Meet the Team - eTrip Africa
E-Trip Africa
- Located In:
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United States
- Size:
- 20-50 employees (Founded in 2012)
- Member Of:
- ATA, IATAN, IGS, KPAP & CODE
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $200 to $1,500 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
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Email Justin Selb | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Very knowledegable and very friendly
This was a once in a lifetime trip with my father who is 70 (I am 39) to visit mountain gorillas in volcano national park of Rwanda for two days, and then to do a big game drive safari through the serengeti reserve for 3 days in Tanazania. Ben with e-trip Safari was a consummate professional from the beginning, sensitive to our needs of my father's health considerations, and our desire for a higher-end experience. He can accommodate nearly any budget, and provides the best people on the ground you can hope for. We had a once in a lifetime adventure among the silverbacks in the mountains of rwanda, and the big game in the serengeti including big 5 and a million + migration of wildebeest. Ben put us in the most amazing and comfortable lodges and camps you can imagine, the kardashians would have been impressed. Highly recommend e-trip africa for your African adventure needs!
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Email Maureen Chao | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Outstanding customer service and planning
Just returned from a 12 day trip to Kenya, three adults and three kids. The trip was all paid for and set up for April, and then two days before we were supposed to go Kenya suddenly changed their travel restrictions and the whole trip fell apart. We had internal flights and reservations at four different lodges and hotels. I was sick thinking about all the money we would lose given the various cancellation policies for the flights and hotels. We could have been totally out of luck but Ben and his team at E-Trip immediately went to work for us. They ended up negotiating a later trip for us in June, and lobbied with each provider on our behalf. In the end we got to take the whole trip and didn't end up losing any money at all. And there was outstanding communication the entire time, from the planning process and through all the changes we had to make as flights continued to get cancelled and changed, even when we were on the trip. First class customer service, with the customer put first, which was really refreshing.
The tour was well set up, the drivers and guides were super, we had lots of connections with internal flights, etc and every one of them was seamless. I had total confidence in the arrangements, and also knew we would be taken care of if something were to go wrong. I would definitely book a trip again with E-Trip Africa.
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Email Michelle | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Built us our dream trip!
Contacted three tour companies. E-Trio Africa was first to respond. Followed up quickly and was $10,000 cheaper than the others. I asked another tour company to get the price down & keep it under a certain amount and they couldn’t E-Trip Africa did! I respected and was thankful for the opinions and suggestions that I was given about our trip. I felt like they truly worked with us and knew how to give us the experience that we were wanting. Their relationship with Lemala hotel chain appreciated. We loved staying within the same chain of beautiful properties during our trip. While we were there the safari vehicles had tour company logos on spare tire. You will see there are endless picks of companies and hotels but just put your trust in this company like we did and you will not be disappointed. Thanks for a dream vacation. Totally telling all our friends about you. Thanks
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Email Jenny | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
The tour was well-organized and smooth!
E-Trip provided great communication through the planning of the safari, including completely changing the dates when Kenya had an unexpected lockdown. The guides were always on time, courteous, and knowledgeable. We enjoyed our safari.
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Email Fran Scarlett | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Custom Dream Trip
E-Trip Africa is a small tour operator who is extremely responsive to the requests for taking a solo safari. Excellent and fast communications via email, very accommodating to my request for intimate luxury camps with elevated tents, etc. I looked at several tour operators and E-trip Africa offered the best price. Ben's knowledge of the different camps was also helpful in deciding on lodges so we didn't have to spend an hour driving to get to a park. If you stay in a park, there's wildlife outside your tent since in Tanzania the camps are not fenced.
Now, for the actual safari itself. The MOST outstanding travel experience of my life. My safari guide David Mushi is so knowledgeable about animal behavior, the numerous bird species and the ecosystems in the various parks: Tarangire, Ngorongoro Crater and Highlands and the Serengeti. I learned so much from him. He could tell me when a bird was about to fly so I could capture it in flight, or when a lioness was going to yawn so I could capture an incredible picture. His service was outstanding- I felt taken care of. All I had to do was show up at the time we agreed upon. He kept the vehicle pristine, ordered lunch boxes, had two liters of bottled water in the seat pocket every day without fail. I did not realize this prior to my safari, but your guide makes or breaks safari. Yes, the tents were very nice, the food at the camps was delicious, but when you are in a truck for 8 hours with a person who is at the top of their craft... magical. I am in awe of this man and how committed he was to making sure I had an outstanding experience. I highly recommend E-trip Africa and request David to be your guide. You will have a fantastic trip.
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Email Corbin Mosher | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Knowledgeable, passionate, helpful, and kind. Ben, Alladin, & E-Trip Africa took great care of us.
We planned an eight night Safari through E-Trip Africa. Well I guess I should say Ben did most of the planning for us based on our timeframe and what preferences were! He was extremely prompt and great to work with.
Our guide, Alladin, was not only very professional, experienced, and knowledgeable, but also just a great guy to spend a week with.
