaterina | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Super!
Bernard was really helpful and gave useful inputs in helping us plan our first trip to Tanzania, would highly recommend him as all his help and efforts helped us in having a super trip to Tanzania. While helping us plan our trip he took in all our inputs on how we wanted our trip to turn out. Small points like informing the places we were staying at in advance about any food restrictions were all taken care of, kept in touch with us throughout to make sure we were facing no issues. We had a wonderful time in Tanzania and hope to be back soon.
We recommend it to everyone
Safari was an incredible experience for us and especially sleeping in a tent in the Serengeti National Park.
Everything was great and we enjoyed adventure.
Thank you very much for the entire organization, all the praise for the cook who filled our wishes and of course the big greeting and thank you for Frank(driver). He taught us how nature worked and explained to us everything that we were interested in. He took care of everything and we enjoyed it.
Started in Afica make our honeymoon incredible.
CA
Email Michel | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Memorable Trip - It's Africa after all :)
It was a memorable journey!
- Safari as such : never saw such an abundant number of animals - we saw the Big 5 and much more!!!
- Hotels : the choices were absolutely great, except for Ang'ata where we were really very very cold at night. The other hotelS really went above and beyond our expectations (nice romantic dinner at Tarangire Safari Lodge, Kubu Kubu is exceptionnaly nice, ...).
- Guide: Mr. Martin was quite shy but very nice, polite, accommodating and very knowledgeable.
- Vehicle : There is definitely some place for improvement here! There was no AC so the road from Ngorongoro to Serengeti was very difficult as we had to close/open our windows and it was very dusty (our clothes, our faces, our luggages, ...).
- Wait at the parks : The wait in general was very long at all the entrance of every park but I guess this is the same with all the companies and is a matter of general organisation in Tanzania.
Email Emma Hankinson | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
7 day Northern Circuit Safari
Had an amazing 7 day safari with It started in Africa. Our guide Erasto was amazing, knowledgeable and fun and really made our trip! The Serengeti and Ngorogoro crater were amazing places. I was really impressed with the professionalism of the trip and how the parks rules were adhered too and the animals were calm and relaxed around us, and not harassed. Our cook was brilliant and the food was amazing. Additionally, the company were quick to respond to messages and were attentive to all arrangements.
I will definitely be using this company again :-)
CL
Email Maria Arzola | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing experience!
We organized our trip from Chile, so the company was very helpful, answering all our questions ver quickly. When we arrived, everything was excellent and worked as planned. We had a great time and really enjoyed our 6 days tour: the landscape and animals were amazing! It was a wonderful experiencie. Also our guide, Michael Dominick, he is very wise and kind, so it was very nice to share with him. We are very thankful.
About the details of the tour, the lenght was good, as well as the places we were: Tarangire, lake Manyara, Serengeti and Ngoro Ngoro. Our favorite accomodation was the Burunge tented camp, because of its beautiful view, and also the Kilima valley tented lodge on the Serengeti, where you could hear lions and hyenas from very close in the middle of the night.
We totally recomend this trip and the agency "It Started in Africa".
Email Mark | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Amazing safari!
My wife and I chose to celebrate our honeymoon in Tanzania and decided to work with It Start in Africa.
We had such a wonderful time on our safari. Our driver was Tommy. He was a great guy and we had a lot of fun with him! We recommend Tommy to anybody that does a tour with ISIA. The entire trip was so exciting and we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Some highlights:
- The views from our tent at Mawe Ninga Tented Camp
- Hunting with the Hadzabe tribe - We highly recommend this to anyone that comes to Tanzania. It is a little bit out of the way (not a lot in the scheme of things). For me personally, it was the most interesting thing we did!
- Seeing the Zebra migration
- Watching lion eating a zebra that they had killed that morning
- Watching several prides of lion hunt. Unfortunately, no kill, but still really great!
- The camp site and location of Pumzika - the best!
- Seeing the big five. Tommy was so great. We hadn't seen the black rhino until we got to Ngorongoro on our second last day and he made it his mission to find one for us. He found two! :)
- Seeing the flamingo at Ngorongoro
- The accommodation at Neptune Ngoronogoro - amazing!
- The coffee plantation tour in Arusha
It would be remiss of us to not note several items, which we felt could have been done better. Please note, this is feedback from our perspective and we relayed this to the ISIA team while we were on tour and they were dealt with and addressed these concerns at the time. For items we raised retrospectively, they have advised that they will work through these things.
For anybody that travels on safari, please remember that this is Africa. While we all spend a lot of money to do these tours, it is important to remember where you are.
- We both felt that the car could have been presented better on arrival. It was rather dirty and was quite an old vehicle. I spoke to the sales team about this on our first night and then to Tommy the next morning. How it was handled by both the sales team and Tommy was such great customer service. While things can go wrong, it's how they are handled that makes the big difference.
- Make sure you bring a pair of your own binoculars. The pair provided were not suitable. Again, we have raised this with the team and hopefully in future this isn't an issue. But if you are going on safari, your own pair of binoculars is a minor investment in the scheme of things.
- Bring plenty of US dollars to tip. Being Aussies, we suck at this at the best of times, and really didn't bring enough. Everywhere we stayed and anybody we dealt with provided fantastic service and they do deserve to be tipped.
- We didn't find this too much of a problem but reading the reviews below, it does appear to happen every-now-and-then. Bring a backup credit card to pay for the Ngorongoro entry fee (when leaving the Serengeti NP). As mentioned in reviews below, we had issues with the ISIA bank card. We could have waited to resolve the situation, which would have happened, but it may have taken a long time. We just paid for it on my own card and when we returned to Arusha, the funds were reimbursed. No time lost and no big deal. Obviously, this a personal preference but just a heads up.
All in all, the experience from when we first enquired nearly two years ago to the delivery of the product by Tommy was so amazing. Obviously, it's a very expensive trip for us to do, so we are not sure when we would visit again but there is no doubt that we would love to and we would have no hesitation is doing so with ISIA.
Thank you to the entire team. You are all such wonderful people and we are so happy that you were part of our honeymoon experience :)
CH
Email Yann Bolay | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
EPIC
The service was excellent, always on time, the guide was up to our expectations. Even in the rainy season we have seen a lot of animals and that with a lot less vehicles in the park. ;)
We had a great time with this agency, for a very good rate. I highly recommend them. The lodge was excellent, we chose Ashnil camp.
I wish them all the best for the future
FI
Email Kimmo | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
A perfect experience!
I have visited many National Parks in Africa. This experience concerning Ngoron Ngoro, Olduvai and Lake Manyara was one of the greatest.
The guide was very helpful and he has a very wide experience.
CH
Email Barbara | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Amazing Safari experience
We just came back from a 14 days Tanzania Safari and Zansibar beach Trip booked with "It started in Africa"
with wonderful memories and are very happy that we booked this tour. the trip was "custom made" according to own interests and special wishes and we received regular email responses to our requests and questions from the staff.
the best was certainly our driver who made our Safari a memorable experience and who always spotted animals from very far distance. we also had some unexpected experiences....for some travellers that might be annoying- we found it very funny, which sort of makes the special experience of such a trip (the car had a break down on the last day, but it s interesting to watch how a car gets repaired in Africa so quickly, or driving through a street full of water due to rain)