Take A Journey With… Johnny Prince – Co-Founder of Timbuktu Travel

Johnny co-founded Timbuktu Travel in 2014 after recognising the need for a platform that allows travellers to design their own trips to far-flung corners of the world. A big believer in honesty, Timbuktu offers flexibility and transparency by providing estimated prices for their custom itineraries.

As a result, the company was awarded the No. 1 Tour Operator in the 2024 edition of the Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards. The readers of Travel + Leisure felt that the cost transparency, which is still at the heart of what Timbuktu Travel stands for, is a “very rare” perk for a luxury travel company.

All a bit formal, that. So tell us something about you that not a lot of people know.

When I first moved to Cape Town to start Timbuktu with my business partner, I worked in a cocktail bar in Camps Bay. I can still make a very mean mojito!

Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Why did you start Timbuktu Travel? What problem did you seek to solve?

Planning trips to the world’s far-flung places has always been notoriously difficult. The transport, pricing, and logistics are enough to give anyone a headache – and that’s before the endless emails and phone calls with your travel agent!

We started Timbuktu to put the fun back into the planning of trips across the world and to bring the guest experience to the forefront. Our pioneering ‘trip planner’ technology transforms the entire planning and booking process, allowing travellers to mix and match itineraries, destinations, and hotels on the website in a completely transparent and flexible way.

We also have an incredible team of global travel experts on hand to give advice, refine the details, and add the finishing touches that make a trip truly WOW.

You were recently voted as the ‘World’s Best Tour Operator’ by Travel + Leisure readers – congratulations! What does mean to you?

We were absolutely thrilled with the award; it made our year!

The ‘World’s Best’ awards by T+L are some of the only awards in the industry voted for by readers, customers, and guests of Timbuktu. So, to know that our guests took the time to vote for us is just incredible.

What would you say is the biggest motivator behind why you do what you do? And what impact does Timbuktu Travel aim to have?

We want to empower travellers to explore all the corners of the world but, most importantly, help them to have fun doing it.

Be honest – what has been your biggest challenge since starting Timbuktu Travel?

We started Timbuktu with a team of four in a tiny room above a coffee shop in Cape Town – not even in an office!

Everyone did everything, from writing website copy to taking photos for social media and negotiating rates with our suppliers.

Today, we have a team of 35 and operate in 42 countries. Our HQ is in Cape Town, but we have experts based everywhere from Maine and Nairobi to Patagonia and Prague, and a network of suppliers, contacts, and partners in all our destinations.

Every single person we work with is as passionate and excited about the Timbuktu journey as we are – but there are definitely some challenges working with a remote team across different time zones and sometimes in places where Wi-Fi isn’t really a thing!

Timbuktu Travel donates money from each booking made with the company to initiatives supporting women’s empowerment, youth skills development and conservation in education. Tell us a bit about the impact that you have been able to have through this.

So far, we are extremely proud to have donated over $50,000 to the following projects and charities we work with across Africa:

• ILearnabout – Timbuktu’s donation helped enable iLearnabout to expand its environmental conservation education in Kenya and Zambia. By providing Wildlife Clubs of Kenya with tablets, projectors, and a laptop, iLearnabout can now reach 12,000 children across all Kenyan regions.
• CAMFED – Camfed empowers African communities by educating girls and women in disadvantaged areas. Timbuktu’s $5,000 donation will cover school uniforms and fees for 250 girls to attend primary school for one year.
• Amy Foundation – This Cape Town organisation provides after-school support to 1300 vulnerable youth aged between 5 and 35, years old offering activities from traditional arts to homework help. Each child’s annual sponsorship costs $475 and covers food, instruction, transport, and activities. Timbuktu’s $7,200 donation will fund 15 children in the After School Programme for one year.

Tell us about one travel marketing approach that has worked really well for you.

We have always been dedicated to making our content the best in the industry and truly helpful for our guests. Our team of in-house writers have, between them, visited all the countries we offer trips to and their knowledge, passion, and style has been instrumental in creating the Timbuktu brand and content library.

Over the years, we have also enlisted the help of travel journalists, conservationists, industry professionals and wildlife experts to write for our blog. The result is travel content that is varied, incredibly informative and unique, and that has played a huge part in garnering our customers’ trust and respect, but also in shaping Timbuktu and helping us stand out in a busy market.

Now, think back to 10 years ago, what is one piece of advice you’d give past you?

Stick with it with a dogged determination!

When you’re trying to disrupt the status quo and change an industry or process that has stayed the same for many years, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the challenge ahead!

Fast forward again. What do you think has been the most important strategy, value or approach that has helped you get to where you are today?

The multi-destination travel industry is worth $91 billion dollars – and growing – but it’s one of the few parts of travel that hasn’t yet come into the digital age.

You can book hotels online, search and compare flights, and even book some incredible experiences, but multi-stage or multi-country travel has been left behind.

Our focus on building pioneering technology (that we are forever improving) has allowed us to streamline the planning and booking process for travellers and make it as easy as possible. This, combined with our library of curated, informational content and collaboration with our team of travel experts, has become the recipe that our guests value the most with Timbuktu.

As part of your recent awards win, it was mentioned that readers appreciated the cost transparency of your custom trip function, which they feel is a “very rare” perk for a luxury travel company. What is your view on this? Should more travel operators do this?

We’ve always been big believers in transparency at Timbuktu and it’s a core part of our brand.

We allow our travellers to build their own trips on the platform using instant prices, which allows them to pick and mix lodges and hotels according to their style and budget. This allows our travellers to make an informed choice whilst being able to combine a rustic guest house for example with a luxury safari camp!

We know that travel is ever-evolving, but what trends or strategies do you believe will be key in driving positive change in the coming years?

Over the last 10 years there has been a big shift towards sustainable travel and travellers are much more conscious about choosing lodges and suppliers that have a positive impact on the environments and local communities in which they operate.

We believe this will only become more important.

As a travel company, we believe that one of our key responsibilities is to empower our guests to be able to make informed decisions about how and where to travel with this in mind.

Quick Fire

• Favourite travel destination I’ve visited: Lamu in Kenya. I spent part of my honeymoon there and fell in love with the laid back atmosphere and the island-hopping on traditional dhows.
• Travel destination still on my bucket list: Bhutan or Argentina. Two very different countries but both are very high on my travel list.
• Destination that I wouldn’t return to: None. Even if things don’t go to plan or the reality of somewhere differs from your expectation, it’s all part of the fun – and there’s always something to learn.
• Most treasured travel memory: The first time I visited the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia. My wife managed a bushcamp there for many years and it was very special to visit her ‘home’ – not to mention the sheer number of leopard sightings we squeezed in!

About The Author...

Tom McLoughlin

Founder

Tom is here to steer the ship in the right direction, to ensure what we offer is best in class, and to keep clients and the team happy! Naturally, he loves to travel, but Honduras is a favourite destination after having spent a year there teaching after finishing school.