About Us

Joseph had already begun building his path. In 2005, he founded King Safari with his brother Bob. In 2008, his wife Irina joined and helped build the company further. That same year, Annette came as well, and the four of us shaped King Safari together. Through passion, hard work, and countless days in the mountains and valleys of Sinai, the company grew.

Then in 2011, the revolution came, bringing uncertainty and challenge. But we stayed. We believed in the desert, and we believed in what we were building. In 2015, the four of us also created Sababa Hotel, and in 2020, we opened Lydia Hotel — continuing to grow, always together.

By 2025, something shifted inside us. Joseph and Annette found themselves longing for something more personal again. We both deeply love the desert — being under the stars, walking through silence, watching the animals. We love all animals: cats, dogs, camels. And we began thinking carefully about how desert trips should truly be done.

Too often, camels are overloaded with water, camping gear, and heavy supplies simply to save the cost of a support vehicle. It may look romantic, but it is hard on the animals. For us, well-being comes first. On our Desert and River journeys, we always bring a backup car to carry the equipment, food, water, and camping gear. The camels carry only light blankets so guests can sit comfortably. When we travel with camels, we even bring good food for them.

And of course, we bring wonderful food for ourselves. Every night we cook something special over the open fire. We make pizza, different kinds of bread, desserts like banana split and apple crumble. We constantly invent new recipes that can be prepared in the desert. Sharing meals under the stars is part of the magic.

We visit famous places if guests wish — such as Colored Canyon and Arada Canyon — but we refuse to rush. We do not pack Colored Canyon, White Canyon in Hodra, Arada Canyon, Mushroom Stone and everything else into one hurried day with ten minutes here and five minutes there. We take our time. We look at inscriptions. We feel the silence. We sleep under the stars. We allow the desert to be experienced, not consumed.

We also talk — about Bedouin life, Egyptian daily life, traditions, history, and modern realities. Guests who spend three days with us during a two-week holiday often tell us that those three days were the most meaningful part of their entire trip. They learned more, saw more, and experienced more deeply than in all the other days combined.

In 2026, we finally created Desert and River together — a reflection of everything we believe in. Our journeys are about truth, about the birthplace of the alphabet, 5,000-year-old tombs, 12,000-year-old cave art — but also about care, time, connection, and love for this extraordinary land.

We simply give people what we have: our love for the desert, our respect for its animals, our passion for history, and the quiet magic of sleeping beneath a sky full of stars.

We operate with permits, compliance, insurance, and duty of care in place — and we plan with abundant preparation: vehicles, fuel, food, water, and contingency are always part of responsible desert work.

I did not fully understand the profession — but I understood wonder. I understood treasure. I understood the magic of uncovering stories buried by time.

My mother encouraged that dream. She gave me a book about archaeology in the Netherlands, filled with photographs of discoveries pulled from the earth. I was especially fascinated by the ancient stone tombs in the north — the Hunebedden — massive stones arranged thousands of years ago. People once believed giants had built them. In fact, they are 5,000-year-old burial chambers. They still stand in the open landscape, silent witnesses to a distant past.

History was not just something in books. It was alive.

At the same time, I discovered another passion: languages. Words came easily to me, and with them came a longing for distant places. Travel called to me. So after completing a degree in history, I made a practical but adventurous decision — I would become a translator. This was before anyone spoke about digital nomads, but I already dreamed of a life without borders. If I could translate, I could work from anywhere in the world.

And then Egypt happened

On a trip with my brother and sister-in-law, I visited Dahab. One evening, we drove into the desert. We had dinner under an endless sky. The silence was vast. The stars felt close enough to touch. Something shifted inside me that night. Two nights in the desert were not enough.

So we booked a longer trip with a local desert guide — Joseph.

We traveled deep into Sinai, to the ancient temple of Hathor at Serabit el-Khadim — a place few visitors ever see. There, in the middle of the desert, surrounded by ruins older than imagination, something extraordinary happened.

We fell in love. At the temple of Hathor, the ancient Egyptian goddess of love. It felt almost written in the stones.

When I returned to the Netherlands, my heart did not stay there. I came back to Egypt — to Joseph, to the desert, to the history hidden in the mountains of Sinai.

We discovered that we shared the same passion: a deep love for history and for the quiet power of the desert. And as we explored more, we realized something surprising — so few people truly knew the history of Sinai. Its ancient trade routes. Its temples. Its inscriptions. Its forgotten stories.

So we decided to change that.

We began researching, studying, walking the paths ourselves. We did not want to offer just desert trips. We wanted to offer journeys through time. To stand in ancient places and tell the real stories. To let people feel what we felt — that history is not dead. It is waiting.

And that is how our life together began — with love, with history, and with the desert as our witness.