Over the years, a number of our travellers have asked whether we could arrange journeys outside of East and Southern Africa with the same Compass Odyssey approach they experienced here.

Until now, we’ve largely resisted.

Partly because ‘safari Africa’ thankfully keeps us pretty busy, but also because adding another country to a website is easy. Creating the sort of experience we’re willing to call a Compass Odyssey journey is not.

For us, that means private, customised travel rather than a fixed itinerary; days that can flex according to the weather, your interests or what your local guide thinks you really shouldn’t miss; smaller, character-filled places to stay wherever possible; and, above all, knowledgeable local people who are not only excellent guides, but good company.

We need to know that we can do a destination properly before we offer it.

But we have been quietly wondering for some time: where else could Compass Odyssey take you?

Kate, Dave and Crusty

One of the people now helping us explore that question is Dave, our Travel Planner here in Hoedspruit.

And while there are probably conventional routes into a career planning African journeys, Dave hasn’t taken one of them.

His story starts in Fish Hoek, one of Cape Town’s famously windy southern suburbs, where childhood holidays were spent camping and exploring South Africa’s national parks. Like plenty of children exposed to the bush at an impressionable age, Dave decided he was going to become a game ranger.

Life, as it turned out, had a much less predictable path in store for him.

He spent the next few decades, as a good friend of his described it, ‘blowing in the wind’, following a wonderfully varied path that took him from being a soldier to selling real estate, manufacturing jewellery and working with wood, before eventually qualifying as an investment adviser and spending six years in the financial world.

It wasn’t exactly the route that young would-be game ranger might have imagined, but throughout it all, his interest in travel, the outdoors and Africa never really disappeared.

In November 2003, Dave decided it was time to pursue those interests more seriously. He left the corporate world and did what, in his words, ‘any normal person in my shoes would have done at the time’: drove across Botswana’s Makgadikgadi Salt Pans and took up a management position at a safari lodge surrounded by a lot of dust.

Sunset on the Makgadikgadi Pans – Botswana

He has been kicking up varying amounts of dust ever since.

The years that followed took him into management positions at safari lodges in Botswana, Malawi, Rwanda and South Africa. He travelled overland from South Africa to Uganda and back, tackled 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) of seriously bumpy dirt road up western Tanzania, spent time with gorillas in Rwanda and went looking for the source of the Nile in Uganda.

He even crossed the Ruvuma River into northern Mozambique with his vehicle and worldly possessions balanced on three fishing dhows.

Crossing the Ruvuma River – Northern Mozambique

There were adventures beyond Africa too: time on the Rhine in Germany, sightseeing in Spain, visits to the UK for tea with family and a stint volunteering at a wildlife and animal sanctuary in Greece, where Dave found himself mucking out cages while avoiding an overly playful wild boar and assorted other creatures.

Mucking out a wild boar cage – Greece

Somewhere along the way, photography became another lifelong pursuit. He also learnt to fly and experienced the occasional indignity of being tossed around in a light aircraft while piloting himself between South Africa and Botswana.

But when Dave talks about those years, it isn’t really the list of places that seems most important.

It’s the people.

He talks about swapping stories with some pretty amazing characters, spending more time with some and coming away richer for the friendships. And then there is Africa itself, which Dave describes better than we can on his behalf:

“Africa is my home and through its myriad cultures, spectacular landscapes, the most diverse fauna and flora, unique challenges and vibrant pulse has grown even closer to my heart. I’ve also had the privilege of seeing Africa reach out and touch many others who have travelled from all corners of the globe to experience her.”

And that, more than the unusual CV and the kilometres travelled, is probably why Dave feels like such a natural fit for Compass Odyssey.

It also means there is another well-travelled head around the table as we consider where the Compass might point next.

There are six places that keep appearing in our conversations. Some are new territory for Compass Odyssey; others have personal connections stretching back many years.

We’re still very much exploring what a Compass Odyssey journey in each might look like, but here’s the sort of thing we have in mind…

These are the places currently occupying our thoughts, but they’re certainly not the only possibilities.

Many of our travellers have already entrusted us with one — and sometimes more — journeys through East and Southern Africa. And quite a few have asked us over the years where else in the world they might be able to travel in the same Compass Odyssey way.

So we’re always interested to hear the answer to one question:

If Compass Odyssey could plan your next journey anywhere in the world, where would you send us?

Would it be one of the places currently on our radar?

Australia | Egypt | India | Jordan | Morocco | Türkiye

Or is there somewhere completely different that you wish was on that list? Please tell us below.

We’re genuinely interested to see where you send us.

In the meantime, Africa remains very much home, and there seem to be more maps open on our desks than usual.