Terms & Conditions

1. About these terms

This website is operated by Summit Horizon Journeys Company, a travel agency and tour operator based in Nakuru, Kenya.

By using this website, requesting a quote, or making a booking with us, you accept these terms. If you're booking on behalf of other people, you confirm that you have their authority to do so and that you have shared these terms with them.

Three documents work together and should be read as one:

• These Terms & Conditions — the overall agreement
• Our Booking Policy — payment, amendment and cancellation terms
• Our Privacy Policy — how we handle your personal information

Where your written quote or confirmation states something different from these terms — a supplier's stricter cancellation rule, for example — the quote takes precedence for that booking.

2. What certain words mean

3. Our role in your trip

This is the most important thing to understand, because it determines who is responsible for what. We act in one of two capacities, and which one applies depends on what you've booked.

Your quote and confirmation will make clear which applies. If you're not sure, ask us — it's a fair question and we'll answer it plainly.

Supplier terms

Suppliers have their own conditions, and where we book on your behalf those conditions apply to you. Airlines in particular have detailed rules about changes, cancellations, baggage and liability, often set by international convention. We'll tell you about any supplier term that materially affects you, and you can ask us for a supplier's full conditions at any time.

4. How a contract is formed

Nothing you do on this website creates a contract. An enquiry is an enquiry, and a quote is an offer that you're free to decline.

A contract exists between us only when all three of these have happened:

1. We've sent you a written quote or itinerary
2. You've accepted it in writing — email or WhatsApp is fine
3. We've received your deposit and confirmed the booking in writing

Until then, availability isn't held and prices may change. Quotes are valid for 14 days unless stated otherwise, and always subject to availability at the moment you confirm.

Errors

We try hard to get prices and descriptions right, but mistakes happen. If we've made an obvious error — a price with a digit missing, a package described with something it doesn't include — we'll tell you as soon as we notice. You can then proceed at the corrected price or cancel and receive a full refund of anything you've paid. We won't hold you to an obvious error, and we'd ask that you don't hold us to one either.

Who we contract with

The person who makes the booking is our contracting party and is responsible for payment, for passing our information to the rest of the party, and for telling us about anything that affects any traveller on the booking.

5. Your responsibilities

Some things only you can do, and a trip can fail if they're not done.

Accurate information

• Give us names exactly as they appear on passports or national IDs, particularly for flights
• Confirm whether you're a Kenyan citizen, a resident, or a non-resident — park fees differ substantially, and a wrong answer means the difference becomes payable
• Tell us about medical conditions, mobility needs, dietary requirements, allergies or pregnancy at the time of booking
• Keep us updated if your contact details change before travel

Travel documents

Passports, visas, travel authorisations and vaccination requirements are your responsibility. We'll tell you what we understand to be required, but requirements change and vary by nationality, and we can't check or guarantee your documents. If you're denied boarding or entry, the trip is treated as cancelled by you.

Checking your confirmation

Read your confirmation when it arrives and tell us within 48 hours if anything is wrong. An error caught early is usually free to fix. The same error found close to departure often isn't, and the cost of a late correction falls to you.

During the trip

Follow your guide's instructions and all park rules. These exist for your safety around wild animals, and they aren't optional. Conduct that endangers others or makes the trip unreasonable for fellow travellers may end your participation without refund — see our Booking Policy.

You're responsible for damage you cause to vehicles or accommodation, and a supplier may charge you for it directly.

Insurance

We strongly recommend comprehensive travel insurance, taken out when you pay your deposit. Where Flying Doctors evacuation cover is included in your package, that's evacuation only — not medical insurance, and not cancellation cover.

6. Our responsibilities

We undertake to:

• Arrange your trip with reasonable skill and care
• Describe what we're selling accurately, and tell you promptly if something changes
• Quote itemised prices showing what's included and what isn't
• Select suppliers with reasonable care, and use operators we know
• Provide vehicles that are roadworthy and guides who are experienced and licensed where licensing applies
• Be reachable during your trip on the emergency number in your documents
• Deal with any problem you raise promptly and fairly

What we can't promise

Some things are genuinely outside anyone's control, and it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise:

• Wildlife sightings. These are wild animals in open country. We'll put you in the right place with a guide who knows where to look, but nobody can guarantee you'll see a particular species — including during the migration, whose timing varies year to year
• Weather. Rain can close roads and affect what's possible on a given day
• Road and park conditions, which change with the seasons
• Third-party timetables — flight delays and cancellations are the airline's responsibility

7. Limits on our liability

Where we're liable

Where we're the organiser of a package, we accept responsibility for the arrangements being delivered with reasonable skill and care, including by suppliers we've engaged. If we or a supplier we engaged fails in that, and you suffer loss as a result, we'll put it right or compensate you fairly.

Where we're not liable

We're not responsible for:

• Failures by a supplier where we acted only as your agent, and the contract is between you and them
• Anything caused by your own act or omission — missing a departure, losing documents, ignoring a guide's instruction
• Anything caused by an unconnected third party, unforeseeably
• Events beyond reasonable control, as described in section 8
• Services you arrange independently, whether or not we suggested them — an excursion you book directly at your hotel, for instance
• Loss or theft of your personal belongings, which is a matter for your insurance

Financial limits

Except where the law prevents us from limiting liability, and except for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, our total liability arising from a booking is limited to the total amount you paid us for that booking.

