Plan your climb · Guide
Our crew
A Kilimanjaro climb runs on people. For a group of four, around a dozen Tanzanians go up the mountain so that you can. How they are treated is worth asking about before you book — of us, and of anyone else you are considering.
Who goes with you
Lead guide
Licensed by Kilimanjaro National Park
Sets the pace, runs the twice-daily health checks, and makes the call on summit night. On our climbs this is Baraka Tarimo, or a lead guide he has worked with for years and trained himself.
Assistant guides
At least one, more for larger groups
There so the group can split. If one climber has to descend, an assistant guide goes down with them and everyone else keeps climbing. A single-guide operation cannot do this, and that is the whole reason we do not run one.
Cook
Three hot meals a day, at altitude
Cooking for a dozen people on a camp stove at 4,600 m is a real skill. Appetite vanishes above 4,000 m, so a cook who can still make you want to eat is doing more for your summit chances than most gear.
Porters
Roughly three per climber
Carry tents, food, water, cooking equipment and your duffel. They leave camp after you, pass you on the trail, and have your tent up and water boiling before you arrive.
The standards we hold to
- Load limits, weighed. No porter carries more than 20 kg including their own kit, which is why your duffel is capped at 15 kg. Loads are weighed at the park gate and we do not look for ways around it.
- Three meals a day for the crew too. Not leftovers. The crew eats properly, every day, cooked by the same kitchen.
- Proper shelter and sleeping gear. Tents, sleeping mats and sleeping bags for every crew member. Nobody sleeps in a mess tent or a cave because the budget ran short.
- Boots and jackets. Crew members who need cold-weather clothing and footwear get it. Porters should not be in worn trainers above the moorland.
- Wages paid in full, on time, in addition to tips. Tips are a bonus for good work, never a substitute for a wage.
- Sick crew come down. A porter showing symptoms of altitude sickness descends, on pay, with the same seriousness we would apply to a client.
None of this is exotic. It is the baseline that the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project has spent two decades pushing the industry towards, and it is why a $1,200 climb should worry you. The mountain fees, park fees, food and transport are broadly fixed. When an operator undercuts everyone else by a thousand dollars, the saving is coming out of the wages, the food or the sleeping bags of the people carrying your bag.
Tipping
Tipping is customary and genuinely expected, and it is the part climbers find most awkward because nobody tells them the numbers. So, plainly — these are typical daily ranges per crew member, pooled across your whole group, not per climber:
| Role | Typical per day, from the group |
|---|---|
| Lead guide | $20 – $25 |
| Assistant guide | $15 – $20 |
| Cook | $12 – $15 |
| Porter | $8 – $10 |
For a group of four on a seven-day climb that usually works out around $250 to $350 each. Bring it in cash, in small notes — there is no card machine on Kilimanjaro. We hand out the crew list with names and roles at your briefing, and there is a short tipping ceremony on the last morning where you give it directly to the people it belongs to rather than through an office.
Ask Baraka before you fly if you want exact figures for your group size and route, and he will work them out with you. Nobody should be guessing at this on the mountain.