The trip for us consisted of one night at Arusha, one night at Tarangire Park, one night at Lake Manyara, two nights in the central Serengeti, two nights in the northern Serengeti, and one night at Ngorongoro crater.
We saw everything from lion and leopard clubs to elephant herds and everything in between. In the northern Serengeti we even saw the Wildebeest migration attempt river crossings while predators took advantage of the river choke points.
The food was delicious and the accommodations were comfortable. Definitely would consider it very similar to glamping.
Not only was Tanzania an amazing country to visit, all of the people we met there were kind and engaging. We would recommend this trip and company to anyone. Hopefully we can go back someday for Mt. Kilimanjaro and Gorilla trips!
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Email Katie Sutton | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Organized, detailed, professional, well-run
We did a 8 day, 7 night safari with E-trip in late August 2021 with David as our guide. Our itinerary was Day 1/Night 1: arrive in Arusha; day 2/Night 2: Tarangire park; day 3/night 3: Laka Manyara, stayed on Ngorogoro rim; day 4+5/nights 4+5: central Serengeti; day 6+7/nights 6+7: northern Serengeti; day 8: fly from Koga to Zanzibar. We stayed mostly in tent camps (which I highly recommend to hear the animals that walk by your tent at night). It was a wonderful trip and I highly recommend booking with E-Trip and having David as your guide.
We worked with many other companies in planning the safari, but found E-trip the most helpful. Ben was always quick to respond to my many questions with very detailed answers, and he tailored our itinerary to fit exactly what we wanted to do by helping us make trade offs between lodging and safari costs so that we could get a trip that was what we wanted in our budget. Ben continued to be helpful in preparing us for our trip by continuing to answer all of our questions over email until we arrived. This made sure that we were well prepared and our trip went really smoothly as a result. He even helped us with recommendations for the Zanzibar part of our trip, even though we did not book that part with E-trip (we just booked everything on our own). Ben was really fair and honest and gave us a lot of confidence in booking with E-trip, particularly during the uncertainties of Covid.
We can’t speak highly enough of David as a guide. David was really knowledgeable and took care of everything so that we could just relax and enjoy the trip. We are vegetarians, and he made sure that we always got vegetarian meals. He also did a lot of little things to make our trip go smoothly, like wiping down the dusty windows of the truck every night, pulling up descriptions of the animals and birds in the books he had with, and tailoring each day to what we wanted to do and see. It is clear that he is very experienced, and is good at finding the animals to watch. He explains not only the names of what you are seeing, but also all of their behaviors. As we were leaving Arusha, we stopped at an Airtel store to get SIM cards for our cell phones. A few days into the trip, it was clear that there was a problem with one of the cards, and David went above and beyond to call back to the store many times to get it fixed for us, even though it had nothing to do with E-trip or our tour.
The only “problem” we had with the trip was that the outlet to charge phones/cameras in the car was broken, so we couldn’t charge our phones during the day in the car. We had brought a portable battery(highly recommend doing this) and charged at night in the camps and it was fine. If that is the biggest issue we had the whole trip, it clearly was a very well run safari. Thank you Ben, David, and E-trip!
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Email Vien Doan | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Ben is just a perfect operator. Very responsive and tells you everything you need to know.
This was our first Safari and the itinerary, accommodations, tour guide could not be any better. It would be very hard for anyone to beat or even for ETrip to even improve on. They even looked for the best flight for us when it’s not part of the package. The tour cost itself was so reasonable and with everything included, meals etc….we couldn’t find any way to spend money so we gave all our $1,500 cash away as tips. The services provided at camps etc…were more than we experienced any where in the world. We traveled the globe and this safari was the best trip of our lives. We came back and in 2 weeks we are already booking the next one
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Email John and Madoka | 65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Look no further to choose your safari operator! Ben and his team are very professional!
We came back with a lot of great memories that will last our lifetime. Many thanks to Ben who made our dream vacation come true! We were supposed to travel last August (2020) with a different company in which we ultimately had to cancel because of the pandemic. We were desperate for a legitimate safari operator after our bad experience with the company called “Wildebeests Safaris”. We still have not been refunded for the service we did not receive. However, we were lucky that we have found Ben and were very happy that we chose his company! Ben was very patient throughout the booking process and answered countless questions mainly of the current travel restrictions associated with COVID. The quote he provided us with was very easy to read and it was precisely laid out with breakdown expenses. He also helped us customize our itinerary and gave us extensive discounts on tented camps including a complimentary stay at the Researches Rest in Arusha. We really enjoyed our stay there. Eddie cooked a home style meal for us and and he told us an interesting story about the lodge.
We wanted to focus our trip on the river crossing of the wildebeests so Ben recommended us to stay three nights in the Northern circuit of Serengeti and three nights in Maasai Mara. We could see the river crossing six times on our first day in Serengeti! Vultures and eagles were circling around in the sky waiting for the wildebeests and zebras to get killed by predators. We also saw a lot of wildlife including lions, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas, elephants, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, warthogs, antelopes, birds, storks, vultures, eagles, and many more…! We could see everything we had hoped for.
