“At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”
Purposeful, Responsible Travel in Tanzania with Sababu Safaris
The tourism industry in Tanzania is a huge contributor to the overall economy, and to the prosperity of local economies scattered throughout the country. However, tourism also leaves a large footprint on the environment. As a tour operator, it’s our responsibility to offer safaris and experiences that are responsible and respect local cultures and communities. It is important to conserve their living cultural heritage and authentic values, and to contribute to an inter-cultural understanding. At the same time, we need to protect natural assets and wildlife to support a viable natural environment and conserve its heritage and biodiversity.
What are our Tanzania Safari Experiences?
The answer to this question is complex, as our experiences can include a large number of activities (please see below some of your choices). In addition to partnering with lodges and camps who share our conservation values, we unite conservation, sustainable travel (leaving a low carbon footprint) and communities by seamlessly integrating unique, authentic and impactful experiences that put you in direct touch with the local communities. These activities create a foundation for guests to acquire an increased awareness and knowledge of Tanzania’s culture and simultaneously enable communities to create income and build their future.
You will have the opportunity to completely immerse yourself in the rich Tanzanian culture very few truly experience, all while making a positive social impact at the same time. We want you to FEEL and EXPERIENCE the true (and authentic!) Tanzania, and to be a force for good while having the time of your life.
Read more about us or start planning your dream tailor-made Tanzania safari.
Some of our SABABU EXPERIENCES:
On Safari in tanzania:
Visit the Maasai tribe to learn about their culture, history and traditions; let them take you on a nature walk or bike tour through Maasailand; take part in a spear throwing competition, or join the women in a workshop to craft traditional bead work. Gain an authentic insight into their way of life and stay in traditional Maasai bomas (with Western amenities).
Give the gift of light to families in remote villages living without electricity.
Accompany the Hadzabe bushmen — one of the world’s last remaining hunter-gatherer tribes — on a morning hunt, and let them teach you all about their time-honored hunting techniques, survival skills, food preparation, and cultural norms. This is one of the most sensitive cultural encounters available in the world today. The essence of Hadzabe culture can be summed up in one word: harmony. They live in harmony with each other, nature, and themselves.
Meet a local family and learn about Iraqw culture and their traditional ways of life. Discover the age-old process of making pots. Try your hand at pounding grain and taste the local brew.
Take the time to internalize your personal journey on safari! Our yoga teacher, Marissa, will lead you through two daily yoga sessions aimed at healing and restoring the body, a daily meditation session based on mindfulness, as well as optional group or personalized herbal healing sessions. We offer private yoga safaris if you’d like to include yoga sessions in your Sababu Safari!
sababu experiences In Arusha:
Take part in the day-to-day life of students by participating in a school-based itinerary offering a variety of activities (tour the school campus, sample traditional Tanzanian lunch with the students, attend a weekly assembly and watch dance and music performances etc.); learn first-hand about the successes and challenges of education in rural Tanzania.
Tour a bustling, interactive workshop that employs and empowers community members with disabilities to create unique, high quality, handmade jewellery, glassware and homeware using recycled materials. Safe and supportive employment opportunities are provided for people with disabilities with a particular focus on those with a passion and ambition to learn and achieve success. In this experience, you have the chance to meet their inspirational staff, witness their amazing skills and how they incorporate recycled items into many of their beautiful products. Their weaving, tailoring, beading, tinga tinga painting, glass blowing, bead making, and metal & woodworking departments produce a wide selection of unique, high quality and handmade homeware, glass, and jewelry products. Maybe try your hand at activities including glass blowing, making your own necklace, or take part in a Maasai beading workshop, and learn sign language.
Take part in an informative “bean-to-cup” coffee estate tour and explore the world of coffee like never before. This tour is for anyone who wishes to learn the fascinating cycle of the coffee bean. Weaving in and out of the evergreen coffee bushes, your expert coffee guide will explain how the bean is nurtured, harvested, dried and finally roasted to produce a myriad of different blends.
Visit a home that enables children to recover after they have had surgery and make a transformative impact on the lives of Tanzanian children with disabilities.
Visit the Center for Rescue, Education and Wildlife in Machame. This sanctuary takes care of many orphaned and injured animals — their goal is to preserve Tanzania’s natural treasures through educational projects and practical animal and environmental protection.
*This tour requires a day trip.
Sababu experiences In Zanzibar
Stone Town Tour with (or without) Cooking Lesson
Explore Stone Town off the beaten track and get to know a different side of town while avoiding the crowds. Your private guide will tell you about Stone Town’s fascinating history, show you the distinctive architectural features and give you insights into everyday life in Zanzibar. Dip into the Zanzibari way of life and enjoy a lovely lunch at your guide’s home, where you will meet his family, eat and chat – and learn some Zanzibari cooking secrets.
Spice Tour and local Lunch
This grassroots spice tour is conducted by spice farmer Murtala. We recommend you round it off with a lovely home-cooked lunch (pilau, curried vegetables in creamed turmeric, katchumbari salad and bean falafel with coconut chutney).
