Vegan Safari… For Serious.

While the above beauty may not be in a veggie coma, I do my best to make sure you can be on safari! How it all began…

So I wanted to launch an animal friendly travel company and send people on safari because safaris are amazing! You get to see animals in their natural habitats living as Mama Nature intended. Your tourist money goes towards protecting the national parks the animals live in – fabulous. But for clients who are vegan, whatcha gonna eat in middle of a national park where the word “vegan” is scarcely uttered? You can’t exactly walk through the bush past some friendly lions to your local Candle 79 for post-safari vegan grub (maybe one day…).

When I initially started discussions with locals in Tanzania about sending vegan clients on safari, the first response I got was “vegan, no problem, cheese sandwiches and yogurt for their packed lunches!” It was clear some vegan 101 was in order.

So after many menu suggestions and some veg-ucation later, my amazing guides, so darn supportive and wonderful, have helped me to veganize, to the greatest extent possible (still no Candle 79), the safari experience. No, you do not need to be vegan to go on these safaris, but if you are, my guides are on it. I even had them scour local wine stores for vegan African wines and they delivered! I will happily turn them into the vegan guides of Tanzania!

The Great Migration/Wildebeest

Here are some vegan/safari elements to be aware of (focusing mainly on Tanzania… I’ll expand one day to include many more countries, right now I’m only one woman doing my best to humane-atize travel!):

• There are LOTS of Indian and Chinese owned restaurants and hotels/lodges in Tanzania which naturally have tons of vegetarian options that can easily be veganized if they’re not already. So while you’re in your lodges throughout the national parks you should have plenty of options. My guides have taken it upon themselves to reach out to each hotel my clients stay at ahead of time to give them the suggested meal options I supplied, just to be on the safe side! Your guides will cross-check with each hotel upon arrival to make sure you’ll be taken care of. If there are any problems, your guides will stick a lion on them.
• My guides will make sure that the packed lunches the lodges whip up for your daytime safari adventures are veganized and far more exciting than air sandwiches(yes, I’ve had to eat those at times on my travels…).
• If you’re staying in mobile camps that track the Great Migration (you can read more about that here!) or if you’re climbing Mount Kilimanjaro (read here!), you get your own private chef who will whip up some African vegan grub just for you!
• Your guides will NEVER let you participate in any activity that hurts or exploits animals, no matter how many other tourists choose to go on hunting excursions (yes, those do exist…).
• I may send you some African vegan wine just to let you know I’m thinking of you!

So, am I missing anything? What else would make a fabulous veggie safari experience for you? Any input is so welcomed!!

Here are some of our amazing safari itineraries for you to daydream over when you really should be working…

11 Day Safari & Zanzibar Island Bush to Beach Adventure

19 Day Mount Kilimanjaro, Safari, Zanzibar Adventure

New! 14 Day Safari, Chimp Tracking, Zanzibar Beach Adventure (you’ll visit the site where Jane Goodall studied!)

New! 14 Day Safari, Gorilla Tracking, Zanzibar Beach Adventure (this trip includes a trip to Rwanda to see the gorillas!)

Want to see more safari itinerary options? Click here!

Here’s what our last vegan safari client said about the food on their trip: “YTT did a great job of making sure our vegan food restrictions were accommodated on our safari. At every stop we made the hotel/lodge/tent camp had food prepared for us. We ate such great meals, I am pretty sure the meat eaters were jealous of the food we were eating. Even our guide was prepared with tons of fresh fruit and veggies for us every day.” - Erica, the owner of MooShoes, the only vegan shoe store in New York

Below is a picture my guides sent me. It didn’t really come out well but if you zoom in to like 500% percent and squint your eyes, perhaps with a pair of sunglasses on, you can see that they put my company name and logo on their safari truck. Yes, these things do make me happy. My clients in Tanzania now promised to take better pictures!

More safari photos for ya…

Photos courtesy of Thomas Sly, Harpersbizarre, Stig Nygaard, Angela Sevin,Caitlin,The Wandering Angel, belgianchocolate, hjallig, Stig Nygaard & thebuffafamily.