In Tarangire, we could find three climbing lionesses on one tree. Young male cubs were roaming right by us. We were very satisfied with the number of times we saw lions close up. We saw many “honeymooners” in Serengeti and Maasai Mara. We did not see this many in South Africa six years ago.
Most importantly, all of our guides were fantastic! We couldn’t have great safari experience without them. We had three guides during our 18 day trip to Kenya and Tanzania. All of them were experienced, intelligent, passionate, and knowledgeable about the wildlife. They can spot animals that no one else can. Simon was a very friendly and outgoing guide who was great to spend time together. He sensed immediately a coalition of cheetahs that were chasing after a gazelle. We could video the dramatic scene of the kill. He also knew that a massive number of elephants were coming towards us so we made a stop to see the elephants crossing the road in front of our vehicle.
Eli was our guide in Tanzania. Not only is he an excellent guide, but also is a very good driver. He was driving careful for us on the rough terrain because my partner had a back and abdominal pain from a surgery two years ago. What we were amazed by his skills was how he could quickly spotted animals. He was also patient until we finally saw the wildebeests started come down the river and we were the first one to see the entire scene of the river crossing! He was able to show us and told names of a unique and diverse flora and fauna in the area.
Mike was our guide in Maasai Mara. He was also skilled in spotting animals. We found more lions in Maasai Mara than any other places! He made sure that we received our negative COVID test results on time for our next destination. He recommended us to visit Lake Nakuru and Samburu next time to see some animals we didn’t see on this trip.
We highly recommend Ben and his team for booking your East Africa vacation. We will definitely book with ETrip again!
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Email Julia Hubbel | 65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
This is trip #6, and there will be more. As always, a perfect job.
Ben and Aurelie have carved a very special niche out for themselves in this market, and here's why. Ben doens't stop at the uber-service, careful planning, detail management and now critical hand-holding that is necessary with the swiftly changing Covid landscape. What keeps me coming back are these:
1. Superbly trained guides, the best in the business,not just on the mountain but in every country.
2. He supports and promotes local businesses, charities and NGOs which are doing it right, and he puts his money where his mouth is by helping local families, activities and business whose integrity he respects. That helps them, helps me purchase from the right places, and in all ways we all benefit.
3. If you find something extra you want to do, Ben will bend over backwards to fit in into your agenda. He is great at keeping in touch and more than once had to wave his magic wand to get me a travel certification that a website refused to deliver.
4. I have spent a lot of time with his guides, both on Kili and on Mt. Kenya. I continue to be deeply impressed. Seeing them again is like coming home to family.
This time around Ben sent me to some familiar places, such as Reseacher's Rest and Moshi, but he sent me far afield to game parks near Same, TZ and to the MamboViewpoint EcoLodge. Not only are these places both remote and stunning, they were both uncrowded and as a result, unbelievable. The Lushoto drive was a full cultural immersion and the game park near Same had unbelievable black rhino viewings. While other sites are better known and more popular, being willing to do a little driving paid off handsomely in both photos and a chance to see without looking over or past many other vehicles.
I also spent time at the breathtaking and remote Mara Eden resort,which is also way out of the way, so much so that the drive through the Maasai Mara just to get there and back were game drives. Those few days left me with my heart in my throat from what we were able to view, and as always with a most able driver, Simon.
I had revisited the beautiful and incomparable Ol Pejeta, which is worth every bit of the four-hour drive from Nairobi. That wants its own review, but in every way, it's not to be missed.This was my second time and with any luck not the last. Game viewings, as it is a conservancy, are guaranteed, and the best part is that you get a solid education as you explore, view, photograph or ride the various parts of the 90k acres. And see lions and their meals, which is something else again.
Finally, and I cannot emphasize this enough, Safari sites and Trip Advisor are, unfortunately full of advice on how to go cheap. Folks, if you go cheap, someone loses, and that is particularly true when I see unsubstantiated information about how the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project Partners "jack the prices up."
As a prize winning journalist and professional adventure traveler who has written extensively about, spent time on the ground with and done far more research than probably anyone else on KPAP, not only is that false but that kind of narrative perpetuates porter abuse on the mountain. ETrip, like other partner companies with KPAP, are committed to a fair wage, proper conditions, good training and the kind of treatment which ensures not only our safety but folks who are happy to see us coming. You don't get that when you shave too much off the cost of a trip. Travel is pricey, plan for it. Get good operators. ETrip gets my business every single time, and they earn that money.I have the deep satisfaction of knowing that those guides and employees who are affiliated with them are not worried about a paycheck and can concentrate on ensuring that my trip rocks.
Ben has become a trusted friend, for good reason. He has earned my respect many times over, and it is a joy to plan another trip. Which, with any luck, will be next spring.