Sotravel Trip Experience Review

Christine Tan
6 min readAug 19, 2024

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Photo by Rana Sawalha on Unsplash

Having gone through a recent trip with them and wanting to be a karenzilla to share my the trip experience with Sotravel.

The trip that I went was so called “The Great Migration” which have been renamed as “Kenya Big Five Wildlife Safari & Masai Tribe Adventure”.

Before I begin

To avoid any confusion, I will be using the following names as shown in the diagram below:

And for reference, I will be using the following information:

Deprecated Notion Article

Information viewing from top (left to right) to bottom (left to right)

Note: some information such contact information have been omitted for privacy

Updated Notion Article

Information viewing from top (left to right), middle (left to right) to bottom (left to right)

Note: some information such contact information have been omitted for privacy

Itinerary

Information viewing from left to right

Information taken from: Trip , View detailed itinerary.

Prior the Trip

As this is my first visit to Nairobi, after reading the trip instructions provided in the app (referring to Deprecated Notion Article) which at that point of time was not deprecated yet. I reached out to Sotravel Admin E for some clarification such as :

  • Tipping culture in local currency or USD
  • Electricity provided throughout the trip etc

Sotravel Admin E told me to refer to Updated Notion Article instead of the Deprecated Notion Article which is not much of an issue.

During the Trip

The summary of issues is shown in the following timeline:

Note: Timeline are in Nairobi (GMT +3) unless stated otherwise.

What went wrong ?

1. Itinerary not correctly reflected
For example, referencing from Itinerary Day 2 it mentioned :

Get a glimpse of the homes and lifestyle of the Masai people who called this area their home and have been sharing the land with these animals

Day 8:

Spend the morning & afternoon on game drives to see how these animals interact along the rivers. We will head back for dinner.

Yet, this is not correctly reflected or convey to us in detail. The tour guide followed the host’s itinerary but the host’s itinerary is different from Sotravel website or app’s itinerary.

2. Detail Itinerary can only be seen either through Sotravel website or app

Comparing both Notion Articles (Deprecated Notion Article and Updated Notion Article), there is no mentioned on the detail itinerary other than Sotravel website or app.

3. Not sure which Notion article to refer

If we refer to Deprecated Notion Article where there is no mentioned on Activity Detail, we could only follow based on what the Itinerary mentioned.

If we refer to Updated Notion Article where there is a section on Activity Detail, there were ziplining and mountain biking which is not mentioned in Itinerary.

What can be Improved ?

To be honest, all these issues can be avoid easily if they update and convey the information to us promptly. The only improvement that I could suggest was using this trip experience to do a root cause analysis. The root cause analysis is not for us but rather understanding what went wrong.

For example, I asked the host when was the Updated Notion Article provided to Sotravel. Assuming the host provided the Updated Notion Article when it published, the Updated Notion Article was updated as of 11 Jul 2024. Why such information was not reflected on the app between 11 Jul till 2 Aug 2024? As of 13 Aug 2024, Updated Notion Article was not correctly reflected in the app.

In addition, assuming the host provided the article when published (which is 11 Jul 2024), this information was not conveyed to us until I asked questioned closer to the trip (which is 27 Jul 2024).

I have also provide the following suggestion of improvement:

1. Placement of information
You may want to review the what should be relevant to be place on Trip instruction vs Itinerary.

For example: Hotel staying is more relevant to Itinerary than a Trip instruction. Whereas, important actions such as applying eTA is more relevant to Trip instruction.

Another example: FAQ which is Frequently Asked Questions should be easily accessed as it is supposed to addresses the most common questions user had. Yet, the FAQ is not found throughout Sotravel website but under Trip Instruction, FAQ section.

Otherwise, it would be better to consolidate both information as one for better viewing experience of information.

2. Updating of information
If information is hard to update, Sotravel may want to redesign on how to update information faster to provide up to date information.

Since there is an API created to retrieve the information, you may want to allow other users with relevant access to be able to update the trip information.

3. Minor: Reduce redundant information
For example: Packing list has been mentioned twice in Trip Instructions & Packing list

Author’s note

The whole experience to me was neither unhappy nor happy. We do however appreciate Sotravel Founder L calling us back on 9 Aug 2024, 3 AM SGT to resolve the issue.

But for a follower who followed Sotravel since 2023, I am rather disappointed. This is definitely not your first few attempts in organizing the trip which I could give some leeway.

This is also not your first trip for Kenya as you had did it on Apr 2024 (https://www.sotravel.me/trip/171).

I am not sure if because the expansion of many interesting trip result the lack of curated information or the thought of reusing itinerary with a new local partner.

But regardless, we should not suffer the consequences of the team’s failure in management and planning.

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