Nick Was Recently Awarded
“The Outstanding Guide Award From The Zimbabwe Professional Guides Association.”
Nic Polenakis
“Testimonials”
Rated by National Geographic Traveler as one of the ‘’top 10 Great Tour Guides who can transform your trip’’. National Geographic Travel, Nic Polenakis is one of the most sought after guides in Africa.
Geographic Expeditions
Since 1967, as an elephant conservationist and journalist, I’ve been on countless safaris across the African continent. I’ve never been with a better safari guide in five decades than Nic Polenakis. Period!
Dick Houston
Your safari guide can either MAKE or BREAK a trip! For that reason, I will not return to Africa unless I have Nic Polenakis as our specialist guide. With an uncanny animal sense, he leads you safely on foot, tracking wild animals close enough to smell them! His judgment is solid and I trust him with my life as he anticipates the animal’s behaviour.
He appreciates all nature…from tiny termites and reptiles, to the magnificent lions and ellies! Nic treats his guests like royalty…always striving to please even the most difficult client with his sense of humour, kindness and enthusiasm.
Nic has rightly earned a great reputation and will bring visitors back to the Dark Continent for many years to come. If the wildlife is the heart of Africa, then Nic is the soul.
Lorena Walton San Diego, CA USA
“Proudest Moment”
One of my proudest early moments was when I attained Zimbabwe Hunter Guide Accreditation – after having served what was arguably the most rigorous apprenticeship one can get on the African continent.
Born in Zimbabwe, I have had a passion for wildlife from an early age. I just knew that the African bush was where I wanted to be.
My career began in earnest when I became a guide leading luxury mobile-tented safaris in Zimbabwe and Botswana. I soon worked my way into Partner-Directorship.
Concern for conservation and preservation led me to work with the successful San Diego Zoo’s Black Rhino Project, which involved a worldwide campaign to save these rare and wonderful animals from extinction at the hands of poachers.
And experience of survival in the bush led me to being approached by a big American company who commissioned me to provide survivor trails walking through some of the most remote and wild areas in Africa. This meant doing fourteen-day hikes carrying all provisions, and without any backup. These expeditions were not for the faint-hearted.
In 2011, my wife and I co-owned the iconic Somalisa camp in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. After a 6-year love affair with Somalisa, we sold our shares to concentrate on customizing safaris, and private guiding for My Private Africa.
Recently I was honored to become a trustee of ELEFENCE INTERNATIONAL, a very well respected NGO based in the USA who have been instrumental in protecting elephants, supporting communities and helping mitigate human animal conflict in the last remaining wilderness areas in Africa. www.elefence.org
I am only one of a handful of private professional guides qualified to work throughout most of East, Central and Southern Africa.
My guiding has been extensive over the past 27 years in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, South Africa, Namibia, Gabon, Rwanda, Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Chad and Ethiopia.
I currently live in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, with my wife Tracey and son Christopher.
