They came from Manchester, Pretoria, Johannesburg, Uitenhage and the open sea. What brought them all to the same place – and to the finals of Safari Guide of the Year 2026 – is anything but a straight road.
There’s a question that get asked at every guide of the year competition, in every format, in every language. It sounds simple. It isn’t. The five finalists of Safari Guide of the Year 2026 each have an answer. None of them are the same. All of them are true.
Sarah Barrett didn’t get here the conventional way. She came from Manchester on a two-week volunteer placement, armed with a degree in Government and Politics and the very sensible intention of padding her CV. Crompton House had produced many things. A bush guide was not supposed to be one of them.
But Sarah was always the kid in front of the television, wide-eyed at Africa. The kid who already knew the names of all the animals while her classmates were still figuring out the difference between a cheetah and a leopard. The politics degree made sense in theory – she’d convinced herself that conservation’s battles were won in committee rooms.
Then a lion mock-charged her on foot. Looked at her. And walked away.
“The lion viewed me as part of the ecosystem,” she says. That was it. The penny didn’t so much drop as crater. She never went home.
She’s been in the bush ever since and is currently at Thornybush Game Reserve, and if you ask her for a single wildlife moment that still catches her off guard, she’ll tell you about the fireflies. She’d stayed behind to pack up sundowner drinks in a valley with a stream running through it. The guests had left. The other guide had left. She doused the fire with a bucket of water and braced for darkness.
Instead, the bush lit up. Hundreds – thousands – of fireflies, suddenly visible now that the fire was out. She stood there alone in the middle of it. “It was like a fairy tale,” she says.
Her worst moment as a rookie? A friend came to visit and Sarah talked the powers-that-be into letting her take them on a drive. New vehicle. Timber shelter. Excitement. The front door wasn’t properly latched. She reversed, the door swung wide, and a timber pole took it clean off. “All I could hear was the crumpling of metal,” she says. She switched off the engine, sat in silence for five minutes, and then got out to face the music.
She’d choose to be an elephant if she had to pick (from lion, leopard or elephant) – long life, no worries, total dominance. Though she’ll quietly admit she’d actually choose a hyena. She didn’t explain why.
If not a guide, she’d be a field ranger. And the bush has taught her, simply, that we are part of nature. Not separate from it.
Otto Scribante grew up in Langebaan, went to school at Curro, and was the child who brought home bugs, snakes and scorpions. His mother was not impressed.
He didn’t go straight to the bush. He went to sea instead – becoming a professional sailor, and cruising internationally for years. It was a life. A good one, even. Until Ireland had other ideas and ejected him, somewhat unceremoniously, and he came home, took everything he owned, and signed up for guiding school at Ecotraining.
He’d always known he wanted the bush. That was actually the problem. “It was his greatest passion,” he explains, “and he was afraid to lose it.” Sometimes the things that matter most are the ones you put off the longest. Ireland just forced the issue.
He’s been at Singita for the past two years, and the encounter that defines his guiding life so far involves a honey badger and a python in southern Kruger. A honey badger was spotted but spooked by vehicles and retreated into the thicket. Other cars left. Otto and his guests stayed. The honey badger came back out, started digging at a sandy mound – that produced a large python. What followed was a full wrestling match – the kind that had everyone convinced the badger was finished. It wasn’t. It grabbed the python just below the head, dragged it off into the thicket, followed by a second honey badger.
His rookie mistake he’s keeping for the competition stage. Fair enough.
If he had to be one of the big three, he’d be a leopard – for the agility, the nimbleness, the ability to move through the world entirely on his own terms, without interference.
Sundowners alone over a rowdy campfire. Every time. And the question that exhausts him most is the one he hears constantly: Is this one of the Big Five? No? Then why are we looking at it? If there’s a phrase that makes a guide’s soul leave his body quietly, that’s probably the one.
Not a guide? Mechanical engineer, most likely.
The bush has taught him that everything left alone is perfect, and that everything – and everyone – has its place.
Samantha Snodgrass was born in Johannesburg but grew up in Nairobi. Her grandparents lived in Nelspruit and handed her a bird book when she was four. By the time she got to Randpark High, she already knew the animals. The Kruger was a fixture of every holiday. The bush wasn’t an escape for Samantha – it was just where she went and wanted to go.
After school she moved straight into studying wild dog behaviour, then spent time at a rhino orphanage where the fork in the road presented itself: veterinary route or guiding route? It was the guests at the orphanage who made the decision for her. Interacting with the humans who came to see the rhinos was genuinely hard. She decided if she was going to do this anyway, she was going to do it properly. She went into guiding.
