Our Head Guide Nico and our Signature Hot Lunches
Unlimited Expeditions: The Soul of Tanzania
- Office In:
- Size:
- 10-20 employees (Founded in 2015)
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $150 to $400 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
for a custom tour
Your request will be sent directly to the operator
If preferred, you can contact the operator directly
Reviews
US
Email Susan and Andy Desai | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Memories for life with Soul of Tanzania AAA+
We booked our tour with Soul of Tanzania in February 2017 with tour dates of July 30 - August 7 2017. In hindsight booking with Soul was the best decision we made to make this trip a luxury safari experience and memories that we will cherish for life.
Pre-Tour: Responses to all emails from Joao, Luis and Iris were prompt and specific. No fluff – straight to the point responses that shows clear understanding of request. So in the end – you get what you are promised. We booked an eight days tour airport to airport.
Upon- Arrival: Soul of Tanzania car received us at airport. What impressed us most was that their driver waited till 3:00 AM in the morning when flight plans for one of the couples travelling changed last moment when they missed connection and reached Kilimanjaro in wee hours.
The Safari: Four things that made our safari a memory of lifetime.
First – the guide – Benedict. He is excellent - wonderful, patient, understands animal behaviors and has sixth sense on when action may be forthcoming. He is serviceable and shares detailed history and animal traits. Now we know Soul of Tanzania has many guides who are equally qualified, but we are beyond happy with Ben. Without Ben, this experience could not have been same.
Second – Vehicle. Our Toyota Land Cruiser was well maintained, had refrigerator, charging stations and was washed every day for best clean experience. Very comfortable for six.
Three – Food – Our premium upgrade provided hot breakfast, lunches and dinners served on tablecloth in real cutlery and premium wine at lunch. Quite a feat to relish in middle of nowhere. Ben was very considerate of food restrictions and preferences.
Four – luck and patience. Once again this is where Ben helped us find right excursions and his read of animal mood to say if a kill or river crossing was imminent. In my view if you leave it to locals and stop second guessing their instincts, you have better chances of seeing the best.
As to our safari, lots of details here but in a nutshell –
Day 1 – Mount Kilimanjaro
Day 2 – Tarangire national park . Saw a baby elephant calf milking his mother. Spent evening with Flamingoes at Lake Manyara.
Day 3 – South Serengeti – close encounter with Cheetah. Spent half day with Maasai tribe
Day 4 – Central Serengeti – Started out with lions in love act and drove through seeing tens of thousands of Zebra, Wildebeests and Giraffe migrate towards great river crossing
Day 5 – North Serengeti , wildebeest migration and river crossing at Mara River – Giant croc kill
Day 6 – Day of Lions in Central Serengeti. Saw over 40 lions in a day. Saw a gazelle give birth and newborn take its first step and lioness chase and kill a gazelle… circle of life
Day 7 – At NgoroNgoro crater with microcosm of all the wildlife at Tanzania…
Day 8 – Arusha coffee plantation, shopping and flight home
Post Safari – Iris met us to take our feedback. She is professional and genuinely interested in how they can drive continuous improvements.
In summary – while there are many tour operators with good credentials, you cannot go wrong with Soul of Tanzania.
Soul of Tanzania is the Best!
We had the opportunity to take a tour of northern Tanzania with Soul of Tanzania. This review will be in two parts; the first is the company, the second is the driver. This is for a party of 2 in July 2017. We spent eight days on Safari. The first day was in Tarangire. The next two days were in central Serengeti. We then spent two days in northern Serengeti, followed by a day in Ngorongoro crater.
Company: we did an extensive amount of research for our Safari. Soul of Tanzania was the first company to respond to our request, and all subsequent emails were also replied to promptly. We felt the pricing was fair. The vehicle was in excellent condition, the air conditioning worked perfectly, and it was equipped with a refrigerator to keep bottled water cold. There is a charging strip to charge your batteries, cameras, etc. We were served hot delicious lunches every day in picturesque locations. They tailor-made our itinerary, and we loved every minute of it. The company did provide us with a good list of things to bring on safari. One thing we would recommend is a pair of binoculars for each person. The driver is equipped with a pair which you can borrow, but we strongly recommend to bring your own. We each had our own pair and we used them constantly. This company was excellent, and we received five star service.
Driver: we had the pleasure of having Zamo as our driver. He is personable, knowledgeable, and professional. He always honored our requests. We enjoyed getting to know him in the week we spent with him. He was always punctual and flexible with what we wanted to do. He was entertaining and informative at the same time. You can tell he has passion for what he does, and he is excellent at it. We only have positive things to say about Zamo. His English is excellent, and he taught us several words and phrases in Swahili.