*This tour is ideally combined with a cooking or spice blending workshop
Private Dhow Safari (full day)
A full day cruise on a traditional dhow boat at the southern coastline of Zanzibar. This magical journey will take you on an exploration of the Indian Ocean from Fumba fishing village to the Menai Bay conservation area. The day includes snorkeling at a sand bank, swimming, relaxing, exploring the Kwale Island, drinks, and a seafood buffet
Prison Island Tour
Take a half day private trip to Prison Island. You will take a boat from the shores of Stone Town, setting down anchor 5 km away, on the beautiful beach of Prison Island. Visit the tortoise sanctuary, which contains a large colony of giant tortoise imported from the Seychelles by Sultan Said in the 19th century. Enjoy the marine life as you snorkel around the coral that fringes Prison Island or just relax under the warm glow of the sun until you head back to Stone Town
Jozani Forest Tour
Jozani Forest is best known for its red colobus monkeys, which are endemic to Zanzibar. After visiting the red colobus, you will walk across to the Pete-Jozani Mangrove Boardwalk. You will walk through mangrove forest which is extremely crucial to Zanzibar’s ecosystems, providing a habitat for many lizards, snakes and birdlife as well as preventing the coastal erosion
Seaweed Forage, Farm Lunch at a Permaculture Farm & Seaweed Wrap Treatment
Morning seaweed foraging in Bweleo village for fresh Spinosium seaweed which offers so many benefits for the skin. You will have a local lunch at a neighboring Permaculture farm, learn about the goodness of seaweed and then return to Stone Town for a seaweed wrap and massage treatment at Mrembo Spa.
Organic Farm Visit, Permaculture & Delicious Farm Lunch
At Mwatima’s sustainably run farm, you can learn about farming in Zanzibar and enjoy a delicious lunch, served in the shade of avocado trees. A visit to the nearby Permaculture Institute rounds off this tour.
Emerson Zanzibar Tea Ceremony
Learn about and taste different teas at the atmospheric Emerson on Hurumzi hotel, served in style with small delicacies.
Zanzibar Beauty Experience
At the traditional Mrembo Spa, you will learn about incense, coconut oil as well as other Swahili beauty rituals and ingredients and then enjoy a massage and scrub of your choice and, if you like, receive a henna adornment.
Matemwe, Jambiani and Nungwi Village Tours
Have a local guide take you through their village (donations will be made to visited places) and discover how locals live their everyday lives and how they make their livelihoods. The tour finishes with a great Swahili local style lunch!Workshops
We offer a wide range of workshops by skilled artists and artisans:
Swahili Cooking, Spice Blending, Henna Painting, Oud (Incense making), Music Lessons, Traditional Dancing, Batik, Tinga Tinga painting
The workshops are conducted in different locations and have different pricing; just let us know which one/s you’re interested in!
Get involved in the places you visit and empower locals to take charge in their communities. Whatever it is you choose to do while on safari with us, you will return home with a rich knowledge and understanding of the Tanzanian culture. These activities are great on your own, but they’re especially suited for families as the experiences broaden young people’s minds, teaching them about other cultures and ways of life. Check out our Tanzania Family Safari Holidays to learn more.
We want to give you the opportunity to make a positive change during the time you spend here, knowing that part of your money goes directly into the project(s) you choose to visit. It will raise your awareness, bring you and the local communities closer to each other, and transform lives on both ends. If you have any questions about our Tanzania safari experiences, please feel free to contact us. It’s our ultimate goal to create such worthwhile experiences that guests leave inspired and with a real sense of PURPOSE. That’s what SABABU SAFARIS is all about!
Embark on an unforgettable journey and leave a lasting legacy !
PARTNERS
The Transformational Travel Council is a collective of businesses and organizations who understand the powerful and delicate environmental, cultural, social and emotional impact tourism has on the individual traveler as well as the destination. We are proud to be part of coalition who all share the same mission and goal to make travel more ethical, emotional, equitable, and ecological. By understanding the power that tourism has to positively transform how we live our lives, how we live our lives with others, and how we live on our planet, the TTC communitas is able to collectively implement practices that support these ideologies with a greater impact in the growing shift in the emerging industry of transformational travel.
Africa Amini Alama is a registered non-profit association which was founded as a private initiative in 2009. Since its inception, Africa Amini Alama has launched a range of projects dedicated to health care, education, social care, tourism, and agriculture. Each project is carried out on-site by a local team and supervised by Africa Amini Alama on a long-term basis. The literal translation of "Africa Amini Alama" means "Africa, symbol of trust".
Solar Sister trains and supports women to deliver clean energy directly to homes in rural African communities. They provide essential services and training that enable women entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses in their own communities. Women receive a comprehensive training package and ongoing mentoring on business, technology, and leadership skills necessary to kickstart a sustainable clean energy business.
We are proud members of Pack for a Purpose, an initiative that allows travelers like you to make a lasting impact on the community at your travel destination. If you save just a few kilos/pounds of space in your suitcase and take supplies for the projects we support in need, you’ll make a priceless impact on the lives of our local children and families. Please click here to see what supplies are needed for our projects.
Amani Light is a Non-Profit Organization focused on providing wellness tools to youth in Tanzania and the United States. They partner with organizations who serve youth in Tanzania to offer healing tools of yoga, mindfulness, nutritional guidance, and health services. They also provide wellness and cultural immersion retreats for underrepresented youth in the United States to travel to Tanzania for immersive travel and healing retreats.
We support Carbon Tanzania's innovative approach to habitat conservation based on selling carbon offsets that result from keeping carbon locked up in forest ecosystems. These forests are owned by indigenous communities who earn an income from the sale of these offsets, funds that are used for community development needs. By buying their forest carbon offsets you are helping to balance your carbon emissions, supporting forest communities and protecting forests from deforestation.
Husbands Scott and Mark started Purple Roofs in 1999, and they’re still the best place to find small, “family owned” and LGBTQ+ friendly accommodations and tour operators. At Sababu Safaris, we are Travel. Inclusive.
Thailandos offers holidays with bespoke itineraries, luxury accommodations, and unforgettable experiences tailored to your desires.