Your Africa.
Built around you.
Some of the most extraordinary trips I have ever designed started with a single sentence. 'I have always wanted to see gorillas in Rwanda.' 'I just need someone to make it happen properly.'
That is enough. That is where we start.
Open to everyone. Built for Africa.
My Lionelle tours are women-only. Bespoke Journeys is not.
I design for families, couples, solo travellers, and groups of friends who have been trying to organise this trip for years and finally need someone to make it real. Whoever you are travelling with, I build the itinerary around you.
A female tour leader is available on request.
The full breadth of Africa.
My group tours cover six destinations. Bespoke Journeys goes much further.
Gorillas in the Virunga foothills. The Serengeti migration. Namibia's desert silence. Walking safaris in Zambia. The Indian Ocean after weeks in the bush. Multi-country expeditions that most operators simply cannot pull off.
If Africa has it, I can design it.
A few of the journeys I build:
- ◆Mountain gorilla and chimpanzee trekking, Rwanda and Uganda
- ◆The Great Migration, Tanzania and Kenya
- ◆Desert expeditions, Namibia and the Skeleton Coast
- ◆Walking safaris, Zambia's Luangwa Valley
- ◆Island escapes, Seychelles, Mauritius, Mozambique
- ◆Okavango fly-in camps, Botswana's remote north
- ◆Multi-country journeys across Southern and East Africa
- ◆Private family safaris designed for every age
- ◆Honeymoon and celebration journeys
How it works.
Tell me what you are imagining.
A few sentences about who you are travelling with, where Africa is calling you, and roughly when. I will ask the questions that fill in the rest.
I design your journey.
I build your itinerary based on our conversation. The lodges, the routing, the pacing. I will be honest about what I would change and what I would leave out. That honesty is part of what I am here for.
We refine it together.
This is your trip, not mine. Most people reach their final itinerary within two or three conversations.
Everything is handled from there.
Bookings, flights if you need me to arrange them, pre-departure pack, and full support on the ground. The same effortless logistics as every Lionelle departure, built around your private journey.
Why come to me?
Most bespoke travel is assembled from a supplier catalogue by someone who has never stood in the places they are selling you.
I have designed more than 1,000 itineraries. I know which camps are genuinely exceptional right now and which ones have quietly slipped. I know which guides are worth routing a trip around. I know the pacing mistakes most operators make because I have watched them go wrong.
You are not buying a package. You are getting a decade of knowing exactly what matters, applied entirely to you.
The best lodges and migration windows book twelve months ahead.
The earlier we start, the more options we have. Tell me where you want to go.
Speak to Sophie