A client messaged us recently asking, in a straight-to-the point way, whether we were "a real Tanzanian company or just another website." I completely understand why she asked. Type "best Kilimanjaro operator" into Google and you'll get a dozen glossy sites that turn out to be a booking form sitting on top of a local outfit nobody at head office has ever actually met.
So here's the honest version of who we are, and why we're built the way we're built.
We started with one climb, in 2014
Follow Alice exists because our co-founders Reto and Daniel climbed Kilimanjaro in 2014 with a guide named Chris. Chris had started on the mountain in 1999, not as a guide, as a porter, carrying tents and food up volcanic slopes and sleeping on bare bed sheets because that's what porters got back then. "It was very difficult," Chris has said. "There was no one taking care of the porters like now." He worked his way up, assistant guide, lead guide, chief guide, and by the time he guided Reto's group he'd already spent 15 years learning this mountain from the bottom up
Somewhere on that seven-day trek, the conversation turned to how badly the industry treated the people who actually carried it. Reto's words on it are simple: "We realised there had to be a better way." Chris's brother Robert and a colleague named Kazi joined not long after, and Follow Alice Tanzania was built to be Chris's company as much as anyone's, not a foreign brand renting his name and his mountain.
Chris is now Director of Operations of his own company - Follow Alice Tanzania - and has personally summited Kilimanjaro over 300 times. He still hand-picks every crew. "I followed the same footsteps the porters are going through," he says, "so I know what matters.".
When you book and travel with Follow Alice we aim to provide you with best in class pre-trip support from our UK and US team along with the very best, and best cared for, team in Tanzania.
What "knowing what matters" actually costs us
KPAP, the body that exists specifically to police porter treatment on this mountain, recommends a minimum wage of 20,000 Tanzanian shillings a day, about $9. A lot of operators pay exactly that and not a cent more, because nothing makes them. We pay that as a floor, not a ceiling, and where we can, we pay above it. Chris runs it the way he'd have wanted it run when he was the one carrying the bags: "Every crew member gets good meals, a proper place to sleep, and their salary paid on time. They have families waiting at home."
If you've read comparisons of Kilimanjaro operators and noticed most of them won't actually tell you what they pay their crew, that's not an accident. It's usually because the number wouldn't look good next to ours.
One name, at every stage, not a support queue
We're small enough that you're not a booking reference to us, and we've built the team on purpose so that stays true.
Daniel, Reto’s joint co-founder, is based in New York, and if you're in the US, there's a good chance it's Daniel on the other end of your very first enquiry, right through to getting the perfect trip planned and locked in. That's not a handoff he does once and disappears, it's actually his patch. Reto's the one who started this whole thing on that mountain in 2014 and still shapes how we run it. I'm Paul, based in the UK, and for most people outside the US, I'm who you're talking to while you're deciding on a route or working through the questions that come up before you actually book. Once you've booked, Meera picks things up, walking you through packing, altitude, and the logistics nobody thinks about until the week before you fly. Then you land in Tanzania and it's Chris and his hand-picked team on the ground for the entire trip, the people who've actually done this mountain hundreds of times over, not a driver you met that morning.
Four real people. Not four departments. If a flight gets delayed or a route needs to change, you're not re-explaining your trip to a stranger.
Why our 5-Star reviews look the way they do
We're not going to pretend a 5-star average means nothing, because it doesn't happen by accident either. Across Trustpilot, TripAdvisor and Google, we're currently sitting at a full 5.0 out of 5 across close to 500 reviews combined. We're KPAP certified and a member of the Tanzania Association of Tour Operators (TATO). Every guide holds Wilderness First Responder certification, renewed every year, and every trip carries oxygen, a full first aid kit, and radios so the crew can actually talk to each other on the mountain. Over 70% of what you spend with us stays in the local economy, which is the same as saying it stays with Chris's team and their families.
None of that is why people fall in love with the trip. It's just what has to be true underneath it for the trip to actually be good.
The thing most operators can't say
Chris put this better than I could: "Most directors at other companies have never been guides or porters themselves. They do not know the mountain from the inside. That distance shows in how their crews are treated." That's not a dig for the sake of it. It's the actual, structural difference between a company that was started by someone who carried the bags and a company that hired someone who could.
We'd rather you pick us because the numbers hold up and the people are real, not because our brochure has nicer photos than the next one.
Book a call with the team now: https://calendly.com/d/cq7y-m77-6sm/follow-alice-tanzania-call
