Tish Reader

Tish Reader was born Johannesburg to parents who were passionate about the bushveld. Even before she could walk she’d seen the Big 5. During her school holidays she would spend up to two weeks at a time in the Kruger National Park, sleeping in thatched huts, cooking over open fires and absorbing the magic and mysteries of the wild.

In the late ‘70s, she was asked to run a booking service for a friend who’d started some of the first luxury game lodges in Southern Africa. As more lodges opened up throughout the region, she became established as a safari-planning specialist.

When her husband was transferred to Cape Town in the mid eighties, it didn’t take long for her to realise that the combined appeal of the Cape and the bushveld - and many more places in-between - offered the most exciting and rewarding holiday adventures to be found anywhere in the world.

Encouraging her childhood friend Julia Naughton to partner her, African Leisure Safaris came into being in Julia’s garage. It is from this humble beginning that the company has become internationally recognised as a leader in safari planning in sub-Saharan Africa.