virginbush in the Press - Condé Nast Traveller

Condé Nast Traveller Magazine: Bush Babes, September 2003

Most new travel companies spin a line about offering something ‘completely original'. Just occasionally one of them tries something that, if not entirely new, is at least a bit polished. Lisa Rolls and Cindi Crain forsook media careers in New York to set up a bespoke safari company, VirginBush Safaris.

They spent three years in Nairobi compiling their own ‘little black book' on East Africa, while Rolls studied to become one of only two US women to qualify as an official safari guide. Clients are interviewed in depth to establish an itinerary and trips usually start out with an ‘adjustment period' in a minimalist lodge; game viewing, with Rolls, is on tribal lands surrounding Kenya's Masai Mara and Samburu reserves, on private ranches and around Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. One ‘completely original' aspect is that VirginBush is the first safari company to have access to Oldonyo Laro. The private Kenyan home, on a 30,000-acre ranch, has cantilevered decks and pool hanging over the Rift Valley, and sleeps 14. “If you wake at dawn and decide to have breakfast on the other side of the Rift Valley,” says Rolls, “the cook will prepare it and a private aircraft will fly you there.”

—Kate Maxwell

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