At 27, she’s been at Shamwari in the Eastern Cape for a year and a half. The moment that confirmed everything wasn’t a dramatic predator sighting. It was a honey badger on a trail in Venetia. Three days of tracking lions. Nothing. Then a honey badger appeared and simply didn’t care that they were there – ate, scavenged, lived its best life, completely unbothered by the people sitting watching it for thirty minutes. “That was the best feeling in the world,” she says. “To be ignored by a wild animal.” To be irrelevant. To just be present. That’s the whole thing, right there.
Her rookie mistake is a classic: drove into black cotton soil, got stuck, refused to call for help because she wasn’t going to be the confident female guide who needed rescuing. Spent hours getting out of a situation that a single radio call would have resolved. “Pride does not work in the bush,” she says. Lesson learned the hard way and retained permanently.
Lion if she had to choose – not for the power, but for the commitment. The social structure, the fierce protection of family, the soft side that exists alongside the ferocity.
Sundowners over a campfire, no hesitation. And the AI-influenced questions are killing her slowly – the giraffe one in particular. Is that giraffe going to pull me out of the vehicle and eat me? Asked more than once. By different people.
If not a guide, she’d be a tracker. And the bush has taught her that there is safety in respect – that if mutual respect exists, a safe outcome usually follows. She believes in that bush juju.
Jordan Davidson is 41, grew up in Swaziland, went to St Albans in Pretoria, and has been at Sanbona for nine years. He is, by most measures, the most seasoned guide in this final.
He studied Tourism and Tourism Operations, then went to France and spent years sailing yachts around the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. He came back to South Africa, took two years at Ulovane in the Eastern Cape, and the bush bit.
What made guiding real for him wasn’t a single moment – it was the cumulative experience of creating situations for guests. Of showing people his world and watching them see it for the first time. “The bush is always amazing,” he says. “I love teaching people about it.”
His most extraordinary encounter is the kind of thing that sounds made up until you hear the way he tells it. A zebra, mid-chase, launched itself over the bonnet of his vehicle – with a lion clamped to its rump. The lion held on. They nearly came into the car. They landed on the other side. The lion then killed the zebra right next to him.
His rookie error was roads. Specifically, roads marked closed that he drove down anyway. Got deeply stuck in the wet. Had to call the very people who’d told him the roads were closed to come and pull him out. He might still do that!
Elephant, if he’s choosing. He comes from a family of six kids and the elephant’s social bonds, the way they treat each other, the structure of the family – he understands that from the inside.
Sundowners, hundred and fifty percent. And the question that still makes him want to quietly disappear into the treeline: Do elephants eat meat? Is that why they’re so big?
If not a guide, conservation ranger. And the bush has taught him to always be prepared, and to expect the unexpected.
Phumzile Patrick Kepe grew up in Uitenhage, went to school in Dispatch, and came to the bush the way many great guides do – through the back door. He didn’t grow up knowing the names of all the animals. He grew up glued to National Geographic every Sunday. He visited his uncle at Shamwari for three weeks. He didn’t go back home.
That was thirteen years ago. He’s been at Shamwari ever since, and the moment that set the course was watching another guide pick out a rhino at extraordinary distance. Patrick asked how. The guide tapped his eyes: “Ranger’s eyes”. From that day on, that’s what he wanted. The ability to see what others couldn’t.
His most emotional encounter was a newborn elephant – still blood-stained, barely minutes old, deep in a thicket surrounded by the herd. Then a rumble. The elephants parted. The mother walked the calf out of the thicket towards him, stopping about two metres from where he was parked. Held the moment. Then turned and walked back. “It was as if she was introducing the calf to me,” he says.
His rookie error follows a familiar template: drove somewhere he shouldn’t have, got stuck, fifteen minutes from the lodge, with honeymooners on the back expecting the world. They were collected. The drive did not continue. The honeymooners were understanding, or weren’t – either way, the lesson stuck.
Elephant again, if choosing – for the family, the intellect, the resilience. He believes elephants are the true kings of the jungle.
Here’s where Patrick breaks from the group, though: he’d choose the rowdy campfire over the solitary sundowner. He needs the energy of guests.
The question that finishes him is deceptively simple. After a sighting – any sighting – guests ask again – and again. What was that? The same animal. Same question.
If not a guide, he’d be a lawyer. And the bush has taught him that for everything, there is a reason for existence.
Five finalists. Five roads in. One competition. Safari Guide of the Year 2026 – watch this space.
