Giving Back
Conservation runs through everything we do
We were raised by Zimbabwe, and that is a debt. Five generations on this land, two generations of safari, and a family that has been inside the conservation work rather than beside it.
Where it started
Alan Elliott founded the Presidential Elephants of Zimbabwe programme in 1990. He persuaded the late President Mugabe to grant a herd of elephants in the Hwange Estate the formal status of presidential: protected, named, and individually monitored, by name, year after year. It gave one Hwange herd a name, a story, and a measure of protection it had never had before.
The herd numbers around 400 today. Each animal carries a name and a known matriline. They live on private and government land east of Hwange National Park.
Alan died in August 2025. Everything he knew, every track, every shift in the wind, every animal read long before it was seen, is the bedrock this company is built on.
Josh has written about what the programme means to the family, and to a guest: The Presidential Elephants: Five Generations, One Family.
What it means for a guest
Most safari operators in Zimbabwe sell access: a vehicle, a guide, a drive. We were raised inside the conservation work. The guides we hand-pick know the matrilines. They know which calf belongs to which mother, which bull is making his appearance and where, and what year a particular elephant lost an ear or scarred a flank.
That depth shows on the ground. A drive in Hwange with a ZimTravellers-vetted guide is not a sequence of identifications; it is a thread of stories about animals he has known for fifteen years. It is the difference between watching elephants and being introduced to them.
On our own land
Khami Game Sanctuary
A 6,500-acre private estate where anti-poaching teams protect leopard and plains game. Guests can join anti-poaching team briefings and visit the sanctuary’s partnered local schools.
Matobo Hills Lodge
Seventeen chalets inside Matobo National Park. Family-owned and owner-operated; Josh took on the lodge in 2012. White rhino tracking on foot with expert guides, and ancient San rock art in the caves above the lodge.
How we talk about it
We don’t fundraise on the country’s suffering, and the animals are not a tear-jerk. The work speaks for itself.
The work the family started is now carried by other organisations, and Josh names them in his own words in the Journal. If you want to understand where the conservation lineage sits inside a particular journey, ask him directly: he answers his own WhatsApp.
If you want to see it
- Hwange: the itineraries we build there spend time on the eastern side of the estate, where the Presidential Elephants range.
- Safari That Gives Back: five days at the intersection of conservation and community, with time at Khami Game Sanctuary and rhino tracking in the Matobo Hills.
- Matobo Hills: rhino tracking on foot from the family lodge inside the national park.
Talk to Josh
Tell us what moves you and we’ll shape a journey that fits, with the conservation work where it belongs: in the itinerary, not in the sales pitch.