KILIMANJARO TOUR OPERATOR

BEST KILIMANJARO TOUR OPERATOR

To make your Kilimanjaro dream come true, you must carefully approach choosing the right Kilimanjaro Tour Operator. It is crucial because you trust them with your journey and health.

When choosing a Kilimanjaro Tour Operator, we advise you to pay attention to some factors while choosing your Kilimanjaro Tour Operator.

The best Kilimanjaro climb operators have the best safety record and have the best client success rates.

Your chances of reaching the summit depend on your operator more than anything else.

How to choose the best Kilimanjaro tour operator for your climb

Start with those who have more experience: check which company has led the most climbs in recent years. It does not necessarily imply the operators that have been in business the longest, but rather those that have grown a strong presence on the mountain Kilimanjaro. Choose a company that has high success rates on its climbs. They must be doing something right! Always choose a tour operator that puts health and safety first. Climbing Kilimanjaro is no joke; select a company that cares about your safety, not saving your expenses.

Key Factors to take into consideration while evaluating the Kilimanjaro Tour Operator

To climb Mountain Kilimanjaro, you will need a guide service from the Kilimanjaro tour operator company.

You need a Kilimanjaro trekking company that specializes in extreme recreation. When you make your choice, you should consider these criteria:

Safety on Kilimanjaro

It would be best to remember that climbing Mountain Kilimanjaro is a difficult process for altitude sickness. 

Your safety in the Kilimanjaro climb is crucial; most of the midrange Kilimanjaro operators have established safety measures and evacuation procedures during their climb different from budget Kilimanjaro operators.

Your Guide needs to know how to conduct daily health checks, recognize the early signs of altitude sickness, and learn how to use everything in their medical kits. Top-quality guides know their worth and don’t come cheap. An attempt to save money by employing untrained guides can be catastrophic in an emergency.

The below are Eco-Africa Climbing Safety Practices and Measure on Kilimanjaro Climb

• Our Mountain guides are certified Wilderness First Responders (WFR)
• We have our protocols for handling emergencies on the mountain.
• We conduct twice-daily health checks using a pulse oximeter and stethoscope to measure pulse, temperature, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation.
• We implement the Lake Louise Scoring System. Lake Louise Scoring System (LLSS) for Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS)
• We carry emergency oxygen on all climbs to combat severe cases of altitude sickness.
• We carry first aid kits to treat minor injuries such as blisters.

For emergency evacuation during the Kilimanjaro climb, we are working with KILI MEDAIR, which provides Helicopter Search and Rescue operations, ensuring the safety of everyone on Mount Kilimanjaro. It would be best to have insurance that covers emergency evacuation of 6,000 meters 

Kilimanjaro Summit Success Rate 

Many people climb Kilimanjaro, but half fail to summit Mountain Kilimanjaro because most Kilimanjaro trekking companies offer their clients. Most inexperienced Kilimanjaro tour operators offer cheap climbs with the wrong route and number of days without considering the client’s fitness level, and their experience on high altitude climbs.

You may find a Kilimanjaro company offering a novice climber a five-day climb via the Marangu route without considering the fitness level of that client and their body reaction to altitudes.

Most Kilimanjaro trekking companies aim to make the sale without offering their expert opinion to their clients, and this cause most clients to fail to summit Kilimanjaro.

When you are planning your Kilimanjaro climb, there are six factors that you need to consider in deciding which is the best route to climb Kilimanjaro for you.

Acclimatization, The difficulty of the summit night, How busy the route is, What are the accommodation options,Safety,What is the success rate

Acclimatization on Kilimanjaro

The golden rule is to walk high and sleep low when climbing to altitude, and following this rule minimizes the risk of altitude sickness and improves your chance of summiting. The best routes to climb Kilimanjaro for acclimatization are the Northern Circuit, Lemosho and Machame routes, as these naturally allow you to walk high and sleep low.

Therefore you must check if your Kilimanjaro operator offer the route which has a high successfully rate 

Explore the client’s success rate of your Kilimanjaro tour company. Remember to check Kilimanjaro trekking companies’ websites and check their review on review site like TripAdvisor.

Kilimanjaro Quality Gear

Quality equipment is one of the critical parts of the climbing process, and responsible hiking operators must always provide it. The essential camping and climbing equipment includes tents, oximeters, and oxygen systems (at that height in the air, there is little oxygen, but it will be stored in the cylinders). So consider the Kilimanjaro operator who offers the best equipment for their climb.

Private and Group  Kilimanjaro Climbs

Remember that the best Kilimanjaro operators provide different privacy options for climbing trips. You can always choose a private climb only to share this experience with your friends by climbing the route with lower summit rates and choosing to spend more days on the Mountain to acclimatize well. For the group climb, make sure you opt the climb to the route like 9 Day Northern Circuit route, the Lemosho route over 8 days, followed by the Machame route over 7 days which has a high profile for a successful summit.

 Eco-Africa Climbing We operate group climbs on these best routes every month.

Avoid cheap climbs like 5 days or six days if you are not an experienced climber.

