Natural World Safari and Tours Reviews

In late 2016, we used Natural World Safaris for our Kenya safari. We travelled through Ambosselli, Tsavo West, and Tsavo East. We organized the entire trip through Humphrey N. Ndara at Natural World Safaris and everything went great. We had a fantastic driver named Chris, who took great care of us through the entire trip. It was one of the best trips of our life.

I am documenting this to serve as a descriptive, factual review of Natural World Safari and Tours. I do not recommend doing business with them, as it seems they are in financial trouble and you are likely to lose your money. All the information provided below is as accurate and detailed as I can provide. If there are any errors in it, they are due to simple mistakes. I have preserved all emails and WhatsApp messages exactly as they were sent by myself or Humphrey of Natural World. I will be attempting to recover my money through all means possible - PesaPal, my credit card company, and filing complaints with any Kenyan authorities that I can do so (e.g. tour operator management agencies). If you have any questions, or you have your own review of Natural World, feel free to email me at info@natural-world-safari-tours-reviews.com.

In January 2025, my wife and I planned another trip to Kenya to take place in August 2025, and taking some family along with us - my cousin, her husband, and their two kids. We were excited about taking them on a safari like we'd done in 2016. At first, everything seemed great. Humphrey of Natural World Safaris still had the same great customer service that he had in 2016 - promptly and informatively answering emails. He made it easy for us to book our safari with him. We asked for Chris, our driver from 2016, to be our driver again, and Humphrey confirmed Chris would drive for us. We were all set for another epic adventure.

So, in January 2025 we prepaid for the trip, as we'd done in 2016, and felt confident we'd have a great safari. We booked the five-day Mombasa to Nairobi safari for a total of $5,660 USD.

Our safari was to begin on Sunday, August 17. One Monday, August 11, I emailed Humphrey to confirm that everything was ready for our safari. Within thirty minutes he replied, confirming that the safari was confirmed, but unfortunately our driver from 2016, Chris, had passed away in April of this year.

Natural World Safari Problems Begin

So on Saturday, August 16, the day before the safari was to begin, we were staying at a beautiful beach-side rental house in Diani Beach. We were looking forward to the safari and thought everything was going to be great. We were supposed to be picked up at our rental house at 6:00am the following morning. But only 15 hours before the safari, all the troubles began, with these messages from Humphrey, the owner of Natural World Safari:

Okay, we're stressed, but not terribly - Natural World was good in 2016, so it's okay, right? I played phone tag with Humphrey for nearly 30 minutes, unable to reach him. Finally, at 3:46pm, I got through. What Humphrey said shocked me:

What? How could this be? We already paid for all these things by pre-paying him seven months earlier. Now we'd have to pay for all these things directly - paying double? This sounded like a scam, which I immediately told Humphrey. He assured us that he had money in the bank account, but that it was just inaccessible because someone had tried hacking the account, and so the access was cut off. This sounded more plausible, and it was late Saturday afternoon, so it seemed reasonable that Monday morning he could go to the bank and resolve it. Of course, we were still 100% suspicious that something nefarious was happening, but now we're stuck - we came to Africa, in part, for a safari - what are we going to do?

I told Humphrey that if he initiated a refund of my original $5,660 USD, and provided proof that the refund was initiated, and put it all in writing, we would continue on the safari. We felt like at least if we had all of that in writing, we'd have a decent case with our credit card to get a chargeback of the original charge.

At 5:10pm, I received the email shown below confirming in writing the details that we had agreed to; that he would refund the entire amount of our initial charge, we'd pay for things along the way, and then once he got his bank account problems fixed, he'd resume paying for things, and we would pay him the balance - the safari amount minus what we'd paid out of pocket. He assured us that his bank issues would be "sorted" by Monday afternoon.

Another hour passes, with no contact from Humphrey. We're unsure what to do.

At 6:29pm Humphrey sent these two screenshots:

To be extra sure, I tried emailing Phyllis at PesaPal, whose email was shown in the screenshot that Humphrey sent me (I have redacted PesaPal employee email addresses here out of respect for their privacy). I asked her to confirm that they had actually received a request for "reversal" (refund) and if it would go through. If you're unfamiliar with PesaPal, it's a payment processing company used by many businesses in Kenya to accept credit card payments. Although Phyllis never did respond to me, PesaPal has been helpful to work with throughout this experience, as you'll see below.

