About Us

What do we do?

We provide a high quality tailor-made travel service to Southern and East Africa with a deep-seated commitment to Fair Trade in Tourism. We use all our years of travel experience in Africa to design really good itineraries, and give our travellers the peace of mind that their holiday is having a positive impact in the destination.

Why would you travel with us?

Because we’re awesome? Well, maybe. Those of you who have travelled with Face Africa tell us that you are looking for a genuine experience of the places you visit. You want to see highlights like Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls or Rwanda’s Mountain Gorillas, but expect more from your trip than being shepherded from one highlight to another.

Our history

Face Africa was founded by Tim Ellis in 2004. Following many years of independent travel and guiding for several leading adventure travel companies, Tim was driven to share his passion and vision for authentic travel experiences. The early days were all about designing group travel itineraries that showcased the great attractions of the African continent. Equally important, however, was under-pinning them with the chance for travellers to really get under the skin of the countries they were visiting: and this was about people.

In a market where so many tours were about cramming as many destinations as possible into as short a time as possible, Face Africa became known for well-paced itineraries that explored the really interesting off-the-beaten-track parts of countries that we genuinely know and understand. And the essence of these visits was the opportunity to get to know and interact with the people of that country.

Today the company has grown to encompass a wide variety of tailor-made tours, holidays and safaris. The journey has been an interesting one, and stand-out achievement number one is that we still enjoy heading off to discover new places: the community-owned lodges, secret picnic spots, and unknown scenic highways that make our itineraries Original. Stand-out achievement number two is the success we have had, both within our company and the industry at large, in placing sustainable tourism at the core of what we do. This is only possible because our travellers actually care about the places they visit, so we thank you for your support in helping us keep our itineraries Ethical.

And all the time, keeping Face-to-Face with our beloved Africa…