Gorilla Trekking Safaris

Zicasso’s travel agency gave us a mind-blowing experience. We've never had a trip where nothing went wrong. Thanks to their hard work and our in-country hosts, our trip was flawless. We had lots of questions and ideas. They worked to incorporate them into the package. This really showed how much they knew about Africa, as well as what works and what might not.

Our driver/guide for Tanzania was great. His encyclopedic knowledge of everything was astounding. From the little beetles and the birds to the Big Five and beyond, he knew it all and knew everyone. This really elevated our trip experience.

We started in Arusha, then set out on our adventure. We stayed in Tarangire National Park, drove through Lake Manyara, the Ngorongoro Crater, and then on to the central and northern Serengeti.

Our driver made sure we saw what I think was every animal in Tanzania. Each encounter was an experience and up close! Thanks!

The tented camps in Tarangire and the central and northern Serengeti were wonderful. While a little outdated, the locations were perfect. The staff at each camp were over the top. Awesome job. We planned this trip as my gift for turning 60. Our tour operator made sure everyone knew this, and at each camp, the cooks baked a small cake to recognize this. What an unexpected surprise. I cannot express enough gratitude to everyone for making the camps so special. The food was fabulous.

We also had a morning balloon flight over the northern Serengeti. This too was amazing, watching the sun rise floating silently over the Mara River, listening to the animals.

From the northern Serengeti it was on to Rwanda for gorillas. Again, the travel agency went above and beyond. Our guide in Rwanda was a font of knowledge and knew many of people wherever we went. The hotels in Rwanda were small and exceptional.

We had two days of gorilla treks. We were extremely blessed to have our guide on both days. We saw 35 gorillas in what I call a full 3D, up-close experience. I had wanted to see mountain gorillas ever since I was young and read about Dian Fossey. The gorilla experience really moved us. Such gentle creatures. We will remember this encounter for the rest of our lives.

I highly recommend the travel company. We had a wonderful adventure and want to return.

The expert travel planning by our tour planners was flawless. They gave us details and planning directions that were always helpful and on time. I never felt like I needed to do extra planning and when I had a concern, they always responded immediately. Even as we were in the middle of the trip and I had some concern about the bad weather, a tour planner responded almost immediately and did some research and contacted the flight people. The lodging in Arusha is unbelievable. Gibbs Farm near the crater is the same. Too much to tell on these two lodgings, but go to the web site. The Sanctuary Serengeti camp was great. Our tent overlooked the vast Serengeti from our high spot in the southwest area. Gorilla Sanctuary lodge at Bwindi Impenetrable Forest was fabulous.

Our travel agency created a fabulous custom journey for us that fit our budget and our goals. The accommodations selected exceeded our expectations in service, cleanliness, hospitality, and amenities. During the planning stages, my husband and I were not initially clear on which part of Africa we wanted to tour. We iterated on our itinerary for about a dozen or more times over the course of several months. With each change in plan, our travel agency responded promptly and with fresh ideas on how to work the new location into our plan. While other tour companies (US operated) got frustrated and started to drop out, our travel agency stayed with us and helped us create a trip of a lifetime. We saw the mountain gorillas of Rwanda, the big five plus many more species in the Maasai Mara, Serengeti, and Ngorongoro Crater. I also like that by booking with this agency, we are directly supporting a company located in Tanzania. This also meant that we could work together on a children's camp held outside of Arusha. My husband and I host children's day camps in developing countries. This one was by far the most enjoyable camp yet and made possible with our travel agency's help. Our trip is detailed in this blog series: https://teetia.home.blog/

Our trip to Africa was fantastic, and could barely be improved upon.  My wife and I went to Rwanda and Uganda for mountain gorilla trekking, then to Tanzania for safari game drives in Tarangire NP, Serengeti NP and Ngorongoro NP, and finished up in Zanzibar for swahili cooking class, snorkeling and a spice plantation tour. The trip was organized by a travel planner at this travel company. After sending our ideas to our travel planner, we worked back and forth for a week or so to fine-tune our trip itinerary to include the things that we wanted to do, which involved seeing as much wildlife as possible. My wife loves monkeys and I am a birdwatcher, so we made sure that there was plenty of both in our itinerary.  Our travel planner was very organized and great to work with. She even met us in Arusha with her husband, to say "Jambo" hello. Our guides were both great guys, very knowledgeable of the birds, wildlife and culture that we saw. This travel company is highly recommended and we would use them again if we traveled to Africa.

Our safari travel company did a superb job of putting together an amazing East Africa trip for us. An african safari has been a “bucket list” trip for us for many years. When we decided to make this trip happen we knew that we wanted to do it right. We did a fair amount of research about where we wanted to go in general but we had no clue about how to make the specifics work.

When we started working with this agent, the trip quickly came together. She took the time to really understand our interests, the way that we like to travel, what we most wanted to see and do, and my specific needs as a photographer. 

Our trip included Rwanda for the Gorilla Trekking (amazing, beautiful creatures), and terrific wildlife viewing  and photography in Tanzania. We visited Tarangire National Park, Lake Manyara,  Ngorongoro Crater, Serangeti National Park and Mahale National Park for chimpanzee trekking. We capped the whole trip off with four relaxing days on the beach in Zanzibar.

We were able to see and photograph every animal and scene on our list. We saw four of “the big five” on our very first day. We saw the “great migration” cross the Mara River. We saw chimpanzees, rhinos, and more baby animals then we ever imagined.

The accommodations that our travel company arranged for us were terrific throughout the trip.  We stayed in camps that perfectly suited our needs and interests. They all had that perfect balance of luxury and authenticity where they were very, very comfortable but you still knew that you could only be in Africa.

We had wonderful driver/guides in both Rwanda and Tanzania. Our agent arranged for us to have just one terrific guide for our entire safari in Tanzania. This was  important because we were then able to bond with our guide who got to know us and what we were most interested in. He was always willing to make it happen. We met many other travelers along the way who had a different guide at each camp they stayed at and they did not see a fraction of what we saw. 

Out trip exceeded our expectations in every way and I would highly recommend this company for your next trip to Africa.