Our Story
Founder
Tajo started where every good safari story should — with a guide who couldn't stop talking about the bush. We're a Nairobi-based outfit, family-run, built around the idea that a great safari isn't sold from a brochure. It's built around you, in conversation, by people who actually know where the leopards have been hunting this week.
We do this because we love it. The team here grew up reading these landscapes — the dust patterns, the bird calls, the way the wildebeest move in October. Every itinerary we send out gets written by someone who has personally been in the camp, eaten the food, met the guides. No middlemen, no boilerplate, no copy-paste pricing.
We're not the biggest operator in Kenya. We're not trying to be. What we are is the operator that picks up when you call, answers your follow-up question within the hour, and treats your trip like it's the only one we're running. Whether it's your first safari or your fifth, we'll build it around what you actually came for.
Where We Operate
Kenya is big. We don't claim to know every corner of it equally well. These are the parks and conservancies where we have the deepest relationships — the guides, the camps, the conservancy partners. When you book one of these, you're getting our best.
Our home park. We work primarily in the Mara Triangle and the northern conservancies (Naboisho, Mara North, Olare Motorogi) — fewer vehicles, off-track game drives, and guides who have tracked these specific lion prides for years. We avoid the central reserve in peak season unless a client specifically wants it.
Plan a Maasai Mara safari →
Kilimanjaro views, big-tusker elephants, and one of the few parks where you can predict elephant behaviour because the same family groups have been studied here since the 1970s. We use small mid-range camps in the Kimana corridor — quieter, with better elephant viewing than the main park gates.
Plan a Amboseli safari →
Northern Kenya, semi-arid, and home to the species you won't see further south — reticulated giraffe, Grevy's zebra, gerenuk, Beisa oryx. We pair Samburu with Ol Pejeta and Lewa for travelers who want the wildlife without the crowds.
Plan a Samburu safari →
Kenya's rhino stronghold and home to the world's last two northern white rhinos. We have direct conservancy partnerships here, which means our clients get behind-the-scenes access — anti-poaching unit visits, chimp sanctuary, night drives — that day-trippers can't book.
Plan a Ol Pejeta safari →
Our preferred soft landing. Ninety minutes from Nairobi, no flights needed, and you're on a boat among hippos and fish-eagles by lunchtime. We use Naivasha as a warm-up before the Mara or as a relaxed wind-down — and Crescent Island is one of the most underrated walking safaris in the country.
Plan a Lake Naivasha safari →The Team
Every one of them works in the field they grew up in. None of them rotates between countries chasing seasons.
18 years in the field
Big cats & predator behaviour
Born on the edge of the Mara Triangle. Grew up walking livestock past lion country and started guiding professionally at 22. Joseph reads territorial behaviour the way the rest of us read traffic — he can pick up which pride is moving where from a single roar at 4am.
11 years in the field
Photography-led safaris & birding
Trained as a wildlife biologist before going into the field full time. Lucy works exclusively with photography-focused groups — she knows the light angles for the leopards on the Talek, and which acacia the bee-eaters favour at first light.
22 years in the field
Northern Kenya & rhino tracking
Samburu-born, with 22 years tracking on the northern conservancies. Daniel has spent his career on the region's big cats and works closely with the conservancy rhino-monitoring teams. There is no one better north of Mount Kenya.
9 years in the field
Family safaris & first-time travellers
Started guiding after a decade running family-focused tour operations in Tanzania. Sarah is who we call when a young family wants someone who can pitch the day to a seven-year-old and a sixty-year-old in the same vehicle. Famous internally for keeping snacks in the cool-box.
Our Approach
We work through the community conservancies that ring the big national parks. Profits from conservancy fees go directly to landowner trusts — funding grazing management, schools, and ranger salaries.
We contribute $50/guest/night to the Mara Naboisho Conservancy fund. It's itemised on every Mara trip's invoice.
Tajo guides and clients have collectively contributed to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the Mara Predator Project, and Lewa's rhino monitoring programme since we started.
We co-fund the annual Tajo guide-training scheme, which admits eight new guides each year from communities adjoining the parks.
We route trips to minimise internal flying where ground transfer is competitive on time. We're transparent about the trade-off — flying is faster, driving is greener, and the right answer depends on the trip.
Carbon offsets are available at booking through the Kasigau Corridor REDD+ programme. We don't add them silently; you choose.
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