Reviews

My experience with Catherine has been fabulous. It took some back and forth, but she was super accommodating after I explained that I like to see multiple lodging options per destination. I love how she incorporated all of my asks, was super friendly, provided prompt responses [even when a reply might take a lil longer than expected], stayed within our budget, and built the custom itinerary in real-time via a user-friendly website. This isn't feedback for Catherine, but when I went to the site and wanted to build a custom trip the form wasn't submitting for me [desktop and mobile]. I actually didn't know who to get in touch with based on the website alone. I finally reached out to my friend, and she provided me Catherine's direct email address. I think the form is fixed now, but I found it difficult to get in contact with someone just by the website info alone. We haven't gone on the trip yet, but this part so far has been really nice. Timbuktu and Catherine lifted a huge weight off my shoulders! We're global nomads, and I'm constantly researching and planning all our trips. This would've been near impossible while also planning our 7-day wedding in Mykonos. We're super stoked for our African Safari adventure. We're both first timers! I highly recommend using Timbuktu Travel to build your own trip or plan a custom one like us. I foresee us using them for South Africa and Bhutan in the future!

i would both recommend them and use them again, catherine was great especially when we wanted to tweak the end of the trip

i've completed this review several times - so will be brief. Our travel agent / consultant, Kristin, was very knowledgeable and always responsive. Her backup, Joanna, did a good job when Kristin was traveling.

Jenna was amazing in helping us to plan our Africa adventure. She was willing to help with all my changes and needs. I would highly recommend Timbuktu and we will be using them again in the future.

Both the planning/booking process & our trip itself were fabulous. Completely faultless & even better than we expected. We have just booked another trip with Timbuktu.

I can't even begin to describe how much we love Timbuktu and our travel agent especially. My wife found this place after a lot of research into a South Africa trip and Joanna was able to take our concept, come up with a few different ideas, and then carefully work with us to tailor the trip to our exact needs. The best part was our agent had already done a trip to South Africa so her first hand experience was incredible! Six months after we return we've booked another trip to Sri Lanka. We're excited to book it so far out so it can be affordable to us and Joanna led the way this time as we had no idea what we had in store. Again, perfectly tailored! I can't wait to come back here!

I contacted Timbuktu because I was interested in taking a Safari. I have been dealing with Joanna Rigby-Jones as our travel specialist. I am telling you, you can’t go wrong with her. She has made all the arrangements and answered every question within a day. We have a group of six cruise ship passengers getting off at Maputo we will be met and driven to both camps. After the Safari’s we will be taken to the airport in Hoedspruit to fly to Cape Town. We are going to two different camps for five total nights. We will then fly to Cape Town for one night. I even changed one lodge and the hotel in Cape Town I had originally picked out. Not a problem at all when I asked Joanna to make the adjustment. We were given an abundance of information and the down payment was easily made. I was so impressed with Joanna’s personal service. I certainly would recommend Timbuktu if you want to make reservations for a Safari. If you are in the U.S. like myself, I’d ask for Joanna. We customize exactly what we wanted! This was so easy and our group is so looking forward to the trip we can hardly wait.

Jeffi was really informative, insightful about things that would work well for a solo traveler and very knowledgeable about South Africa. i had great confidence that my upcoming trip will be great!!!

This is our third time using Timbuktu. Joanna listens to our ideas and really delivers. She knows the camps well and always gives good advice plus she understands all the practicalities. We have put together a fabulous looking trip which is very exciting.

The reps I worked with had been to the countries many times - nothing better than firsthand experience in planning the best trip.