Louise
FitzGerald

Louise was born and raised in Botswana, where in the 80s there wasn’t an awful lot going on. What there was, though, was an enormous amount of space and freedom, and plenty of opportunity to explore it. Weekends often involved what her family called a ‘go straight’: pick a direction, head off and see where you ended up, perhaps stopping for a picnic or carrying on until you found somewhere to camp.

Longer camping trips were favourite holidays, travelling through the Kalahari and up to the Okavango. There were bikes and horses, fishing trips where most of the children’s hooks ended up in the papyrus rather than the water, and one memorable camping trip beneath ancient baobabs on the salt pans, looking for stone tools and pottery. It was a childhood of big skies, long distances and a lot of exploring.

With a mother from Malawi and a father from Kenya, there was always more of Africa to explore, and Louise was keen to do just that. Her travels have since taken her across much of the continent. Her working life, however, began somewhere rather different: in corporate law in London, before she swapped the City for a remote beach lodge in northern Mozambique. Since then, her career has included lodges, air charter and tour operating.

That curiosity extends just as much to other people’s travels: where they’ve been, what they loved, what they didn’t, and what they want from their next trip. Getting to know each traveller and creating something genuinely individual for them is what keeps every safari interesting, however many she plans.