At 10:56pm, Humphrey sent me the name and phone number for our safari driver. Remember this detail - he didn't send me the driver's info until almost 11pm, only seven hours before the safari would begin.

Safari Problems with Natural World Safari

Sunday morning at 6:00am, our driver, Ali, arrives to pick us up. We load everything in the Jeep and are ready to go - or so we thought.

Let me say right up front that Ali, our driver, was great. As the safari progressed, we saw how good a guy he is. If you ever want to do a safari from the Diani Beach / Mombasa area of Kenya, contact me (info@natural-world-safari-tours-reviews.com) and I'll give you Ali's contact. I'd highly recommend just booking your safari directly with him.

But, unfortunately, Ali had been put in a terrible position. Humphrey, who had supposedly booked our safari seven months earlier when we paid him, apparently did not have a driver booked. He called Ali around 10:00pm on Saturday night, only eight hours before our safari would begin, asking Ali to take us on safari. All Ali knew was that this was going to be a weird arrangement because instead of everything being paid for by the tour company, "the client will pay you and pay for all the accommodations and park entrance fees"; it seems that's all Humphrey told Ali.

We have a tense exchange as we all sit in the safari vehicle with the driver not knowing where we're supposed to go, and us not really knowing either. I know we're supposed to tour Tsavo East first, then Tsavo West, then Ambosselli, as described on the Natural World website. But other than that, I don't have details like where we're staying - Humphrey never provided that. Ali suggests that we skip Tsavo East and just go to Ngutuni, a lodge by Tsavo East. We agreed to just start heading towards Tsavo / Ngutuni and figure out more along the way. I message Humphrey, who was supposed to be organizing all this.

When we stop for fuel and I've had a few minutes to look at the map, I chat with Ali and say we want to tour Tsavo East, as we were promised. It's on the way to Ngutuni, so we'll enter Tsavo East, tour through it, and then exit the gate nearest Ngutuni to check-in there for the night and have lunch. Then we can do a game drive on Ngutuni in the afternoon, something that Ali recommends. I update Humphrey.

I'm really glad that we pushed to see Tsavo East because we had many spectacular sightings of animals there. It is more wide-open than Tsavo West, so you can more easily see the animals. And, I'm equally glad that we did the afternoon game drive on Ngutuni Lodge property as Ali suggested, because we had our first sighting of lions there, and on the lodge property you can drive offroad (you cannot do that in the parks), so we were able to get very close to them.

Sunday night at Ngutuni Lodge was also great. It's a very nice place to stay, and we had good food and a comfortable night's rest. Monday morning began with a game drive through Ngutuni on our way out to Tsavo West. Then a game drive through Tsavo West, and lunch and check-in at Ngulia Lodge for Monday night. Ngulia was also a great place to stay, despite only have power certain hours of the day. But Ngutuni and Ngulia have watering holes right behind the lodge so you get to see animals come up at all hours of day and night. Monday afternoon we did a game drive through the rhino reserve but didn't see any rhinos.

Safari Day Three - Still No Refund

On Tuesday morning, we started with our game drive out of the Tsavo West area on our way to Ambosselli. Since Natural World was supposed to have their bank issues sorted out on Monday, but I still hadn't heard from them, nor had I seen a refund hit my credit card, I messaged Humphrey.

I never did receive an answer to that question. When we arrived at Ambosselli, Natural World had booked us at Nyati Safari Camp - a place that is not listed on the Natural World website as one of the accommodations they use. I have to say I was extremely disappointed in Nyati Safari Camp. The other two places we'd stayed were very nice, Nyati was not. Nyati is one of those places that gives you the "tent" experience with large tents constructed on a foundation, and the tents have a bathroom, etc. We stayed in some of those in 2016 on our safari and were totally happy with them. But Nyati was not nice. One of the tents our group was given was dirty - it had hair all over the floor - so they had to be moved to another tent. The dining room is also a big tent that reminds me of the MASH 4077 mess hall. There's flies swarming around, and you just don't feel very comfortable.

Natural World Safaris Has No Money

Tuesday afternoon and all day Wednesday, we did game drives in Ambosselli. Several times I tried calling Humphrey for an update on our refund. I also called PesaPal and started working through them. PesaPal was very helpful, and immediately confirmed that they saw the request from Natural World to refund my $5,660 USD. But, PesaPal said:

PesaPal explained that Natural World would need to deposit money into their account so that I could be refunded. The only other recourse they said I would have would be to file a lawsuit against Natural World. I contacted Humphrey, explaining what PesaPal said about depositing money, and he said "That's not how it works; we don't deposit money to PesaPal, we get money from them. Whenever our next clients pay through PesaPal, there will be money in the account, and PesaPal will send you your money." Humphrey assured me that they'd have clients paying for safaris this weekend, so they'd have money and I'd get my refund.

