Over 40 Years of Adventure in the World's Wildest Places But they are done in our own special style:
We do not travel where the tourist masses go.
Tropical Ice operates many different types of trips, including vehicle game-viewing safaris; Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro climbs; walking safaris; and tiger safaris in India. With the exception of one or two small exclusive hotels, we stay only in our own private camps. We understand that a safari should be more than “seeing”, it’s all about “learning”. With this in mind we place great emphasis on
the quality and experience of our guides, fully aware that this is where the ultimate success of a safari lies. In Kenya we travel only in our own specially designed 4×4 safari vehicles. The concept of Tropical Ice is more important today than it was over 30 years ago when we started. Owing to population expansion the natural wildlife habitats are being threatened today as never before. We know where the places are that one can still find an Africa unchanged, where roads are few and people fewer. Our mission is to continue seeking these places out so that we can introduce our visitors to the wilderness we grew up in.
22/01/2025
Wild Gabon! Our new safari into "Africa's last eden". Stay ahead of the curve and ahead of the crowds on this safari of a lifetime.
Gabon offers the best opportunity to see the weird and wonderful animals that call central Africa's forests home. Many are critically endangered and extremely rare.
Kudos to anyone who can name all the animals in the pics. There are some tricky ones! The photos were taken by James on his recent exploratory trip to Gabon.
Spots available August 17-27, 2025. Reach out for more information.
One from the archives! A beautiful bull ele eating Doum Palm nuts. It's lovely how elephants move through our Great Walk camps as they please. This is their habitat!
Are you ready to rise to a new challenge this year? The Great Walk of Africa involves hiking 100 miles through the wildest bush Kenya has to offer. It is the longest, most unique, and most rewarding walking safari on the African continent.
Daily encounters on foot with large mammals, our exclusive mobile camps, and a lack of other tourists (you often go the full trip without seeing anyone else!) Make this trip so special.
Back in the 1970s and 80s style was everything, and the way you looked was as important as the climb you were doing (we won't get into rock climbing lycras). Iain had just climbed Mount Kenya's Ice Window route for the 2nd time, and this time he was with Rick Ridgeway. A fast route to climbing immortality was to climb with Rick. His wife, Jennifer, controlled which photos made it into the Patagonia catalogue and Rick is an excellent photographer. You were virtually guaranteed a spot in their amazing catalogue. Another nice thing about climbing with Rick, and especially if you were with Yvon too, was that we didn't pay much for the best outdoor clothing on our planet. This advert became kind of iconic at the time, perhaps because you can barely make out Iain's face!
26/12/2024
Happy Christmas from the Tropical Ice team! We hope the silly season is treating you all well. Cheers from on safari where we are raising a glass of our famous "Tsavo sangria"! 🍹🐘
In pic two, you can see Julie Lightbourn, the founder of Sip Sip in the Bahamas, sharing her secret recipe with Kahiu, Chui, and Gitonga... this was how it all started! Thanks for bringing those island vibes to Tsavo Julie!
Enjoy big skies undisturbed by artificial lights on the Great Walk of Africa. Relax with a drink around the campfire after dinner and spot shooting stars. You may have the sounds of lions or hyenas for company.
This is the Great Walk of Africa. Do you dream of moments like this?
Step out of your comfort zone and into the wild. 10 days, 100 miles across wildest Africa, countless wildlife interactions, and memories for a lifetime.
There are limited spots left in 2025 on this unique safari.
Exploring the epic floodplains of the Okavango Delta! We are speedboating along a hippo trail here looking for animals!
At night, we pitch camp on whichever island grabs our attention. Following the water and the wildlife through the Delta. The feelings of space, freedom, and solitude are unparalleled.
Iain’s book was published on September 26th, and has been easily available on AmazonUK. There appears, however, to have been delays where Amazon.com is concerned.
For those people in the U.S. who are waiting for Amazon to deliver, we would recommend that you cancel your order with them, and order through Barnes & Noble who appear to be well-stocked.
20/09/2024
Iain has published his memoir!
In OUTSIDER...A Life with the Elephants and Mountains of Africa, Iain writes “For those of us who have made our homes in Africa we live on the edge of safety in an unpredictable world. Like 'war ju**ie' journalists we feed off Africa's uncertainties. Those who couldn't cope packed up and left a long time ago.”
In OUTSIDER you will find out exactly what he means...
OUTSIDER is poignant, at times tragic, but always heartwarming and fun. And who knows...you might even find yourself somewhere in its pages!
