The Expert Team

We believe that to get the best from a trip to Africa, you need impartial advice from people who know Africa well, have actually been to the places where you are thinking of travelling and can advise you from first-hand experience – like our team!

To reduce spam, we haven't written all of our email addresses below. But all follow the form:
first-name dot second-name @ expertafrica dot com ( Please always copy your email to info @ ... )

Chris McIntyre | Managing Director

Chris first went to Africa in 1987, where he taught with VSO in Zimbabwe for almost three years and travelled around extensively. In 1990 he co-authored the Guide to Namibia and Botswana for Bradt Publications; this was the first English guidebook to these countries. On returning to the UK, he spent three years as a business analyst for a blue-chip company in London.

Leaving the city, Chris joined Sunvil Holidays in 1994 to concentrate on what he enjoys most: Africa. Within four years, Sunvil's embryonic Africa programme became a separate company, for forerunner of Expert Africa - which remains a proud member of the Sunvil family of travel companies.

Chris feels very lucky to be doing what he loves, and to have an amazing team of specialists working with him. He is committed to responsible travel, and regards extensive travel for everyone on the team as an essential part of this work – helping everyone to keep up to date and give the best advice possible.

In 1996 Chris wrote the Zambia guidebook, for Bradt Publications; then the first guidebook to Zambia. The fourth edition of this guide was published in Jan 2009. He followed it in '98 with a new Namibia guide and in 2003 with a new book on Botswana; both are now in their 3rd editions. Most recently he and his wife, Susan, have co-authored two new Zanzibar guides. Chris researches to ensure that these stay up to date, and produces new editions regularly.

Chris is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and periodically contributes to various papers and magazines, including Wanderlust, BBC Wildlife and Travel Africa. Based in the UK near Richmond, he spends several months each year travelling and researching in Africa.

Maruska Adye | Namibia, Botswana, Zambia & Tanzania specialist

Maruska's affinity with Africa began when her parents took her with them to live in Tanzania before she was one year of age. Her family lived most of the time in Dar es Salaam where Maruska's first spoken words were in Swahili. She also lived two of the following nine years in the Selous Game Reserve while her parents managed a lodge there.

In 1986 her family returned to their home in New Zealand to settle, but by then the need to explore and travel was embedded in Maruska's psyche. She left home at the age of 16 to live in England where she studied her A-levels before taking a job in graphic design. After a year in the job industry she gave in to the call of Africa and bought a year's flight ticket with the idea of backpacking from South Africa to Tanzania.

Easily distracted by the places she visited and the people she met along the way, Maruska's well laid travel plans soon began to unravel. In this way she hitched to Namibia, a name and country completely new to her. She loved it immediately and decided to stay. She worked in bars, designed flyers, managed backpacker hostels and camps – anything to prolong her time in Africa – before taking a job as a travel consultant.

Seven years later Maruska decided to return to the UK where she joined the Expert Africa team. She maintains her close connection with Namibia whilst building on her knowledge of other southern African countries such as Botswana, Zambia and Tanzania. In 2009, Maruska returned to New Zealand to live and set up a satellite office for Expert Africa in Hastings. She remains an integral part of the team and continues to arrange holidays for our travellers, just from a desk half-way around the world!

Saskia Adye | Namibia specialist

Saskia was born and raised in Tanzania, developing a love for the African wilderness from childhood whilst living at a remote lodge managed by her parents in the Selous Game Reserve. Her upbringing instilled in her a passion for safaris and the bush. Once at schooling age, her family lived in Dar es Salaam but continued to take any opportunity to explore Tanzania and Kenya on safari. At the age of 8, Saskia moved to New Zealand, her family's country of origin, but soon after graduating from university she knew she had to return to Africa and set off in search of adventure.

Her travels led her to Namibia where she began working within the tourism industry and where she lived for 8 years. Namibia offered her a captivating lifestyle and dream employment prospects. Saskia began working as a travel agent, followed by a safari consultant and office manager for a local safari operator. Her keen interest in nature enticed her to train as a safari guide and, once qualified, she led trips all over Namibia. She also guided the occasional safari through Botswana to Victoria Falls and spent her holidays exploring further afield. Saskia took a particular interest in wildlife (especially birds), stars, butterflies and wild flowers. In addition, she guided specialist photographic tours and became adept at pointing photographer's in the direction of the perfect image.

In early 2011 she moved back to New Zealand and began working in the Expert Africa satellite office with her sister Maruska; a situation that allows her to live close to family and keep in touch with Africa on a regular basis. Saskia's affiliation for travelling, nature, the outdoors and Africa is infectious and makes her an enthusiastic and knowledgeable member of the team.

Gwynneth Bezuidenhout | Namibia specialist

Gwynneth Bezuidenhout is Namibian: she was born in Namibia and grew up in Windhoek, which is where many of her family still live. As a teenager, she spent holidays travelling with her family around South Africa, visiting Cape Town and the Garden Route.