Meals on Kilimanjaro

Eco-Africa Climbing offers different varieties of food and drinks to our climbers to make sure the food fuels them to the summit of Mountain Kilimanjaro. Since it is common for people to lose appetites during the climb, we have designed special foods for our climbers to make them healthy and have all the energy they might need during this Machame route climbing. We are serving the best food on the mountain as all our meals are fresh-cooked every day, and this keeps surprising some of our climbers how we make this possible. We also have fresh fruits and vegetables on our climb. We also have meals for people who are vegan and vegetarian. We usually ask our clients for food requirements to provide the meals that will be the best for them as we understand that every client has different needs regarding food. We also offer drinks like water, juice, tea and hot chocolate, and sometimes even wine during the climb. We make sure our foods are fresh by resupplying the new foods at Karanga camp. Our foods are the best as we serve food like a five-star hotel on top of Kilimanjaro Mountain. 

See What Food we provide on the Mountain Kilimanjaro

Budget tour operators typically only provide simple carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, and porridge because these are assumed to be easier to digest at higher altitudes. For most meals, operators should aim to include a variety of foods and a decent ratio of fruit and vegetables and protein.

Avoid booking your Kilimanjaro climb with a cheap operator and expect a miracle in the food.

Overall Quality Mountain Kilimanjaro Services

Eco-Africa Climbing ensures we provide the best experience to all our clients from the first day to the last day.

On Mountain Kilimanjaro, we offer mountain services like the below.

• We provide camping facilities on the camping route on Kilimanjaro by offering the Four-season tents for sleeping, Chair, Table, Dining tents, and sleeping mattresses.
• We provide all the food and drinks on the mountain every day as we cook fresh meals every day; our meals are curated specially for the climbers.
• We provide the guide services as all our Mountain guides are Wilderness First Responder Certified and know how to handle climbers.
• We provide oxygen tanks and the first aid kit for an emergency to our clients.
• We monitor our clients’ healthy twice a day and record their data to track their progress during the climb.
• We have set evacuation procedures for our clients to ensure our climbers are safe and take precautions to ensure all our clients descend safely.
• We are using mobile and radio for communication for climb updates as we post daily climber progress on our social media during the climb.
• We provide our clients with the porter’s support throughout the climb as these porters are the backbone of our climb.
• We provide the transport to the start of the Climb, and at the end of the climb, we will transfer to the hotel.

Don’t expect a Mountain service like ours from cheap Kilimanjaro operators.

Best Kilimanjaro Guides and Mountain Crew

Eco-Africa Climbing have a great team of beautiful guides and a Mountain crew to accompany you up the Mountain Kilimanjaro. A trek up to the top of Kilimanjaro has proved to be one of the most rewarding and incredible experiences that our guests have experienced.

Upon their return, our clients’ comments are filled with awe, exhaustion, wonder, and delight! Our climbers are also so pleased with our crew of guides and porters, both male and female, and how helpful and spirited they are, and our cooks create a bounty of fresh, tasty meals that fuel your body for your extreme exertion. We can handle most special menu requests (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, kosher, food allergies, etc.)

Our Mountain guides are trained in high levels of first aid( Wilderness First Responder certification). They will be monitoring you up the mountain, checking your oxygen levels, pulse, and blood pressure a couple of times daily. They carry emergency oxygen if anyone needs it. Overall the success rate of reaching the summit with Eco-Africa Climbing guides is 98%! Our guides and mountain crew are fantastic at helping to motivate people with their positive spirit and singing and encouraging them to summit.

All our Mountain Crew and Guide are trained each season to provide the best services on the Mountain.

It is easy for a company to make claims about its services and equipment. Please visit our Trip Advisor reviews to see what our clients think of us:

Make sure your Kilimanjaro operator has their own guide and Mountain crew, and avoid companies who pick Mountain crew from the starting gate.

Ethical Kilimanjaro Climbs

It is essential to climb Mt Kilimanjaro with the tour operator, a Partner(member) of the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project (KPAP). The majority of tour operators don’t treat fair their Mountain crew, especially the porters who work for their company. Most of these companies exploit their porters in different ways, as below. They provide an inadequate meal to their porter, one meal per day during the climb. Their porters carry more than 20kg, which is standard by Kilimanjaro National Authority KINAPA. They provide few poor sleeping tents, which cause the porters to sleep many in one tent. They pay their porters a meagre wage and cause the porters to depend more on the tip at the end of the climb. They don’t care about their sick porters. The above are just a few exploitations of these tour companies’ porters on Mountain Kilimanjaro. Companies like these are budget tour operators, and even midrange tour operators exploit their porters to inspect the claim that they do responsible climb, which is not. Therefore, it is crucial to climbing the Machame route with a tour company that is a Partner (member) of KPAP. These companies adhere to all the protocols for an ethical and responsible climb on Mountain Kilimanjaro. Eco-Africa Climbing is a proud partner of KPAP, and a porter from KPAP audits all the climbs we conducted, which makes us comply with the ethical and responsible climb.

Cheap Kilimanjaro operators maltreat their Guide and Mountain crew, so don’t expect to be offered the best services on the Mountain while your Mountain crew are being fed only one meal per day.

Things to Remember When Planning A Kilimanjaro Trip

It is essential to mention the basic rules of choosing the right guide company to conquer the Kilimanjaro summit.

• Do not try to save money: cheap tours can harm your health and mood.
• Learn about the experience of the company you are interested in, and be sure to check their reviews. 
• Do not forget to prepare your body for Kilimanjaro climbing; the experience will be truly magical, and you will be genuinely inspired.