7 Days Machame Route Private tour

The tour was well organised, and all members of the team were really nice and supportive. We had a successful summit thanks to them!

We had an amazing experience with a 7-day Machame route and a 1-day safari. Charlie was very quick to answer all our questions and made the whole trip easy to plan and well organized. Everything ran smoothly from start to finish. The team was experienced, friendly, and always helpful, making us feel safe and well taken care of throughout. The climb was an unforgettable experience, and the safari was a great addition to the trip. We had a really great time and would highly recommend!

We had an exceptional experience from the preparation stage. Charlie answered every question. From the moment we landed at the airport, the driver was waiting. The trip was an experience with a nice driver. The arrival at the hotel and the hotel staff were amazing. The welcome was enjoyable. Nice people. Excellent staff. The climbing expedition team was excellent. Experienced, nice, helpful. The equipment, the food. The team that answers every problem, every concern, there is someone you can trust. And then the trip to the safari was enjoyable, including the accommodation, the close escort, the atmosphere, and the feeling of security. An amazing team. Highly recommend and thank you to Charlie, Johnny Conrad, and Victor. You are amazing.

Great scenery, excellent and motivating guides, good food. The boys did a lot of work here, including the porters. All have contributed to the success, thank you all !!!

Probably the hardest and best thing I've ever done in my life! The trek was such a bucket list experience that I will never forget. The views were breathtaking and summiting was profoundly rewarding. I give kili vikings 4 stars, due to some ups and downs during the trip (but all were resolved by the end)! Pros: - Effortless booking process. From the day that I sent in a quote request to the time of booking confirmation, Charlie was so helpful every step of the way. He would answer my Whatsapp messages super fast, regardless of how stupid of a question I had. He gave us clear guidance on packing lists, vaccination guidelines, malaria risks, etc. - Expert guides! John and Goodluck were always so eager to answer any of our questions about the fauna, biomes, Tanzania, food, culture, etc. We learned so much during our 7 days with them. - Ethical guides. John and Goodluck were very ethical in their approach to trekking Kilimanjaro. For example, they were very intent on us respecting the nature and not leaving any rubbish on the mountain (which honestly could not be said for some other companies). - Delicious food! Everyday, our stomachs were full from such delicious food. Since I normally associate camping and trekking with granola bars and trail mix, it was such a nice surprise to be eating curries, soups, noodles, etc. on the mountain! - Friendly staff! Besides our guides, we interacted the most with Nicolaus (waiter). He was so kind and was always willing to teach us Swahili. We could not have asked for a more charming waiter. - Spacious tent! My partner and I stayed in a tent that could probably hold 4-5 people. So we had such a lovely time, we could even do full body stretches inside the tent at the end of each day! - Guides were very patient with us on summit day. Out of three of us in the group, two of us had splitting headaches due to the altitude. I had flu symptoms, which were exacerbated by the altitude beyond belief. Despite all of our physical ailments (and my persistent complaining), the guides were very patient with us during the 6.5 hour ascent on summit day. They encouraged us to keep moving, without which we probably would not have summited. Cons: - My partner and I were picked up from Arusha on the first day, but the taxi driver (arranged by Charlie) didn't know where to go in Moshi to drop us off. We had to wait at a random hotel until someone showed up (which wasn't until a few hours later). I believe this was probably just some miscommunication between the taxi drivers, guides, and Charlie, but it did add a bit of stress as we didn't know what was going on. - Before the trip, Charlie had given us the tipping guideline of 15% of the total trip cost. So, we came to Tanzania with that amount of tip ready to go and budgeted the rest of our trip in Tanzania around those expectations. However, on the last day of the trek, the staff demanded us to verbally state our tips out loud. Once we explained that they will be receiving 15% of the total trip cost, as per Charlie's guidelines, the staff (15 people) became really silent and looked very unhappy. After a few minutes, they started asking us to pay double the amount in tips—which we could not afford. In that moment, we felt slightly betrayed (because these were the people that we had spent the past 6 days building trust with) and unsafe (we were 3 student tourists faced with 15 unhappy staff members). At the end of the day, everything was sorted as we contacted Charlie to let him know of our predicament and he helped us by mediating the tipping process back at his office. It was a slightly jarring experience at the very end to an otherwise perfect kili trek.