Southern, East & Central Africa
“We travel because distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something inside our minds has changed, and that changes everything.”
Jonah Lehrer
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Voted by Condé Nast Travellers 'one of Africa’sTop 25 Safari Guides'
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Over twenty years of experience curating customised, privately guided African safari itineraries
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Specialist in intimate, immersive wilderness experiences with access to some of the continent’s wildest landscapes
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Focuses on linking conservation philanthropists with organisations involved with conserving Africa’s last true wilderness areas
Ant is a multi-talented guide with broad-ranging interests and an inquiring mind who consistently delivers unrivalled wilderness explorations into some of Africa’s wildest and most untouched landscapes.
His primary focus is on providing his guests with safe and intimate experiences which offer unique opportunities to truly connect with these rapidly diminishing places and to engage with the conservation leaders at the forefront of protecting them. Through twenty years of relationship building and conservation support, Ant has an insider’s pass to wild spaces that are typically only accessible to a select few.
As the holder of one of the most highly respected guiding qualifications in the world, two university degrees and interests ranging from ethnobotany & fly fishing to entomology & recreational flying, his guests are assured of a level of service delivery, attention to the smallest of details and seamless travel logistics that never fail to disappoint. Over and above this, his genuine humility, thoughtful demeanour and schoolboy charm result in many of his guests returning to travel with him year after year.
Ant’s love affair with the wilds of Africa was cemented before the age of ten when he already had the conviction his life would be inextricably linked with the wild open spaces of the continent of his birth.
Fast forward three decades and he has gained international recognition as a professional safari guide with experience in over twenty different African countries. He is also an ecologist, former safari camp owner and a fixed-wing pilot, and his ecology degree* alone puts Ant in a unique position to offer a depth of experience like few other safari guides in Africa.
What really makes Ant tick is leading walking safaris through big game country, so wherever you visit with him, you can be assured of an active, engaging experience where you are part of the action, rather than a spectator to it.
One of his greatest passions is spending time with elephants on foot and his understanding of their behaviour gained from countless hours spent with them in their natural habitat, allows him to provide a truly intimate perspective into their lives.
Having had the privilege of spending much of his adult life exploring the continent’s wildest landscapes what has become more and more apparent are the threats faced by these rapidly diminishing refuges. Truly passionate and dedicated to the long term safeguarding of these areas, Ant, therefore, tends to direct his support, and that of his philanthropic guests, towards protected areas which are managed by organisations with solid conservation track records.
One such place that has become an integral part of his life is a vast wilderness in the southeast corner of Zimbabwe, known as Gonarezhou. Translated literally into “The Place of Many Elephants”, it is here where Ant and his family are often to be found with these gentle giants, many of whom he has come to know as individuals.
Ant holds a bachelor’s degree in Ecology and Environmental & Geographical Science from the University of Cape Town and a Master of Science in Tropical Resource Ecology from the University of Zimbabwe, where he studied the impacts of elephants on a number of unique vegetation communities within the Malilangwe Wildlife Reserve.
