Our History

The local community and Chief, eager to encourage development and job opportunities, gave John and Carol a prime site from which to develop their own safari operation. In 1995, together with their two young daughters, long-time friend and safari guide Bryan Jackson, an orphan elephant and two cats they took up residence on this virgin tract of Luangwa riverine bush and began to create Tafika. It was a family affair from the start with the girls being very much a part of the team, albeit just 5 and 6 years old. It was a unique and usually idyllic (sometimes fairly tough!) upbringing – Carol homeschooled the girls in the presence of pets ranging from an elephant, banded mongoose, night ape, grysboks, bushbucks, zebras, cats and dogs. During the rainy season the camp is totally impassable by road for 4 months, the only means of access being via a 2 hour journey in a boat, provided the Luangwa is flowing strongly enough to be navigable. During this time they had the opportunity to explore the river further afield and on one occasion the entire family canoed all the way to the confluence with the Zambezi River.

In 2018 Jenny and her partner, Nick Riddin, returned to join the company again which has now grown significantly to include the two walking camps at Chikoko Trails plus Mwaleshi and Takwela in North Luangwa, with an overall staff of around 100 people. In 2019 Mark McAdam joined the team as a new investor and director, bolstering the team for a bright and exciting future.

The Remote Africa ethos

The local community has been an integral part of the development of the company. Remote Africa’s ethos has always been to build camps with local materials and utilise local skills as far as possible. Being traditionally reliant on subsistence farming as a way of life, unless the communities derive direct and significant benefits from tourism there is little incentive to protect the wonderful wildlife that they share the area with. Consequently, apart from merely providing jobs, a great deal of work has gone into projects sponsoring education, building and supporting a clinic, developing a massively popular football league and supporting community tourism development projects. Almost all the wildlife guides are from the immediate area and have received their training from scratch.