After school, following a few short and uninteresting office jobs, she turned to travel – enrolling herself into college in South Africa to study Hotel Management. Returning home to Windhoek in 2000, she swiftly got her first taste of the real travel industry when she started working for a mobile safari specialist, organising the logistics of small-group camping trips.

She stayed with the same mobile safari operator in Windhoek, working through many roles in the company, until the end of 2006. Then she took the adventurous leap of moving to the UK, to join us as part of the Expert Africa team.

Gwynneth returns to Namibia regularly, both to see her family, and to research new areas for us. She concentrates on advising travellers on trips around Namibia, and especially the small-group camping safaris offered by Wild about Africa, that she knows so well.

Gwynneth is also a major contributor to Bradt's Namibia guidebook.

Eleanor Dunkels | Tanzania, Zanzibar, Mozambique & Zambia specialist

With a South African mother, Ellie's family holidays were often based around visiting relatives in Johannesburg and Durban. Then at 16 she went on a family trip to the Okavango Delta in Botswana – as her first experience of wild Africa, it still remains one of her most memorable.

With an established passion for the continent, in 2002 Ellie decided to take a year out before university in order to travel East and Southern Africa. She began a four-month stint of volunteer work on Pemba Island in Tanzania, primarily scuba diving with a marine conservation project. After this, Ellie backpacked for five months, travelling from Dar es Salaam, down through Southern Africa to Cape Town and back, before returning home.

After completing a three year degree in History at Newcastle University, Ellie was drawn back to East Africa and flew out to Kenya to travel for a further eight months. During this time she volunteered at an orphanage in Kisumu in Kenya, and then proceeded to travel through Tanzania, Mozambique and Uganda.

When she returned to England in August 2006 she joined the Expert Africa team to specialise in Tanzania and has now been here for five years. In her first three years she visited all of the areas in Tanzania that we feature and so became a full specialist in that area. Next she went on to research northern Mozambique and so added that to her expert knowledge. Most recently, she spent six weeks visiting everything we have in our Zambia program and currently has some of the most extensive and up to date knowledge of the country of anyone in our team.

Angela Griffin | Namibia specialist

Angela's first taste of Africa was in 2003 when she spent the summer volunteering at a whale and dolphin research centre in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa, tracking the movements of bottlenose dolphins and humpback whales along the coast. While there, she used her weekends to travel along the Garden Route, visit Cape Town and even help out in the conservation of the endangered Knysna seahorse.

After completing a four year degree in Natural Sciences at The University of Birmingham, which included a year studying animal biology in Toulouse, France, Angela decided to hit the road again. This time she spent three months backpacking around Australia followed by four months travelling overland from Nairobi to Cape Town. During this trip she went micro-lighting over Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, hiked through the forest to see the mountain gorillas in Uganda and taught English to very hardworking schoolchildren in Kenya.

On her return to the UK, Angela trained as a TEFL teacher and taught at an international college near Worcester. While working she saved up as much as she could so that in 2008 she could go backpacking again, this time taking the train across Siberia to Southeast Asia, where she spent nine months travelling before exploring Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

Angela's love of travel inspired her to join Expert Africa in 2009. Since then, she has spent several months travelling around Namibia, researching the country thoroughly to become a Namibia specialist. Recently Angela completed a course in Travel Writing at the London School of Journalism, and has made a major contribution to the latest edition of the Bradt's Namibia Travel Guide by extensively updating / rewriting several chapters.

Sabina Hekandjo | Namibia specialist

Sabina was born in Windhoek, Namibia of Ovambo descent, and most of her family still live there. She went to primary school in Oranjemund – a 'closed town' in the Namib Desert's restricted Diamond area – the Sperrgebeit – and remembers many weekends spent camping at Sheppard's Neck, in the wilderness there, as a girl guide. This encouraged her appreciation for nature and the outdoors.

She returned to Windhoek for secondary school, and particularly enjoyed Geography as a subject and eventually led to her heading to Cape Town for two years in 1995 to study a Travel and Tourism course.

Two years later, in 1997, she started her career in tourism by joining Namib Travel Shop, a Windhoek-based travel company - which later became Wilderness Safaris Namibia. In the last ten years she has travelled extensively all over Namibia, acquiring a wealth of knowledge and experience on the country.

Having worked with the Expert Africa team for many years, she moved to UK to join us in October 2005 – and since then she's returned to Namibia a number of times to research the camps as well as for occasional holidays.

In 2006 Sabina travelled to the Caprivi Strip to learn more about that area and to research the new developments there. In 2007 she spend a bit of time travelling around the southern parts of Namibia (visiting a number of camps around the Namib Naukluft National Park; The Fish River Canyon; Luderitz / Klein Aus) and in June 2009 Sabina went on a visit to Waterberg Camp, Damaraland Camp, Etosha and Okonjima.

Nick Hobbs | Botswana trainee specialist

Nick joined Expert Africa in July 2010. Having grown up in Johannesburg and spent many family holidays exploring the region he has always had a passion for Africa and a love of exploring new places and experiencing different ways of life.

