If you don’t have time to read our full review, just read this: Enchanting Tanzania Safaris and our guide Alphayo were simply the best. You should use them for your safari if you want a truly personalised experience.
We visited Tanzania in early 2024 for our honeymoon and were hoping for a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ safari experience. Our friends who live and work in Arusha recommended ETS to us. We got in touch with James and his team, who were very personable and easy to communicate with. One of the reasons we chose ETS is that they are owned and operated by Tanzanians. This was important to us, as we wanted to support a truly local company; many of the safari companies are foreign-owned, so a lot of their profits leave the country. Not so with ETS.
James gave us a number of options to consider, including different durations, safari locations and sites, and accommodation choices. We wanted to include some walks in our safari, which James accommodated. The pricing was very clear, along with a clear description of what was and wasn’t included. We decided to go for a nine-day safari, which included all the ‘northern circuit’ national parks, plus Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Natron where James organised for us to have a morning walk to the lake with a local Masaai guide to see the flamingos, and an afternoon walk to a waterfall.
Our safari guide Alphayo asked to meet us the day before the safari so we could get acquainted and he could understand our expectations. Alphayo was amazing right from the start. He was keen to understand anything we were particularly interested in seeing and experiencing, which for us included wanting to understand the ecology and habitats. We also explained that we were just as interested in the ‘small things’ as in the ‘Big Five’, and that experiencing nature rather than ticking off a list of animals to see was more important to us. Alphayo took it all on board.
We could spend a long time writing about all the fantastic wildlife experiences and amazing landscapes, which truly were awesome. In addition, the accommodation and food was great and in our view well worth the price.
Suffice to say Alphayo was phenomenal. He looked after us really well, was fantastic at spotting wildlife for us and explaining what we were seeing, and generally made everything run super smoothly. He regularly took us away from the crowds, leading to some really personal and private wildlife encounters with no other people around. He was also a great person to get to know and spend time with over the nine days we were together, with engaging conversation and a great sense of humour. Alphayo clearly cares deeply about the environment and the wildlife which made the entire experience even more special, as he’s very obviously in this job out of a passion for nature. We saw some other safari company drivers who had a very different attitude, driving way too close to animals not caring about disturbing them, including the highly protected rhinos in Ngorongoro and a lioness with cubs – which was heartbreaking to see. We were so glad that Alphayo was so much better than this.
It also became clear early on that Alphayo is a highly-skilled off-road driver, able to handle the rough and (at times very) muddy roads, but also making sensible decisions about routes and not risking getting stuck late in the day or trying to take dangerous river-crossings. In summary, we can’t rate Alphayo highly enough, he was the most fantastic safari guide we could possibly have imagined.
The combination of Alphayo, the amazing experiences, good food and drink, and great places to stay (including inside some of the National Parks), made this a truly enchanting experience for us and an absolute highlight of our Tanzania honeymoon. We had thought the safari might well be a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ experience, but we are already planning to come back again. When we do, we will definitely go with Enchanting Tanzania Safaris and...
  Â
Read more
Learn more insights from Wanderboat AI.
