OUR STORY
Tropical Ice was started by Iain Allan in 1978, as a technical climbing company on the peaks of Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro. we’ve been evolving ever since, while always staying true to our original mission, which is: “uncompromising adventure”.
Today, Iain Allan and Alex Fiksman (below) run the company together, creating authentic safaris that hark back to a bygone age. Tropical Ice’s safaris are for the more discerning travellers out there - those searching for a genuine experience of what Africa is truly about.
Taking advantage of Kenya’s ban on big game hunting in 1977, and the resulting vacuum within the tourist industry, Iain began to search out a remote, unspoiled region of wilderness in Kenya, with the idea of beginning big game country walking safaris. He quickly settled on 8,300 square mile (22,000 square km) Tsavo.
This was a brand new and exceptionally radical concept for the time. East African national parks had always been places visitors could only drive in. Walking could only be done in the hunting blocks bordering some of the parks. To walk inside a park was unthinkable at the time. Iain’s idea was to model Tropical Ice’s walking safaris on the traditional hunting safari: leave the vehicles behind, get out into the bush, search out the game with experienced trackers, and finally shoot the wildlife with cameras, not guns. Fortunately, he had the backing of Tsavo’s legendary senior warden, Bill Woodley. Tropical Ice has never looked back.
In our long history, we’ve learned a lot about the bush, and our walking safaris have been refined and organised to deliver the wonderful complexities of Africa’s wilderness to our clients.
We found that our mountaineering heritage has much in common with walking in the African bush: they both require long apprenticeships; we took the tools and skills that we’d learned on the mountains with us, knowing that safety and caution are the only prerequisites for survival. We take nothing for granted.
OUR MISSION:
We’re here to search out the wildest places on earth, and awaken adventurers to their raw and haunting power.
The concept of Tropical Ice is more important today than it was over 40 years ago, when we first started. With population expansion and global warming, the natural habitat of the world is being threatened today as never before.
Ours is a world unchanged, which we share with visitors, so they can connect with our planet in a way that will shape them for life.
OUR SAFETY RECORD:
We are committed to unadulterated adventure and unsoftened safari experiences — and we’re just as committed to safety. For 44 years we’ve enabled clients to experience wildlife on the frontline, and we’ve never had a major incident. True magic cannot be bottled or forced into an itinerary. In our many years of operations, we’ve had an army of loyal, constantly returning, satisfied clients.
OUR TEAM:
It takes a team of incredible people working behind the scenes to deliver a truly spectacular experience. We couldn’t be more grateful or proud of the team we have created. Many of our team members have been with us for over 20 years, and some since we first started in 1978! We even have some of our original retired team member’s children on the team, and nothing makes us happier.
