Southern Africa | East Africa
Bryan Olver
&Beyond Private Guide & Guide Trainer
At a glance
EMPATHIC. HONEST. CURIOUS.
Fluent in English
23 years guiding of experience, and counting…
Regional knowledge and expertise in Africa & India
Special interest in birds, walking, astronomy, & botany
Love accompanying families, & birding & walking itineraries
HELLO, I’M BRYAN
With a childhood in Pretoria, South Africa punctuated with weekend camping trips with the Scouts and barefoot holidays on my grandparents’ farm, I wanted to live and work in the bush for as long as I can remember. Dreams of becoming a wildlife veterinarian morphed into a career as a nature guide with &Beyond, and this has taken me on the adventure of a lifetime!
My adventure began in 1997 at &Beyond Phinda Private Game Reserve and included working in the Eastern Cape, South Africa and Namib Desert, Namibia. After fulfilling the roles of guide, walking guide, mentor, assistant head guide, head guide, lodge operations manager, lodge general manager, specialist guide and private guide, my journey came full circle when I returned to &Beyond Phinda in 2008 as one of &Beyond’s guide trainers – a role I still relish. While the role has provided me with the opportunity to help shape and drive &Beyond’s future guiding culture and skills, along with driving the development of the administrative tools of training and assessment that given this direction and measure, it is influencing, supporting, and helping other guides realise their potential that brings me the most joy.
I have managed the &Beyond Inkwazi Ranger Training School for the past 10 years, a role that also allows me to keep guiding as well as connect with &Beyond’s family of guests. With an Honours degree in Geography, and a passion for birding, walking, botany, and astronomy, I consider myself a general naturalist, keen to understand and positively influence the human-nature relationship.
I met and married my wife during those early years at &Beyond Phinda and have raised two happy wild children in the African bush. Through &Beyond and on my own steam, I have been fortunate enough to explore much of Southern and East Africa’s game reserves and wild areas, and have been involved in training guides in these areas as well.
I currently live at &Beyond Phinda Private Game Reserve in South Africa with my family.
An &Beyond Private Guide is someone who has undergone rigorous training at one of our elite ranger training schools and who has been carefully handpicked for this role because of their extensive guiding experience. These individuals are recognised as the best in the industry offering exceptional professionalism, accomplished interpretative guiding and an extraordinary guest experience overall.
Questions and answers
GET TO KNOW ME
1. How many years of guiding experience do you have?
23 years, and counting… With two and a half years of Lodge Management somewhere in between.
2. Expertise and regional knowledge?
South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and India.
3. What do you love to do in your spare time?
Spend time with my family, without a doubt! They grow up so fast…
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Also, I follow the English Premier and European Champions Soccer Leagues closely, which involves much investigative time on the couch in front of the television. I also practice sipping whisky on my veranda, watching the world pass by.
4. What sets you apart from other Private Guides?
With years of experience, I am a calm individual with a dry sense of humour who is able to get on with anyone.
5. Do you have any special interests?
Birding, walking, astronomy, and botany. Outside of guiding I am a huge soccer fan, love music and film, and spend as much time with my family as possible.
6. Where haven't you been that you want to travel to?
Ethiopian highlands for Ethiopian wolf, gelada baboon, special birding and insane endemism.
7. Do you have a favourite travel itinerary?
Bird guiding anywhere! Along with guiding any itinerary in Africa, including South Africa, Botswana …
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… (particularly Chobe and the Okavango Delta), and Namibia and the Namib Desert. I can find my way around East Africa’s plains and forests pretty well, too.
8. Who do you most enjoy accompanying?
Families, and specialist birding and walking itineraries.
9. Do you have a favourite memory with guests?
All meals enjoyed under African skies, with the crackle of a fire in the background and the laughter of new friends sharing experiences.
10. Tell us one quirky fact about you
I would listen to music all the time if I could. Indie rock and electronica are my poison of choice.
11. What is your most memorable site to date?
Watching two male cheetah co-operatively hunt an adult male nyala at &Beyond Phinda Private Game Reserve, with one cheetah on the nyala’s back and the other under its throat, being dragged for many metres before the exhausted nyala finally succumbed.
That, and a day spent birding in the Ruhija part of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda, looking for and recording a significant number of the Albertine Rift endemic bird species.
What limits people is that they don’t have the nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it.
Begin your adventure with Bryan
Let Bryan guide you on a journey-of-a-lifetime
My photography showcase
FROZEN IN TIME
Travel with me
A SELECTION OF MY ALL-TIME FAVOURITE ITINERARIES
Grand South Africa Safari
Johannesburg | Kruger National Park | Phinda Private Game Reserve | Cape Town
Let me take you on a truly once-in-a-lifetime wildlife experience in Botswana.
Choose your ideal privately guided adventure
Journey with Bryan on one of these incredible itineraries
years