In Conversation with Cath Brink from Tusks & Trails: Part 2

Tusks and Trails is the brainchild of Cath Brink, who we’re chatting with today, and Dan Bradshaw, a couple who met whilst working in the luxury travel business in London. They’ve both got strong links to the country – and to its travel industry. Cath’s parents founded Livingstone’s Adventure, one of the pioneering activity tour operators in this part of the world and a company that still thrives today. Dan was in the team that specialised in Zambia at Audley Travel, a role that saw him travel to and get to know the country, both personally and professionally.

What they both realised was that Zambia had a gap in its travel market. As a relative newcomer to the tourism and travel industry in general – and especially in comparison to world-famous neighbours like Botswana and Tanzania – there were very few people in the country offering destination management services. Basically, they’ll organise everything around a trip for their clients, as well as on the ground logistical management and agent to agent dealings; they have a lot of strings to their bow.

To understand where Tusks and Trails came from, though, it’s important to know a bit about Cath’s Zambian travel grounding. ‘My parents arrived in Zambia from South African in 1998, for 6 months,’ she laughs, ‘and never left’. They fell in love with the country, establishing deep roots and pioneering an adventure travel company that operates a staggering number of adrenaline-fuelling activities across the country. ‘Microlites, safari, helis, plane rides, rafting, horses – they do the lot, really,’ Cath says, with more than a hint of understatement. Her parents have become a part of the country’s tourism industry’s furniture, with her dad sitting under the Chair of the Zambian Tourism Association in another role.

It was after plenty of to-ing and fro-ing between Cath, Dan, and her parents, that they embarked upon their Tusks and Trails adventure. Both Cath and Dan knew that they wanted to work in Zambia, in travel, but precisely how that looked remained elusive. That was until just post-Covid, when they upped ship from London, took over a dormant, employee-less arm of the original adventure company, rebranded and redirected it, before setting about creating what it is today. ‘It was a lot in the beginning,’ we’re told, ‘neither of us had ever owned or run a business before and baptism of fire doesn’t really cover it.’

The couple set about creating a company that would provide dream holidays to punters in this magical place. It was a challenge not without difficulties. ‘We had loads of energy and, thanks to my dad, a very fortunate network of people to talk to,’ Cath says, ‘but it’s the unforeseen stuff that makes it tricky’. They knew how to operate in the travel business, that much is plain. But load-shedding, where there’s no power for 18 hours a day? The struggle to source enough pens and pencils? The pressure of making the family proud and showing they can do it? ‘That was tough’, says Cath, ‘the added layer of working in Africa and trying to prove yourself, we definitely felt that’. ‘But as challenging as it’s been, it’s been equally rewarding. The feeling when the first booking came in,’ Cath pauses as she tries to think of the best word, ‘it was magic’.

And working as a couple?, I dare to ask. ‘It’s been interesting’, Cath says with a hoot, ‘because you have to go through another teething process of working out how someone works, but we’re highly communicative and always learn from our moments of tension’. More remarkably, they have survived the ultimate test. ‘There are no barbers here, so I’ve learnt to cut Dan’s hair.’