The founders of Altezza Travel

Who founded Altezza Travel?

Altezza Travel was started by three founders: brothers Alex and Dmitry, and our friend Tony. Alex was born just before the collapse of the USSR, while Dmitry and Tony were born in an already independent Ukraine. This is where we spent our childhood and teenage years. In 2012, we first traveled to East Africa, and by 2014, we had founded Altezza Travel. Since then, Tanzania has become our home.

How the idea of Altezza Travel was born

From an early age, we were fascinated by travel and the natural world. Our home was filled with encyclopedias – from books about Ancient Egypt and amphibians to multi-volume works by the German zoologist Alfred Brehm. At first, we leafed through them for the illustrations, but as we grew older, we kept returning for the stories and knowledge they held.

Nature was a constant part of our childhood and teenage years. We attended botany clubs, went river rafting, trained in rock climbing, and spent countless days hiking. We traveled widely across the northern Tian Shan and the Caucasus, learning to feel at home in the mountains.

Much of our free time was spent watching wildlife and travel documentaries. With no internet at the time, we learned about expeditions in Africa and South America from VHS tapes – films by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Steve Irwin, and Jane Goodall that filled almost an entire closet.

At school, we all gravitated toward mathematics and other exact sciences. These skills later became essential when planning expeditions. From the very beginning of our work, we made decisions based on numbers and careful calculations rather than assumptions.

Our ideas about future careers changed often. One day we dreamed of being pilots, another day garbage truck drivers, and after watching a documentary about excavations near the pyramids, archaeologists. Neither our parents nor we knew that the safari and climbing industry even existed. We only discovered that such a career existed after arriving in Africa.

After completing our higher education, we realized we wanted a life that combined mountains and wildlife. Africa turned out to be the perfect place. We first arrived in 2012, traveling on a very limited budget – hitchhiking, staying in simple hostels, and exploring as much as we could. We climbed Mount Kenya, the Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda, and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and traveled through Namibia, Zambia, Madagascar, and several other countries. Tanzania stood out immediately. We liked it so much that we decided to stay and build our lives here.

There were several reasons why we chose Tanzania:

Tanzania has remarkably rich wildlife. Some of Africa’s most famous safari parks are located here. The legendary Great Migration takes place in the Serengeti, Tarangire is home to some of the largest lion prides on the continent, and the Ngorongoro Crater has the highest concentration of mammals on the planet. Nearby is Olduvai Gorge, where anthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey discovered the remains of ancient humans.

Off the coast lie the islands of Mafia and Pemba, where visitors can dive and explore Tanzania’s marine parks. We are passionate not only about safari parks but also about Tanzania’s underwater world. Back in 2013, we earned PADI Advanced Open Water certifications.

This is also home to Mount Kilimanjaro – the highest and most famous mountain in Africa. We love mountaineering, and Tanzania’s tourism industry allowed us to turn that passion into our career.

Tanzania offers favorable conditions for the tourism business. On the one hand, the government actively supports investment and the development of tourism projects. On the other hand, the climate allows year-round operations. The country lies almost on the equator, so it is warm all year. This makes Tanzania one of the few places in the world where mountain tourism, safaris, and diving can all be combined in one destination – an ideal foundation for a successful tourism project.

Altezza made Tanzania our home

When asked, “Which country are the founders of Altezza Travel from?”, we always answer, “From Tanzania.” We have lived and worked here, organized social and environmental projects, and paid taxes for more than 11 years. Our children are growing up here, and in 2018, our parents also moved to Tanzania and joined the Altezza team.

At the same time, the company can no longer be described as a small family business. Today, Altezza Travel employs more than 250 people. Almost all of them are Tanzanians, although there are a few exceptions:

– Several of our IT developers live in Europe. These are highly skilled professionals who are still difficult to find locally in Tanzania.

– Part of our sales department also works remotely. These managers live in different countries, from the United States to China, and speak multiple languages, just like our clients. Recently, we noticed that Altezza Travel employees are present on every continent except Antarctica.

We regularly bring our remote team members to Tanzania. They go on safaris, take part in climbs, and visit the lodges we work with. As a result, all recommendations that Altezza Travel managers share with clients are based on firsthand experience.

The rest of the team works from our office in the city of Moshi, at the foot of the Kilimanjaro volcano. Tanzanians are kind, open people who take their work seriously. We invest significant resources in their professional development, conduct training sessions, raise salaries, and pay for education. Almost everyone who joined us during the early years, between 2014 and 2016, is still with the company today.

Where did we get our starting capital?

We have never had external investors. In the 2010s, we owned several IT startups, which we sold for about $30,000. That money became our initial capital.

Until 2017, our home and office were the same small space in the city of Moshi. The work area was set up in the living room, where the three of us built the first website, developed social media channels, and managed company advertising. We also handled tour sales, hotel bookings, route planning, food purchases for expeditions, accounting, meeting clients, and many other tasks that are now handled by entire departments.

We devoted all our time and energy to this work. During the first 3–4 years, we did not even leave Tanzania, investing every available dollar back into the company. There was usually nothing left for our own salaries.

Today, we look back on that period and our first clients with warmth. We understand that this experience allowed us to learn how the industry works from the inside and later scale the business quickly. Our employees today work much faster and more efficiently than we did back then. They have clear operational protocols, software developed specifically for Altezza Travel, AI-based tools, and task-distribution systems. The company has become a well-coordinated organization in which everyone understands their role and responsibilities.

How did our company grow so quickly?

Today, Altezza Travel is one of the most successful tourism projects in Tanzania. In February 2025, we were recognized as the largest taxpayer in the Kilimanjaro region. For 2024, we paid more than $1.2 million in taxes. The financial year is not yet over, but we expect to pay more than $2 million for 2025.

We are actively involved in social initiatives. We purchased firefighting equipment for Kilimanjaro National Park, sponsor numerous wildlife conservation projects, and cover education costs for children from low-income families. More details about these and other initiatives can be found on our blog.

Altezza Travel is the only tour operator in Tanzania certified by B Corp and Travelife, and the only one that holds membership in UN Tourism. We are also the only tour operator worldwide to be a partner of the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA).

We hire empathetic people. Our employees do not simply follow protocols. They clearly understand that the most important result of our work is the memories travelers take home. We aim to present Tanzania in a way that makes people fall in love with its safari parks, the snow-capped summit of Kilimanjaro, and its friendly local communities.

Our team always looks out for others during expeditions. On safari, our guides share information with fellow guides about where animals are gathering, and if they come across a vehicle stuck on the road, they make sure to help. On Kilimanjaro, we help porters and climbers in distress from other groups , and we share oxygen whenever it is needed.

We take care of our employees. All Altezza Travel staff are officially employed. Salaries at our company are 2–2.5 times higher than the market average and are comparable to those in Eastern European countries.

For porters, gardeners, and other workers without formal qualifications or English proficiency, we have established a minimum salary that is twice the national level. With this income, their families can live comfortably without worrying about whether they will be able to pay their bills next month.

Our team is the main reason we hold the top position on TripAdvisor, without a single negative review in 11 years.

If you have any questions for the founders of Altezza Travel, you can contact us using the feedback form below. Your message will be sent directly to our personal email inboxes.

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