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 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 :)
UA
Email Lesya | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing and awesome experience
The tour was perfect, amazing and unforgettable. It’s worth while going on a safari tour with your company when everything is well planned and organized. I would strongly recommend tourists coming to Nairobi use your services.
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.
CA
Email Michael and Julia | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Honeymoon in Africa!
My wife and I travelled on our honeymoon throughout the Serengeti, Ngorogoro and Tangire National Park. Our tour guide was Arasto who was absolutely incredible over our five day adventure. From the start, we knew that we were in good hands. Our guide drove for hours and hours, answered any questions we had with pleasure and an upbeat attitude. We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together and can say that we made a friend by the end of our vacation. For anyone considering a safari in Tanzania, we highly recommend "It Started in Africa".
Travelling in September was great because it was dry season. The weather in the day-time was hot to say the least; but overnight temperatures dipped and bringing proper clothing is important. The guide will look after the rest and ensure you have a great time. We said from day number one, as long as we see a cheetah, we will leave Africa happy. Arasto patiently watched for hours and hours until we found the rare cheetah. You could truly tell he loved his job! Would definitely go back, incredible experience!
https://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g297913-d4997591-r472229875-It_Started_in_Africa_Day_Tours-Arusha_Arusha_Region.html#
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)
IT
Email Antonella Bobbio | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
exciting
We enjoyed every single minute of our tour! I felt I belonged to that wild nature more than I do to my usual everyday life. Amazing!
The best spot has been the first lions sighting, we were really excited. But everything we saw was exciting.
I hope to come back to Tanzania one day.
The staff of "It Started in Africa" has been great! They helped us finding the right combination of tour and accomodation, answering to loads of e-mails and requests with patience and professionality.
Thanks!
MX
Email maria | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing family experience
Hello Vanessa I hope you are doing well.
I want to thank you for everything ,We have an amazing journey. Your country its beautiful and all the people are very kind, .we had a wonderful experience. I want to recognize the job of the drivers we allways felt safe with them ;they were vey kind with us Thanks for all your organization.
I want to comment some points that may be can help you in the future
We were the only guests at the Masai Mara Hotel and they did not made our room
The hotel its really far from the ballon ride nobody told us that it was going to be a two hour drive at 4 am in those roads, so with the empty stomach we had a tought trip. The ballon was great
Its a good idea to ask the tourist for large plastic bags to put inside all the stuff you carry because the roads in Tanzania are SO dusty that you have dust everywhere , maybe the suitcases can be covered with a hard plastic. I think all your customers will appreciate that tip.
At Kilimanyaro airport they asked for our vaccines, they wanted to see the records. The stopped us because I had them in the suitcase, it´s better to bring them with you
The Arusha hotel its okay they did nt have hot water and the road to enter its very ugly so you cant go out for a walk. Maybe its better to look for another one.
The lodges were beautiful, and the dinners were really great specially the soups.
I really appreciate all the work and that every question I made you answered it so fast..
We all enjoy the trip.
Thanks
US
Email Kathy | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Unbelievable, unforgettable and economical personalized African adventure
Our trip was absolutely amazing, an experience of a lifetime! Our guides Charles and Isaac were a key part of this, sharing their incredible knowledge, good humor and outstanding driving skills to facilitate this two week journey. Accommodations were lovely, food delicious and varied, and the staff at locations were very welcoming and hospitable. We really enjoyed the diversity in the different lodging too and continued to be in awe of both setting and ingenuity!
Of course the stars were truly the wildlife, which brought me to tears of joy and wonder day after day. I'm so glad we took all the 100's of photos and video recordings as a great reminder that we were really in Africa and saw these incredible sights with our own eyes, not on a National Geographic show!
The two week travel itinerary was just about perfect. We had one potential challenge at Haven Nature with our booking that ended up working out better in the end- although we were scheduled to stay two nights, they had us listed only for one due to an incoming group that had booked the entire site. In addition, our lodging became a room, not a tent, which we would have preferred. Fortunately, we were able to secure an additional night at Tarangire Safari Lodge, which was outstanding. However, I feel like this all came together only with our persistence (and on hand cash!) otherwise I'm not sure where we would have spent the night. This situation was a little disappointing given extensive pre trip planning to prevent these sorts of surprises, but again, it all ultimately worked out well, and actually made for better use of our time by arriving at Tarangire earlier.
The birthday celebration was all tied to the above so that also added a little craziness, but again, it all came together with a wonderful surprise celebration by the staff at Tarangire. They were able to pull it off, thanks to Isaac, ISIA staff inTanzania and my husband. Very memorable and still surprising!
So, super thanks to all the ISIA staff for this unforgettable adventure, especially Joao for the extensive itinerary and pre trip planning, and Charles and Isaac for their on the ground knowledge, expert guiding and driving skills, and humor.
SG
Email emma | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
had great fun in our 4-day trip, wish we could come back again
Thanks to our smart driver Nasarri, we had a great time during the 4-day safari tour (although it could be much better if we were provided binoculars), and our best memory might be the day in Serengeti - lovely animals during game drive, and beautiful sky full of stars at night which happened to be Christmas Eve. Best Christmas Eve (and Christmas day) ever in my life.