Conclusion: we would highly recommend Soul of Tanzania for your Safari, and we also highly recommend requesting Zamo as your driver.
SE
Email Richard R | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Excellent tour operator - my trip became more than I could have ever imagined!
I did an 8 day Kilimanjaro-trekking (we made it to Uhuru peak), 5 day-safari and 4 day stay at Zanzibar, all arranged and overseen by Soul of Tanzania. Most of my contact was with Iris who was always very professional and made great recommendations from the beginning to the end. Zanzibar is a bit generic though (all-inclusive luxury hotels are essentially the same wherever in the world you are), but the safari and the trekking are both memories for life. The accomodation that Soul of Tanzania had picked for us (3 different camps: Pakulala in Ngorongoro, Chaka Chaka Kiota in Serengeti and Nimali in Tarangire) were mindblowing. In particular, Nimali was something not of this world. Luxury in all respects, and at night, just before sunset, large hordes of elephants and buffaloes came to the camp to drink water from the trench that Nimali Camp has made for them there. They were all standing like 5 meters from the pool, in total like 40 elephants and almost the same amount of buffaoes! Wow.
AR
Email Federico Ezcurra | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Excellent service!!
Was great! Everything was accomplished. The Landrover are in excellent conditions. The guides are great. And the food is incredible, the best food of all the tours. The camps were beautiful and complete. We enjoy an excellent trip and will repeat it. Thank you very much Soul of Tanzania!!
US
Email Tiffany | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Best safari company and a trip will we never forget!
Soul of Tanzania is the only company to consider if you visit Tanzania! Everything exceeded our expectations. Our guide, Dominic, was excellent! He is extremely knowledgeable about the wildlife, environment, and culture of this wonderful country. The company recommended camps were all unique and exceptional. The lunches were amazing with local foods and wine rather than the boxed lunches. People were jealous when they saw our set-up. I can't say enough about our time in Tanzania and am so thankful that we chose Soul of Africa. Request Dominic as your guide for sure!
NL
Email Nicola and Xiaodan | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experience
We had been dreaming of a safari in Tanzania for years and this Summer we finally had the opportunity to make our dream come true. After quite a lot of searching we finally decided to accept the offer from Soul of Tanzania. From the first contact, the sales team (Francis and Miguel) proved to be extremely reliable, helpful and professional, with all our emails being replied to within maximum 24 hours. After exchanging several emails, our itinerary was custom tailored to our preferences: two days in Tarangire, one day in Ngorongoro, two days in central Serengeti and two days in northern Serengeti. After being picked up from the airport by our guide Herman, Iris came to our b&b before the afternoon to welcome and brief us about the itinerary. The safari was totally successful and exceeded our expectations. Herman was a knowledgeable, professional and considerate guide. His knowledge of wildlife, flora and fauna is impressive. He left none of our many questions unanswered. Also, we were impressed by Herman's talent for spotting animals from very far and finding remote spots off the beaten track where animals could be observed without being disturbed. The highlights of the safari included a female lion chasing a warthog, a huge pride of lions resting, a family of cheetahs and a massive herd of wildebeest crossing the Mara river. Herman was always thoughtful and caring, doing all he could to please us and make us feel comfortable. We also appreciated how Herman managed to optimise the time and show us as much as possible. The service provided by Soul of Tanzania was outstanding. We really enjoyed the warm lunches we were served every day, whereas all other companies only provided their clients with lunch boxes. We slept in tented camps, in touch with nature but with all comforts provided. All camps were from comfortable to very comfortable, serving nice to excellent food. At the end of the tour Iris met us again for our feedback, which could only be extremely positive. Thanks Soul of Tanzania for this amazing experience, that we'd like to share with the whole family in the future.
PT
Email Cátia Silva | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Best trip of our lives! Thanks to Soul of Tanzania!
Choosing Soul of Tanzania was the best thing that we could do for this incredible trip in Tanzania. We started to do a 5 days Safari (Tarangire, Ngorongoro & Serengeti National Parks) with the best tour guide (Benedict Mfuro) that we could find :) He is an incredible person and he knows everything about wildlife and where to find the animals that we were wishing to see it! Another plus of Soul of Tanzania are the meals that they provide - local food with very high quality, wine and Amarula (a traditional Tanzanian liquor to drink with coffee). ((However, other companies just have snacks and sandwiches (we didn't want that because we had to spend many hours inside the car doing the game drive)). All these 3 Natural Parks are amazing, but at Serengeti we were lucky to see a super pride - amazing!!! Soul of Tanzania made (for sure!!!!) our trip much more than a Safari Tour because they arranged all hotels, transfers, guides (ecc) and they gave us the best recommendations for everything (including our stay at Zanzibar for 2 weeks after the Safari).
