Meet Wallace: The Story Behind Africa at Heart

Wallace Gwatidzo is the Zimbabwean founder and head nature guide of Africa at Heart Travel and Tours. He grew up herding cattle in a village, studied wildlife and tourism in Zimbabwe, became a professional nature guide across Southern Africa and later used his guiding and logistical experience to build a local safari company.

What joins those stages together is curiosity: first about the birds, tracks and small movements of the bush, and later about how to help travellers experience the region with real knowledge and care.

Where did Wallace’s love of wildlife begin?

As a boy in rural Zimbabwe, Wallace spent long hours outdoors watching over his family’s cattle. Herding was part of everyday life, but it was also an education in paying attention.

He learnt to read the land, notice birds and tracks, and watch the small movements that many people pass without seeing. Long before he had a professional name for it, that was the beginning of his relationship with wildlife and the landscape.

How did Wallace become a professional nature guide?

The curiosity that began in the village eventually took Wallace to university in Zimbabwe, where he studied wildlife and tourism. From there, he trained and worked as a professional nature guide, first in his home country and then across the wider Southern Africa region.

Over more than twenty years, he worked with internationally renowned tour companies and guided guests who were seeing these landscapes for the first time. The role was never only about finding animals. It also meant interpreting wildlife, plants, terrain and culture in a way that helped visitors understand what they were looking at.

Wallace’s experience at a glance

• Born and raised in a Zimbabwean village
• Studied wildlife and tourism at university in Zimbabwe
• Trained and worked as a professional nature guide across Southern Africa
• More than twenty years of experience with internationally renowned tour companies
• Five years as a logistical planning manager
• Founder and head nature guide of Africa at Heart Travel and Tours

Why did logistical planning matter?

Alongside guiding, Wallace spent five years as a logistical planning manager. It may be the less glamorous part of the story, but it became essential to the company he would later create.

A safari must do more than sound exciting. Transfers, accommodation, activities, meals, borders and the pace of each day have to fit together. Logistical planning taught Wallace how to structure itineraries that work on the ground, not only on paper.

That experience now sits behind every tailor-made safari planned by Wallace and the Africa at Heart office team.

Why did Wallace build Africa at Heart?

Africa at Heart Travel and Tours grew from a simple wish: to share the wildlife and landscapes that shaped Wallace with travellers from around the world, and to do it properly.

For him, a safari should not be treated as something to tick off a list. It should bring together wildlife, landscapes, people and culture with a guide who understands the region first-hand. The company was established in 2009 as a local Zimbabwean business specialising in custom tour packages.

How does Wallace’s background shape each journey?

The child who learnt to notice tracks and birds became a guide who teaches travellers to look beyond the obvious. The logistics manager became a founder who knows that care is expressed through the practical details as much as through the big moments.

That combination influences how Africa at Heart plans:

• routes across Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and the wider region;
• guided game drives, walks, river experiences and cultural visits;
• the balance between renowned parks and less familiar places;
• accommodation and transport around comfort and budget; and
• a pace that reflects the people travelling.

It is also why guests remain at the centre of every decision. The purpose is not to force a fixed package to fit, but to understand what each traveller hopes to experience.

What is Wallace like beyond the safari vehicle?

When he is not guiding a game drive or spending time with guests in a local village, Wallace is usually at home with his wife and two sons or reading about nature, wildlife and world history. It is the same curiosity that began in the Zimbabwean landscape, still very much alive.

You can read more about Africa at Heart, explore the company’s signature safari tours, or start a conversation with the team about your own journey.