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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 Yili | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Easy to contact from the US side, but was hoping for more transparency and/or details of the trip.
Our experience was very mixed, starting with a guide (his name was Losioki) who made us feel very unsafe and dismissed. On the first day when he picked us up from the Tanzania/Kenya border, the car wouldn’t start from the parking lot, that should have been the first red flag. After trying for 5-6 times, the engine finally started. Then later in the day as we were making our way to Serengeti, the vehicle began making weird noises as we were driving through a rough road. He had to stop several times to check, but decided to keep going. When we asked what was going on, he repeatedly brushed us off with “don’t worry” in a very condescending tone, even saying it five times in a row at one point, as if we were overreacting. Eventually, two pieces of metal fell off from under the car while we are still driving, which was a clear hazard. Only then did he admit the vehicle couldn’t continue and arranged for someone else to pick us up. We waited in the middle of nowhere for an hour in a very hot weather condition. The car picked us up happened to be going to Serengeti as well with another couple who was on a private tour, so we hitchhiked with them and we did not hear from the guide the rest of the day.
After this experience, we contacted the tour operator when we got to the hotel to get a new car and a new driver the next day, but they did not end up making this arrangement. I fully understand how difficult it is to get a new guide when we are already in the park and there are some operating difficulty to make this work, however at this point I feel like our safari experience was already tainted by this bad start and we just didn't feel great about the guide.
The following day, he returned and insisted the car was now fine. We decided to give this another chance and went on to do our first game drive in the park. Only 15 minutes into the drive, we went across a three cheetahs sighting with heavy traffic (20+ vehicles), the car stalled completely in the middle of the jam. He had to get out and coordinate a bump start, which was extremely stressful and further confirmed our concerns. When we tried to calmly explain that we didn’t feel comfortable with him or the vehicle, he constantly interrupted us with “listen to me” and “calm down,” which only made things worse. We also explained that this is now the third time we had problems with the vehicle, and having just done the masai mara safari, we know that if this keeps happening during a traffic jam, which is very common when there are rare animal sighting, we cannot bump start the car every single time. It's neither efficient nor safe. Serengeti is a huge park and we are at the risk of being stalled in the middle of nowhere again.
At that point we asked to be dropped at the visitor center so we can contact the tour operator. When you are in a foreign country on safari, your guide and vehicle are everything, and we were supposed to spend the next 5 days with him, and this was absolutely not the experience we signed up for and we didn't feel like this arrangement would work and I felt extremely uncomfortable even staying in the same car with him. We obviously understand that this kind of accidents happens, the car gets broken down often during safaris. The problem is mostly coming from him not being transparent with us, when knowing that the vehicle had underlying issues, he continuously dismissed our concern. We waited in the visitor center (which was miles away from our lodging) for a couple hours so our tour operator could make some calls and get us a new car.
Thankfully, things completely turned around with Lawrence, who became our new guide. He was the exact opposite—professional, kind, and safety-focused. He checked his car often, explained everything clearly on where we are going, what stops we are making, and went out of his way to make sure we were comfortable in all aspects. On top of that, he was incredibly knowledgeable and helped us find amazing sightings, including leopard cubs and lion cubs. He also shared so many fun facts that really enriched the experience. In addition to the big animals, he is also passionate about plants and birds, so we learned so much from him.
While the first two days left us very disappointed, Lawrence delivered excellent service and saved our trip. Because of the contrast, we’re giving a two star overall. But if you do decide to book with this tour company, we strongly recommend requesting Lawrence (if it's an option)—you’ll be in the best hands.
It felt like an ad hoc freelance organization, thrown together from far away, without care.
The up front communication was relatively professional, but as soon as the trip started so did the problems. We sat in our hotel lobby in Moshi at 7am waiting for the pick up. We were the only guests in the lobby, but the driver was sitting in his van outside, instead of looking for us. The van had no markings to indicate it was from Soul of Tanzania. After about a half hour, he finally came inside and found us, and we were transferred to a safari truck in Arusha, again with no company markings. It seemed to be freelance, arranged ad hoc, and the results felt the same. Our contact at SoT, Jose, when he finally replied later that morning about our pickup issues, wasn't even apologetic. "I was informed by my operations team about the misunderstanding and I am glad that everything was sorted out."
In the truck, when we started seeing animals and asked for the binoculars that were included in our tour, we were told they were broken. Luckily we had brought one not very good pair from home, and had those to share between us. The driver found a pair at the camp that night.
Our driver drove slow on the public roads, when other trucks were all passing us (not a great feeling after a late start thanks to the pickup "misunderstanding"). On the other hand, he flew on the park roads, shaking the truck apart, with thick layers of dust coming in his open windows. We had to ask him to stop when we saw animals. On the first day we noticed that each time we asked him to stop, he would take out his phone and be playing on it until we said "ok, we can go". After asking him to be more involved, thankfully he stopped doing that and told us a bit about the animals.
At the end of a particularly long day, with a morning game drive in Manyare and then drive to the Serengeti, he couldn't find our camp. The sun set, we were exhausted, and we were still in the truck. I was trying to use google maps to help find a tented camp. Eventually we found a park staff camp, and got directions from them to find our camp. We checked in after dark, ate, and slept asap, to get up at 4am for the hot air balloon. Imagine our dismay when, the next night going to a different camp, we were lost again. We stopped at 2 very nice camps, and the 2nd camp let us use their toilet and sent one of their staff with us to show him the way. It seemed like a tiny amount of preparation could have avoided both issues, and especially after it happened the 1st time.
We saw the big 5, and a lot of of animals and beautiful sights, but we couldn't help but feel that we were an afterthought, just thrown into any car with any driver, and when the inevitable issues arose, we didn't find they had any interest in admitting mistakes or making them right. I thoroughly recommend doing a safari in Tanzania, just not with Soul of Tanzania.