Booking the trip

When it comes to booking the actual trip you can divide it in several parts. The flight tickets, the climb itself and then in addition whatever safari or beach excursion you want to indulge yourself with afterwards.
There is pretty much just two ways to do this:

• Ordering it all through a company from your home country, or
• Booking the trip through a local company in Tanzania

There are pros and cons with both solutions, we chose the first one due to this being our first expedition and the inherent insecurity from not having organized something like this ourself before.

Booking the trip through a company from your own country:
The safety from booking the trip through a company from your own country comes from the fact that you are then covered by the travel regulations and laws of your own country and will not have to deal with another countrys beauracratic minefield. This means that if something goes wrong during your hike or stay your can make your complaint from home rather than stayin an extra few days to see something through. We ended up booking the entire trip as a package and was very happy with our Norwegian provider Eco-Expedition. What I found out when I got to Moshi (city close to Kilimanjaro) was that our trip was actually going to be organized and run by another company that Eco Expeditions cooperated with. This is a widespread practice and even though you book from a company from your own country this does not mean that you will get guides from back home. Not that it is any issue since the guides on Kilimanjaro are excellent and if I did it again I would rather have one of them than any Norwegian or European guide.

Booking the trip from a local company:
If you're on a budget then this option is probably for you. There is an abundance of trekking companies located in Moshi that has a website up and running and will give you an estimated price if you send them an email. If you haven't read though my infosite about the guides and porters of Kilimanjaro then I will lay it out to you shortly here. Due to companies pushing the prices down to attract customers this often has led to the porters having to work for less and less money. I urge you therefore to research the company that you are looking into to find out how they are treating their porters. Believe me when I say that you will not regret this when you do the climb. An easy way to see if the company is approved by the local porter organization KPAP is to check out their list of partnerorganizations on their own  website www.mountainexplorers.org/club/partners.htm.

The bottom line here is that you will save money when booking from a local company that you most likely will end up climbing with anyway. What you will not save is time since it will take you more time researching and looking into the various companies and prices. My two cents worth is that if I did the trip again I would book with a local company and save the money. The organization is not as hard as you would expect and with the abundance of information available online finding the perfect trekking company is easier than ever.

Another good tip is to check out the hotels or lodges that the trekking company suggests or that you have found yourself. A good website for this is Tripadvisor where travellers post reviews of locations and hotels from all over the world.