I called PesaPal back and asked if that was true - if they would automatically process my refund as soon as someone else paid Natural World. PesaPal said no, the merchant (Natural World) would have to re-initiate the refund when they had money in their account. So I called Humphrey back to explain that, and he continued to believe that he'd done everything he needed to do. I tried demanding that he transfer money from his bank account to PesaPal immediately so that I could get my refund before the safari ended. That's when he finally admitted:

Of course, this is what I'd been suspecting for several days now, when he wasn't able to "unlock" his account like he'd said he would initially. It seems like Natural World has run out of money, seemingly through some kind of mismanagement. I heard from drivers at the lodge that during the 2024 tourist season, Natural World had not paid some of them fully, leaving the drivers on the hook for paying for the Jeep and fuel. I also learned that the drivers make basically nothing on these safaris - they only get reimbursed for the vehicle, fuel, and a small (approximately $23 USD) daily allowance. Presumably this means that the drivers depend entirely on your tips for their income. That's really sad to me, because the drivers are the face of the company, and do an amazing job of customer service. Their job is hard - long days caring for foreigners, driving them around, and then making a 10-12 hour drive home if you had a one-way safari like us. Some of the drivers, like Ali, speak additional foreign languages for the tourists (Ali specializes in German-speaking tours). They should be paid appropriately for their skill and effort.

So, Natural World has no money to provide my refund. Now I'm left hoping that someone else pays them via PesaPal, and that through me nagging PesaPal, or through Humphrey's own actions, my refund will be initiated during the window of time that the money from someone else's payment is available in the Natural World PesaPal account, before they withdraw it to their bank account. This is really sad to me because, as the saying goes, I'm hoping they'll "rob Peter to pay Paul"; by me hoping to get my own refund, it means that someone else will have a bad experience because when it comes time for their safari, Natural World won't have money to pay.

Nyati Safari Camp - Overpriced

As I explained above, Nyati Safari Camp was very disappointing. The other lodges were clean and comfortable, but Nyati was not. But to make matters worse, on the final day of our safari - "go-home" day - when we checked out of Nyati, they said the charges were $100 USD per person per night. We already regretted spending two nights there because it was so poor in comparison to the other places we stayed. But, for comparison, Ngulia Lodge was only $150 per room (double occupancy), essentially $75 per person per night. And that was in a nice building, with a nice watering hole behind it and plenty of animals - a great experience. Nyati wanted 33% more than that, for a dirty tent and a mess hall that had flies swarming around our food. We were extremely dissatisfied with Nyati, and feel that Natural World once again cheated us here by booking a reservation at a place that is far below the standards of the places shown on their website.

What's Next

I'm not sure what's next. I will continue to fight for my refund. I'm on the flight home now, and have decided that I have no recourse but to do a full-court press on all fronts. So, I'm:

• Following up daily with PesaPal to check on the status of my refund, hoping to catch a time when Natural World happens to have money in their account to fund my refund.
• Calling my credit card company as soon as I get back in the States to see about a chargeback. Unfortunately, most card companies don't allow you to initiate a chargeback after this much time has passed (we paid in January for an August safari), but I'm hoping that with the extenuating circumstances, they can make an exception.
• I'll be filing complaints with any Kenyan authorities that I can. I'm especially hopeful that they have a tourism operator oversight agency that will be helpful.
• I'll see if my state's Attorney General's office can provide any assistance, and researching any other courses of action I may have available.
• And, to help others avoid this same problem, I'm launching this website. I've written all the documentation while it's still fresh in mind, carefully verifying emails, WhatsApp messages, and call logs to provide the factual information above. I will proactively look for places where reviews are left for safari operators and will provide this information to anyone that I can to help them get an accurate review of what they're getting into if they do business with Natural World.

I hate that it's come to this. I don't like to have this kind of experience, or be put in a position where I feel I have to speak so negatively about someone. But I lost thousands of hard-earned dollars to the fraudulent practices of Natural World Safari and I can't help but warn others so that hopefully it doesn't happen to you. If you have any questions, or you have your own review of Natural World, feel free to email me at info@natural-world-safari-tours-reviews.com.