We are Safari Portal.

Mother of three • Tech entrepreneur • Tour operator • Safari specialist

A native New Yorker, Rachel studied at Barnard College and Oxford University before setting off an a path towards a PhD in English Lit. In 2010, she was invited to join a last minute safari to Kenya and it was there that she met her husband Phil (see right).

A third generation Kenyan, Phil is truly one of the most passionate people we know and unbelievably knowledgeable about Africa, its flora and fauna, history and people, cities and wildernesses. Not to mention he’s an exceptionally talented photographer and a wonderful father (we skipped ahead a bit there).

They met, they woo-ed, they wed, they built a house on the edge of Nairobi National Park where they lived with their first two children for several years before eventually trading in lions and leopards for preschools and play dates - making the cross-continent move from Kenya to Jupiter, Florida. Baby Maya joined the family in 2019.

When Rachel first met Phil he was a one-man-band, doing everything from logistics and planning to costings and proposals to guiding the actual safaris. Rachel took all of the back office stuff off his plate and most of her time was consumed with putting together the perfect proposal.

Rachel feels strongly that the proposal is THE most important inflection point in the sales process - by the time you’ve gotten to this point you’ve already done so much! You’ve networked, you’ve recce’ed, you’ve walkabout’ed, you’ve studied the best places to go at the best times, you’ve got the potential guest to reach out to YOU, done a discovery call/ email, checked availability, and provisionally held space, put together costings. NOW is the moment of truth, when all that hard work comes to fruition. NOW is what matters most. NOW is when you want to throw everything you possibly can to close the sale - your own personal experience and expertise, all the amazing photos and videos you’ve amassed and have access to via suppliers’ shared marketing collateral.

Rachel & Phil realized there was nothing out there that was able to bridge this gap - beautiful high touch design with super efficiencies and flexible enough to enable them to communicate their own knowledge and personality.

So they took Covid to build it themselves. Meet Safari Portal, their fourth (and only compliant) child. We’d love to introduce you.

Father of three • Tour operator • Safari guide • Wildlife photographer • All around great guy!

Phil is a third generation Kenyan who spent much of his childhood and most of his adult life in the African bush.

He has been designing safaris for nearly 25 years and is widely considered one of Africa’s most respected private safari guides. He has planned and guided trips for the world’s most sophisticated travelers, collaborated on a number of wildlife documentaries and series, consulted for Bear Grylls, and wrote the syllabus for Kenya’s silver level guides.

Phil very generously (and also because he didn’t want to sleep on the couch indefinitely) contributed the vast majority of photos in the Safari Portal Media Library, curating collections for every destination across Africa and beyond, and meticulously tagging each photo to make them easily searchable and usable in itineraries and proposals.

He also wrote most of the destination content for Safari Portal, pulling from his own first-hand knowledge of places to create content that is specialized, accurate, and full of expert detail.

He’s truly a gem and we are honored to call him ours.

Why I love Safari Portal:

I used to have to get Rachel to build all of my itineraries for me but now I can do it myself - even from my phone at the gym! I love that I can easily swap out photos, add custom notes, and customize the content. And I especially love how quick and easy it is to create Lookbooks and give potential guests some quick ideas of what’s possible.

As a true technophobe with two left thumbs being able to do all of this easily is really freeing and saves all of us so much time.

I am grateful to my wonderful wife Rachel for making me do this project with her.

(Disclaimer: this was not written by Rachel 🤪)

Hailing from Toronto, Canada, Sarah has spent over 18 years in the travel landscape, specializing primarily in Africa.

Upon graduating from college, Sarah joined a luxury (travel) agency near Toronto, where she was lucky enough to explore the world, visiting everywhere from Asia and Europe to Southern and East Africa.

Sarah brings her wealth of knowledge in sales, marketing, and operations to the Safari Portal team.

As a very proud Canadian, Sarah definitely lives up to the stereotype: she enjoys sports (hockey), beer, the great outdoors and obviously, maple syrup.

Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Laura was essentially born with a travelpack on. Though she grew up surrounded by sweet tea and southern accents, she enjoyed many opportunities to explore various corners of the world throughout her childhood and beyond, broadening her global knowledge and appreciation.

After college Laura spent three years with the Peace Corps, living in rural Zululand in South Africa. She brought home a life-long souvenir (her husband, Alastair) and, while they have been busy putting down roots in the North Carolina mountains and growing their family, they travel as often as they can, visiting family around the world and exploring new places. Since moving back stateside, Laura has gained years of experience in tech sales and business development, which she is thrilled to bring to the Safari Portal team. Working in travel tech is a literal dream job for Laura, as she can combine her passions for efficiency, organization, and travel - all from home in her tiny, one-stoplight town.

Her other interests include hiking, brewery-hopping, obsessively researching new destinations and, while Laura has enjoyed exposure to incredible new cuisines around the world, she feels pretty strongly that not much can beat a southern fried chicken sandwich (and yes, okay, and sweet tea too).

Mum of two boys - Wife to a man child - Feeder of a very demanding cat - Nap buddy to a large dog - Travel industry veteran - Painter - Illustrator - Lover of beautiful things

Born in Kuwait to a Kenyan mother and British father, Jess has always had travel in her blood. After studying a rather bizarre combined degree of History of Art and Information Studies (tech) she joined a villa rental company in London and the rest is history.

Since then she has done nearly 25 years of marketing (and latterly sales) with some of the best luxury operators in the world.

For the past decade of her working life, she has been searching for the perfect system. Something that can do it all - manage leads, sales pipelines, quotes, proposals, invoicing, support marketing, reporting - and look beautiful all at the same time. The Golden Egg.