Those of you who have walked in Tsavo with Iain during the past four decades will have heard the Tsavo story live. Pegasus will publish his memoir in London on September 26, and it will be available on Amazon, and leading bookstores in Europe and America. The book is crammed full of Iain's stories, from his early days in Scotland, through his 1958 arrival in Kenya as a boy, and his initiation into the world of rock climbing and mountaineering. You will read about the birth of Tropical Ice, and the introduction of adventure travel into East Africa, and along the way you will learn about the history of Kenya during the past 65 years, and the world of African conservation, and its uncertain future..
We have space on the following Great Walk of Africa safaris in 2025:
Feb 02 - 14
Feb 16 - 28
Jun 01 - 13
Jun 15 - 27
Jun 29 - Jul 11
Aug 10 - 22
Aug 24 - Sept 05
Sept 07 - 19
Sept 21 - Oct 03
17/09/2024
Take a second to appreciate just how gorgeous nature can be! These pics were all taken on this years Wild Botswana safari by one of our talented guests, Brent Blue.
Gives you an idea of how great the wildlife sightings were!
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Videos
Let's go WILD in 2025!
If you're craving some adventure in this years travel plans - something exciting and off the beaten track - then we have you covered...
The Great Walk of Africa is our award winning flagship trip and the most adventurous safari on the continent. Here is a 30 second sneak peak into why!
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🌍 www.tropical-ice.com
🐘 Let's go wild in 2025
👉 @tsavoman @alex_safaris @jallanwildlife
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📸 Ryan Houlihan
#walkingsafari #safari #adventuretravel #adventure #wildlife #luxurysafari #kenya #naturephotography #naturelovers #letsgowild #wild
Wild Botswana!
Exploring the epic floodplains of the Okavango Delta! We are speedboating along a hippo trail here looking for animals!
At night, we pitch camp on whichever island grabs our attention. Following the water and the wildlife through the Delta. The feelings of space, freedom, and solitude are unparalleled.
__________
🌍 www.tropical-ice.com
🛥 Uncompromising adventure since 1978
__________
#Botswana #Okavango #walkingsafari #safari #boating #boatingcampingfishing #bcf #wildlifephotography #wildlife #animals #elephant #hippo #camping #adventure #expedition #wildlifelovers #safaristyle #explore #exploremore
Want to see wild gorillas away from the crowds? We've got you covered...
Our new destination is almost ready to launch. And no, we are not going to Rwanda or Uganda, this will be much more exciting and off the beaten track!
Kudos to anyone who can guess where!
Curious? Reach out for more info.
#safari #wildlifephotography #adventuretravel #adventure #gorillatrekking #Gorilla #greatapes #naturelovers #travelblogger #wildlife #bucketlist #africa #africansafari
Even leopards scavenge!
This is one of the most bizarre wildlife sightings we've had. Two leopards climbing all over an elephant was quite surreal! The amazing thing was they weren't phased by us at all and let us take great pictures for the best part of an hour.
#Botswana #botswanasafari #bigcats #leopard #elephant #wildlife #wildlifephotography #cats #okavangodelta #safari #adventuretravel #adventure
Wild Botswana 2024 really turned it on!
Siesta's with company! Could you sleep with this gentle giant grazing around your tent?
Elephants love the doum palm groves where we camp on the Great Walk of Africa. Having them in camp is always a favourite moment
#elephant #safari #kenya #tsavonationalpark #wildlife #adventuretravel #walkingsafari
Tropical Ice was started by Iain Allan in 1978 as a technical-climbing guiding company on the peaks of Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro. It very quickly expanded into “Nepal-style” trekking on the remoter slopes of these mountains.
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 new, quite 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, and 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 mountaineering 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 never take it for granted.
Tropical Ice operates many different types of trips, including vehicle game-viewing safaris; Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro climbs; walking safaris; or combinations of all. But they are done in our own special style:
We do not travel where the tourist masses go.
With the exception of one or two small exclusive hotels, we stay only in our own private camps.
We understand that an African safari should be more than “seeing”, it’s all about “learning”.
With this in mind we place great emphasis on the quality and experience of our guides, fully aware that this is where the ultimate success of a safari lies.
We travel only in our own specially designed 4×4 safari vehicles.
The concept of Tropical Ice is more important today than it was over 30 years ago when we started. Owing to population expansion the natural habitat of Africa is being threatened today as never before. We know where the places are that one can still find an Africa unchanged,where roads are few and people fewer.Our mission is to continue seeking these places out so that we can introduce our visitors to the wilderness we grew up in.