Iris (the Operations Manager of Soul of Tanzania at Arusha) was always very helpful and available at any time to help us during these 3 weeks. More, during this incredible trip Soul of Tanzania helped my fiancé to organize an engagement surprise for my me at Four Seasons Serengeti and it was simply the best day of our lives!
We want to come back asap to Tanzania and for sure we will ask Ben to do another Safari with us with Soul of Tanzania (there are so many other parks that we really want to visit). Btw... If the car is important for you, be sure that they have the best cars in terms of comfort and safety - they have the perfect conditions to do a memorable game drive. Thank you my friends! We will never forget this trip.
Email Jenny | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
We had an amazing safari trip with Soul of Tanzania. Can't imagine a better experience!
This was our first trip to Africa. We found it quite overwhelming choosing a travel company: there are so many that provide safari tours to East Africa.
From my first contact with Iris, I felt confident that I had chosen the right company. Response to my many emails was always prompt. Iris did a great job planning our itinerary. The recommendations she made regarding accommodation and the route we travelled turned out to be spot on. We appreciated the orientation provided by Iris on our arrival in Arusha and the opportunity to meet our guide, Nico.
Our vehicle exceeded our expectations. Extra height in the windows and wind up passenger windows meant we had uninterrupted views of the wildlife.
A guide can make the difference between a good tour and a great one! Nico was exceptional and did everything he could to ensure we had a fantastic Safari experience. He was very professional in his approach and is clearly very proud of the service Soul of Tanzania is providing.
Nico was very knowledgeable about the flora, fauna and the geography of East Africa. We learnt so much about Tanzania. We were impressed with Nico's intricate knowledge of the wildlife parks. Without this in depth knowledge of the parks and their wildlife we would not have been able to take such stunning photographs of the wildlife. Nico's careful organisation of our game drives meant we saw a huge number of animals and many varied landscapes. As for Nico's driving skills: they were exceptional.
We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food on our trip: particularly the hot lunches. We had expected to be eating paper bag lunches but instead dined like Kings and Queens (much to the envy of travellers with other Safari companies). We enjoyed the addition of wine and coffee with our lunches.
We had a wonderful first trip to Africa and would like to thank The Soul of Tanzania for providing us with such a rich experience.
Amazing experience! 5 Star Guide (Herman), Service, and Trip
From the beginning process of booking the trip all the way to the actual safari, we got treated with VIP service. The team is extremely experienced, professional, and thoughtful. They really pay attention to your needs and customize the trip accordingly.
Special shout-out to your guide Herman. The trip would not have been the same without him. We highly, highly recommend using him for your next safari adventure! He is incredibly experienced and knowledgeable, very friendly, engaging and entertaining, respectful of the animals, and plans the trip around your preferences. He is also amazing at spotting animals- we were able to see all of the Big 5. We honestly could not have asked for anyone better. He truly made our experience even more memorable and we now have a friend for life.
Also, while on the trip we got to enjoy hot lunches, which is unique to only a few of the safari companies. All the equipment provided to us was state-of-the art, and the vehicle we used was extremely comfortable, spacious, and very well maintained. During our safari, we also stayed at a mixture of camps and luxury lodges, all of which Soul booked for us. We very pleased with all of the selections and would definitely stay at them again.
Overall, I highly recommend using Soul of Tanzania for your next vacation. Though they are a relatively new company, the service, accommodations, itinerary, and guides are all 5 star. We could not have asked for a more organized or enjoyable trip, so we will definitely be using them again. The whole team really made the trip as incredible as it was.
BR
Email Marianne Estermann | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Beyond all expectations - couldn't be better!
Soul of Tanzania made our trip unforgettable and beyond all expectations. The highlight was our guide, Ben, who made our journey so unique. His knowledge and his passion about the wildlife is impressive and he has a great personality. He was always looking for the hidden gems and very often managed to show us truly private meetings with the animals and not just the often very crowded seeings, since many places are very filled with cars from other companies. Oh, let's not forget about his coffee!!(Asanti Sana, Kaka!).
A differential is that they provide hot lunch, with local homemade food, wine and juice during the safari all served in metal plates so we made almost no trash in our meals (while all the other companies offer lunch boxes).
The car (a Land Cruiser for 6 people) was new and very well maintained. The organization, from the beginning to the end, was really good. We are so grateful for everything we lived during these 10 day safari journey.