We're not liable for indirect or consequential losses — lost earnings, missed connections on separately booked travel, or the cost of a replacement holiday.

Where an international convention limits a carrier's liability — the Warsaw or Montreal Conventions for air travel, for example — our liability is limited in the same way.

8. Events beyond control

Neither of us is liable for failing to perform where the cause is genuinely outside reasonable control. That includes:

• Severe weather, flooding, drought, fire or natural disaster
• War, civil unrest, terrorism or the credible threat of any of these
• Epidemics, pandemics and public health measures
• Government action, border closures or travel restrictions
• Park or reserve closures ordered by an authority
• Airline or supplier insolvency
• Industrial action or fuel shortages

Where such an event affects your trip we'll do everything reasonable to offer an alternative, reschedule, or recover what we can from suppliers. But we can't refund money suppliers keep, and we're not liable for costs outside our arrangements — international flights you booked separately, for instance.

This is exactly the gap travel insurance is designed to fill, which is why we press the point.

9. Prices, payment and cancellation

The commercial terms are set out in full in our Booking Policy, which forms part of this agreement. In summary:

• A deposit confirms your booking; the balance is due before travel
• Quoted prices hold for 14 days and are subject to availability
• Cancellation charges increase as the departure date approaches, because suppliers charge us on the same basis
• Amendments are free outside a stated window and carry an administration fee inside it
• Certain items — issued flight tickets, non-refundable rates, visa fees — can never be refunded

Read the full Booking Policy for the exact figures and dates.

10. Using this website

You may browse this site and use it to plan and enquire about travel. You may not:

• Submit false, misleading or automated enquiries
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the site, its database or its administration area
• Interfere with the site's operation, or introduce malicious code
• Scrape, harvest or systematically copy content
• Use the site for anything unlawful

We use automated spam protection on our forms, and we may block access from an address that abuses the site.

Availability

We aim to keep the site available but can't promise it will never be down. We may suspend, withdraw or change any part of it without notice, and we're not liable for losses arising from the site being unavailable.

Links to other sites

Where we link to a third-party site — a supplier, a map, a payment provider — we don't control its content and aren't responsible for it. Following an external link is at your own risk.

Accuracy

We keep the information here as current as we reasonably can, but tours, prices, properties and conditions change. Nothing on this website is a binding offer. Your written quote is the authoritative statement of what you're buying and what it costs.

11. Content and copyright

The content of this website — text, photographs, itineraries, the Summit Horizon Journeys name and logo, and the design and code of the site — belongs to us or is used with permission. It's protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights.

You may view it, print it for your own use, and share links to it. You may not republish it, use it commercially, or reproduce our itineraries or photographs without our written permission.

Content you give us

If you send us a review, testimonial or photograph, you keep ownership of it but give us permission to publish it on this website and in our marketing, with the attribution you've agreed. You can withdraw that permission at any time by contacting us, and we'll remove it.

We only publish a testimonial where the client has agreed to it being shown publicly.

12. Complaints and disputes

While you're travelling

Raise it immediately — with your guide first, then on the emergency number in your documents. Most problems can be solved on the spot. One we hear about after you get home is one we had no chance to fix.

After the trip

Write to info@summithorizonjourneys.co.ke within 28 days of returning, quoting your booking reference and setting out what went wrong. We'll acknowledge within 3 working days and give a full response within 21 days.

If we can't agree

We'd much rather resolve a dispute directly than through lawyers, and in our experience most things can be settled by talking. Where a dispute can't be resolved between us, both parties agree to attempt mediation in good faith before starting court proceedings. This doesn't prevent either of us from seeking urgent relief from a court where genuinely necessary.

13. Governing law

These terms, and any dispute arising from them or from your booking, are governed by the laws of Kenya.

The courts of Kenya have jurisdiction over any dispute. If you're a consumer resident elsewhere, this doesn't remove any protection you have under the mandatory consumer law of your own country.

14. General provisions

The whole agreement

These terms, together with your written quote, your booking confirmation, our Booking Policy and our Privacy Policy, form the entire agreement between us. They replace any earlier discussion or representation not written into those documents. If something was promised verbally and matters to you, make sure it's on your confirmation.

Changes to these terms

We may revise these terms from time to time. The version in force when you confirmed your booking is the version that applies to it — we won't apply a later change retrospectively to a booking you've already made.

If part of these terms fails

If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest continues in force. The unenforceable part will be treated as modified to the minimum extent needed to make it valid, or removed if that isn't possible.

Not enforcing a term

If we don't insist on a right straight away, that doesn't mean we've given it up. A delay in enforcing these terms isn't a waiver of them.

Transferring the agreement

You may not transfer your rights under these terms without our written consent, though you may be able to transfer a booking to another traveller — see the Booking Policy. We may transfer our rights and obligations to another business, and will tell you if we do.

Third parties

These terms are between you and us. Nobody else acquires rights under them, except that everyone travelling on a booking is bound by them.

Notices

Notices to us should go to info@summithorizonjourneys.co.ke. Notices to you will go to the email address on your booking. Email counts as writing for the purposes of these terms.

15. Contact us

If anything here is unclear, ask before you book. We'd rather explain a term now than argue about it later.