We had originally planned another tour to Tanzania tour for 2020, but like so much of the world, our plans came to a halt with the outbreak of COVID. The tour was postponed, and for months, Tanzania’s tourism industry remained nearly at a standstill.Then, in March 2021, Tanzania announced that tourists would once again be allowed to enter the country under strict guidelines. We knew how desperately the people who depended on tourism needed visitors to return, so we made the decision to move forward with our tour.It was no small feat, and looking back, it almost feels like a miracle that we were able to pull it off.
Just two weeks before the tour, we received devastating news. KLM was canceling all flights to and from Kilimanjaro International Airport. The cancellations were not because of a lack of passengers, but because of a dispute involving the airline and Dutch government policies.At first, we thought there was simply no way the tour could happen.
Then we began hearing from our friends and partners in Tanzania. The people who had been counting on our arrival were shattered. Our tour represented more than a group of travelers coming on safari. It represented work. It represented income. For families who had endured months without tourism, it represented a small lifeline of hope. We knew we had to find a way. We scrambled to look for alternatives and discovered that Ethiopian Airlines was operating flights from Washington, D.C., to Ethiopia, with connections onward to Kilimanjaro. It was complicated, last minute, and certainly not what anyone had originally planned.
We contacted everyone on the tour.
Every single person said, “YES, we are IN! Let’s do it!”
So we rallied together, changed our plans, booked new flights, and made it happen.
When we arrived in Tanzania, it was almost surreal. The normally chaotic and busy Kilimanjaro airport felt like a ghost town. The terminal was nearly silent. As we passed through customs, even the officers seemed surprised to see us. They asked why we had come.
We told them we were there to bring our photography tour back to Tanzania and they smiled.
You could sense that our presence meant something far greater than simply another group of tourists arriving in the country. Everywhere we went, we experienced the same reaction. As we drove through towns and villages, people would look at our safari vehicles almost in bewilderment. Then they would realize we were visitors, and their expressions would change. They would smile. They would wave.
It felt as though our little group was a sign that perhaps tourism was finally beginning to return.
As it turned out, we were among the very first tours to return to Tanzania after the shutdowns.
We took every precaution we could. Testing took place throughout the journey and again before our return home. Masks were worn when appropriate, and we were unable to visit local tribes and communities as we normally would. Everyone involved had been tested, and once we were out on safari, there was very little interaction with anyone outside our group.
And the safari itself was extraordinary.
It felt like stepping back in time.
Out on the Serengeti, ours was often the only vehicle for miles. There were no crowds and no long lines of Land Cruisers gathered around wildlife. There were simply endless golden plains stretching beneath an enormous African sky.
It was us and the wildlife.
Even the normally busy Ngorongoro Crater was strangely quiet, almost haunting in its emptiness. At times, it was easy to imagine what it must have felt like for the earliest adventurers who traveled through these places, when everything seemed wild, untouched, and impossibly vast.
It was strange, beautiful, and unforgettable.
But as incredible as the safari was, what happened at the end of the tour is what has stayed with us the most.
When our journey was over, our guides gathered us together and began sharing what our visit had truly meant to them.
None of them had worked since tourism had shut down.
For many of them, our tour was their first job in months.
One guide told us that he had sold nearly everything he owned, even his furniture, just to put food on the table and pay his children’s school fees. Others talked about growing vegetables and trading whatever they could with neighbors simply to survive.
There was no government safety net waiting for them. No assistance programs like those many people had access to in the United States and other countries.
When tourism disappeared, their income disappeared with it.
Our tour provided their first paycheck in a very long time.
Standing there listening to them, we began to understand just how much this journey had meant.
One by one, our guides thanked us. There were tears in their eyes, and there were tears in ours.
For us, it had been an incredible adventure and one of the most unusual safaris we had ever experienced. But for them, it had been something much more.
It meant work.
It meant food on the table.
It meant school fees for their children.
It meant hope.
We had gone to Tanzania believing that somehow, in our own small way, we could help by simply showing up.
By the time we left, we understood just how true that really was.
Of all the tours we have ever led, this one will always hold a special place in our hearts. It reminded us that travel can be about so much more than the places we see or the photographs we bring home. Sometimes, simply showing up can make a difference in someone else’s life.
And in Tanzania in 2021, it did.