We’re fairly convinced the Golden Egg doesn’t exist and she’s realized that the best eggs aren’t Golden, but rather scrambled on toast.

She’s come to Safari Portal because she says we’re the best proposal platform out there and knows our super power isn’t being a bit of everything, but being the best at something.

And obviously we're a great fun bunch of lovely humans.

Her husband is also part of the travel industry and they both work from their cottage in a village called Abbotts Ann in Hampshire, UK.

Emma Childs was born in Kenya and has lived there all of her life. She was educated in England and went to university in South Africa where she received a BA in Criminology.

After gaining her degree she started her first job for the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust where she was PA to the late Dame Daphne Sheldrick and after a few years moved out of the office and into the bush where she and her husband Anthony ran the Tsavo operations.

Over the last twenty years both Emma & Anthony have run lodges throughout Kenya and ten years ago they finally settled down on the border of Nairobi National Park where they built and co-own a boutique safari lodge, The Emakoko.

Emma is a mother of three and when she is not dealing with toddlers and teenage tantrums she is running The Emakoko and also now provides support to Safari Portal.

Born in Massachusetts, Shannon is an expert in the African travel space. Her knowledge and passion lie mostly in East Africa, and she has traveled extensively around Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and South Africa over the last eight years. Her strengths are her experience in building relationships and her attention to detail, combined with her understanding and deep love of the region.

It was while studying in Cape Town that Shannon met her husband Anthony, a Kenyan, who sparked her desire to continue exploring the African continent. Her journey in the tourism sector began in Cape Town, working with a travel company that sent international students around the Western Cape. She then moved on to oversee East Africa product at renowned tour operator Audley Travel, where she gained a vast amount of experience in the safari business. She has been on the outreach and onboarding team of Safari Portal since its launch.

With a love of the outdoors, travel, photography, adventure, and a good time, Shannon is happiest being outside with her husband and her dogs and taking pictures that express how she sees the world.

Originally from Scotland, Elle earned an Honours degree from St Andrews University (she still can’t play golf) before deciding that she was far more interested in travel and tourism than maths and astrophysics! She moved to Cape Town 25 years ago and began her travel career as International Sales Manager for Cape Grace.

After two years in South Africa, she returned to home and established her own representation company, working with an impressive portfolio of luxury hotels and lodges throughout Africa – including Ellerman House, Leeu Collection, Meikles Hotel, Royal Chundu, Singita, and The Victoria Falls Hotel.

Elle is very engaged in conservation and loves all animals. During the pandemic, Elle and her family began fostering dogs, working with a charity that rescues abandoned pups from Eastern Europe. To date, they’ve successfully found forever homes for ten dogs.

Unlike many of her friends who took up baking during lockdown, Elle learned to play the saxophone - the neighbors haven’t complained… much!

Today, Elle is based in Edinburgh where she lives with her two teenage children and partner Alex, plus Ginny the three-legged dog and Monty the cat.

Born and raised in Kenya, travel is at the heart and soul of Jules’ family. She is what one might call a "safari baby": her parents met on safari and her father is a well known private guide, and has been leading safaris throughout Africa for nearly half a century.

Jules has been privileged to have had some incredible travel experiences including witnessing countless wildebeest migrations across the Serengeti and Masaai Mara, walking with chimpanzees on the shores of Lake Tanganika, trekking to see the gorillas in the Virunga Mountains, and swimming with Elephants in the Okavango Delta and whale sharks in the Indian Ocean. There are few places she feels happier than with camera in hand sitting on the roof of her father's Land Cruiser scanning the savannah for the next action packed photo opportunity.

Now traveling full time with her husband and two dogs, Jules loves nothing more than to share her passion with anyone whom she may encounter.

Jules is looking forward to providing tailored trainings to individual users and larger teams to ensure everyone is making the most of all the platform’s special features.

Born and bred in Cape Town, Nicole was lucky enough to spend many of her childhood holidays exploring some of South Africa’s lesser-traveled roads and places (often due to her father choosing to ignore any given directions).

Despite getting lost on many holidays, quite literally, Nicole quickly became bitten by the outdoor and travel bug. After completing her postgraduate degree, she dove into the uncertain world of social media, becoming a full-time travel content creator for the next five years.

Nicole has since worked full-time in the African conservation space as well as starting a small tour operator, which aims to give people a glimpse into why we love this continent so much. This was where she discovered Safari Portal for the first time and the rest, as they say, is history.

Born in Argentina and raised in Florida, Daiana has always loved travel, nature, and exploration.

After studying creative writing at Columbia University and California Institute of the Arts, Daiana settled in Los Angeles and has written about and participated in local culture for over a decade, holding a variety of editorial positions from art director to culture columnist to managing editor, and much more in between.

A mutual friend from college connected Daiana to Safari Portal, introducing her to a new field of content creation where she could apply her writing chops and eagle eye for punctuation and design.

Introducing Lily Wilde, a dynamic and energetic force on the Safari Portal team, currently focused on business development. Leveraging her expertise, Lily has cultivated a remarkable journey creating strategic partnerships and fostering growth at the intersection of innovation and travel.

Lily's ability to navigate the evolving demands of the industry and forge key alliances has played a key role in positioning Safari Portal as a leader in providing cutting-edge travel tech. As an essential member of the team, Lily is committed to driving initiatives that not only resonate with diverse audiences but also reconceptualize the landscape of travel technology.

In her free time, Lily enjoys long hikes with her Australian shepherd, Rio, and dabbling in AI generated bios.