Elite Traveler Spring 2024

LAND AND SEA SAFARI AFRICA

Dorsia Travel was founded by couple Tom and Lucie Cahalan after they’d spent many years concocting their own experiential travel itineraries (and creating dream itineraries for their friends). In fact, Tom’s blog, The Good, The Bad and The Luxurious , detailed his self-funded trips (no in fl uencer trips here) and he quickly became a trusted authority on all things luxury travel — a number of the blog’s earliest readers now count among Dorsia Travel’s long-standing clients. Dorsia (yes, named for the fi ctional restaurant in American Psycho where it is impossible to get a ‘res’) has unveiled new itineraries for 2024, including the Helping Hands Land and Sea Safari. It begins with fi ve nights at Kenya’s Ol Jogi, an exceptional 11-bedroom estate on a private 58,000-acre conservancy. The over-the-top lodge is a lesson in maximalism (according to Tom: “It looks like the Addams Family designed it, whilst on mushrooms”), with riotous decor, secret tunnels, a real bank vault on-site and a sprawling pool with a waterfall. But dig a little deeper and there’s more to it — the owners fund a world-leading veterinary clinic, fi nance sustainability initiatives at neighboring conservancies and fund locals’ schooling. During the fi venights, guests can help out by feeding elephants and having other close encounters with the animals with the support of Ol Jogi’s committed guides. For a greater overview of Ol Jogi’s surroundings, Dorsia Travel can organize naturalist-guided helicopter tours over Mount Kenya and nearby lakes. A private charter to Rwanda allows for a four-night stay at the four-bed Singita Kataza House and the opportunity to interact with gorillas in the wild. After additional days hiking and admiring playful golden monkeys, there’s time to decompress during a fi ve-night stay at Tanzania’s paradisiacal Thanda Island. This idyllic fi ve-bed retreat is surrounded by the serene Shungi Mbili Island Marine Reserve. Along with supporting coral reef-restoration projects and potentially observing nesting turtles, stays here from October to March provide the possibility of swimming in the Indian Ocean’s warm waters with whale sharks. From $650,000 for eight people. Contact Tom Cahalan, founder, tom@dorsiatravel.com, +44 122 375 5195, dorsiatravel.com

Photos Phaisal Photos, Tom Cahalan