After moving to the UK with his parents in the late 1990s, Nick went on to study zoology at Newcastle University and was fortunate enough to spend two of his summer vacations working in Botswana, first at a lodge in the northern part of the country and then at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary not far from Serowe.

On completion of his studies he spent a year working for a mobile safari company in Maun where he was able to explore much of Moremi, Chobe and the Central Kalahari while helping with the logistics of setting up, breaking down and moving camp. He also took a guides' course during this time, spending a month camping in a remote part of the Okavango Delta and learning about the surrounding trees, plants, animals and landscapes.

Having decided to return to the UK to continue his studies at the University of Leeds with a further degree in Sustainability (Business, Environment and Corporate Responsibility), Nick continued to travel as much as studies would allow, taking trips to mainland Europe and South-east Asia with friends before he made the move south to begin working at Expert Africa.

He is currently training up on Botswana and has recently been back to conduct his own research and bring himself up to speed with recent developments there.

Megan Ingoldby | Botswana specialist

Growing up in South Africa, Megan's love of travel inspired her to study a Diploma in Travel & Tourism. In 1999 she started in the travel industry, based in Johannesburg and working for a leading specialist safari company. This only fuelled her enthusiasm for wildlife and safaris – so in 2001 Megan snapped up the offer to transfer to their Windhoek office, where she took every opportunity she could to travel around Namibia.

Following a dream to travel and work overseas, Megan moved to London in 2002. There she joined a competitor of Expert Africa, based in North London. They also had a strong focus the ethical and responsible aspects of travel – and it was here that Megan felt her eyes were opened to the importance of being a responsible traveller, and how it can enhance a holiday experience. After seven enjoyable years of working there, and travelling back to Africa whenever possible, Megan moved to Primrose Hill when the chance arose to develop and launch a brand new Africa programme from scratch.

Megan has recently brought her experience into the Expert Africa team – where she tells us that she often feels like 'the cat that got the cream' when it comes to her job. Bringing a very broad overview of many of the countries that we offer, she is starting with us by doing some extensive, first-hand, on-the-ground research in Botswana, exploring the wilder corners of the Kalahari and the verdant Okavango – to add real depth to her knowledge of Botswana.

Claire Scott | Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa, Namibia, Malawi & Zimbabwe specialist

Claire grew up in and travelled extensively within South Africa. She started in the travel industry in the mid 80's after spending a year travelling and working in Europe.

She came to the UK with her husband in 1990 and worked for various tour operators over a 10-year period selling South Africa as well as Zimbabwe. She started at Sunvil Africa, as it was then known, in 2001 – and has been with us ever since.

Claire covers all areas of the Expert Africa programme, having travelled and researched extensively throughout Namibia, the Cape, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. She currently focuses on Tanzania and in 2008 she travelled, with her colleague Ellie, to the remote Lake Eyasi and Natron areas in Northern Tanzania to research these off beat areas for us. She continues to travel to Africa regularly, exploring new places – and checking up on old ones!

Elizabeth Wollen | Tanzania, Zanzibar & Seychelles specialist

Liz's first African experience was a three-month overland tour around Tanzania, Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa and Zambia shortly before starting her university degree. Spending half of this in Tanzania in the foothills of Kilimanjaro she quickly fell in love with it!

While studying economics at Exeter University, Liz took advantage of the long holidays to explore other corners of the world across Asia and Europe. After graduating she moved to France to spend 6 months working in the Alps, before swapping the snow for the sun to spend 2 months doing marine conservation in the Seychelles.

Liz returned to London in 2009 to join the Expert Africa team, where she now specializes in Tanzania and the Seychelles – and will be adding Rwanda to this mix in August 2011!

Sue Camp | Assists on Namibia, Botswana & Zimbabwe

Sue grew up in Zimbabwe but completed high school and university in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, where she majored in pyschology, economics and marketing. Her love of travel took her initially to the UK where she worked, and from where she ventured to Europe (three months by bicycle!), the USA (where she lived for a year), Israel (volunteering on a kibbutz), and later Japan (where she worked as a TEFL teacher for two years).

Married in 1994 to a safari guide, Sue and her husband returned from their travels through Nepal, China and Australia to manage safari lodges in the Selinda and Okavango Delta regions of Botswana for Wilderness Safaris. After four years they moved to Namibia, where Sue became a travel consultant for Wilderness Safaris, managing the Expert Africa ground arrangements and liaising with the UK office for over two years. Seeking new challenges, she then established a vibrant business in nutrition and catering in Windhoek.

In 2010, Sue sold her business and relocated to the UK. She has returned to the travel industry with the Expert Africa team, and lives in Richmond, although she regularly returns to southern Africa to visit family and visit the wild places of the sub-continent. In her spare time she studies nutrition, runs marathons, does yoga and cooks fine food, has climbed Kilimanjaro and dived in the Comoros, Great Barrier Reef and the KZN coast.