A kosher safari you can check before you pay a deposit.
ERETZ trips are certified by the Beth Din of South Africa. Not one rabbi, an institution — and not a single certificate on a wall, but a separate written teudah issued for each individual departure. The mashgiach is appointed from the beis din's own roster of approved mashgichim, and he lands several days before the group.
[Request a quote] · [Speak to the mashgiach before you book]
Five things you can verify.
1. A named authority. The Beth Din of South Africa. An official institution, not a private hashgacha. ERETZ pays the beis din directly.
2. A teudah per trip. A general certificate for the operation, plus a separate written teudah issued for the specific trip you are joining.
3. The mashgiach comes off their list, not ours. Appointed from the beis din's approved roster, an official supplier of theirs. A different mashgiach each time. He arrives several days before the group and kashers the kitchens that need kashering.
4. A mashgiach flies out on every departure. The kitchen itself runs either with a chef who travels with the group or with a certified caterer, decided per trip. Kosher meat is flown in, usually from South Africa. Outside South Africa, the food is flown out too.
5. Minyan guaranteed. Five-star hotels. Shabbos lunch hot, on a plata.
The problem we exist for
Frum families have been quietly lowering their expectations for years.
You have heard the stories, or you have lived one. The tuna and the crackers by day four. The Shabbos seudah that came out of the fridge because nobody thought about a plata. The program that said there would be a minyan and meant it would depend on who signed up. The family that discovered what "kosher-friendly" meant while standing at a buffet, three thousand miles from home, with four children waiting.
None of that is because kosher travel is impossible. It is because most of it is sold on adjectives. "Internationally recognised supervision." "The highest standards." "Mehadrin throughout." Read those sentences again and notice that not one of them names anybody, commits to anything, or can be checked.
ERETZ was founded out of real frustration with exactly that, and to change both the standard and the stigma attached to kosher tours.
So this website does something the category does not. It names the beis din. It states the price floor. It tells you what does not work. Ask us for the teudah and we will send it to you.
[Send me the teudah]
How the kashrus actually works
The authority is the Beth Din of South Africa. An established institution with a standing rabbinical court, not one rav operating on his own reputation. We pay the beis din directly for the certification. That is a deliberate structure: the supervision does not depend on a favour, a friendship, or a rav who happens to be travelling with us.
There are two certificates, and the second one is the point. A general written teudah covers the operation. Then, for each individual trip, the beis din issues a separate teudah for that departure. A certificate that covers "the company" is not the same thing as a certificate that covers your dates.
The mashgiach is theirs, not ours. Appointed from the beis din's own roster of approved mashgichim, and an official supplier to them. A different mashgiach each time. Paid by us and answerable to them.
He arrives before you do. Several days before the group lands, the mashgiach is already on site.
Kashering, precisely. In Tanzania the kitchens are always kashered. There is no local kosher infrastructure to rely on, so the work is done from scratch, every trip. In South Africa the kitchens are often already kosher, run by establishments that work with the Beth Din — where a kitchen is already certified there is nothing to kasher, and where it is not, we kasher it.
The kitchen is run by us, and it varies by trip. Some trips run with a chef who travels with the group; others with a certified caterer. Which one it is, is decided per trip and we tell you which before you book. What does not vary is the supervision. Kosher meat is flown in, usually sourced from South Africa. When the destination is outside South Africa, the food is flown out with us. Chalav Yisroel is available — tell us at booking and it is arranged.
Hotel Shabbos mechanics are handled, not hoped for. Key cards, motion sensors and elevators vary by property. We arrange them with the hotel in advance rather than discovering the problem on Friday afternoon.
And here is the offer that makes the rest of it real. If the kashrus is what you are weighing, tell us in the first conversation and we will put you on the phone with the mashgiach for your trip, or with the rav at the beis din, before you commit to anything.
We describe arrangements here, not psak. On your own shailos, your rav decides.
[Arrange a call with the mashgiach]
Shabbos
Everything else on the trip is a matter of taste. Shabbos is the reason most families call us.
In South Africa, Shabbos is in Cape Town, inside the city's communal eruv. On the Tanzania and Zanzibar trips, Shabbos is in Zanzibar, where there is no communal eruv, so we put one up by hand before the group arrives.
The whole group is together. Not split across restaurants and floors. One place, one seudah, everyone at the table.
There is a minyan. There is always a minyan, on every trip, and it is guaranteed rather than dependent on how many men happen to have booked.
Lunch is hot. There is a plata. It sounds like a small thing to write on a website, and it is the single most common thing families tell us went wrong somewhere else.
The tradeoff, said plainly: there are no game drives from Friday afternoon until Motzaei Shabbos. On a safari itinerary that is real time out of the bush, and we build the week knowing it.
Where we go
South Africa — Safari and the Cape, with Shabbos in Cape Town inside the communal eruv. [South Africa]
Tanzania and Zanzibar — Safari in Tanzania, then Zanzibar for Shabbos on the coast. Because the destination is outside South Africa, the food flies out with us and the eruv goes up by hand. [Tanzania and Zanzibar]
Being built now: Madagascar, Fiji, the Seychelles, Lapland and Norway. Northern lights, winter safari, and tours in Israel. For each one, the first question we work out is not the itinerary. It is where Shabbos should be.
Who this is for, and who it is not for
This is for you if: you keep glatt at home and have no intention of keeping less on vacation · you want to know the name of the authority and intend to ask for the paperwork · you want Shabbos to feel like Shabbos, with the whole group together · you are comfortable in a small group of around twenty, or you would rather have a private trip, which is available at any destination · you are comfortable with our pricing standard, published in full below.
This is not for you if: you are choosing on price · you want the itinerary to keep moving on Shabbos · you want a number on a website instead of a conversation.
And about young children, honestly. Some departures suit children and some do not, and we will tell you which before you book. A departure built for families is a different trip: we change the hotels and rework the route — fewer changes of base, more nights in one place, a pool rather than a view, shorter and more frequent game drives. A departure that is not built for families is exactly what it sounds like.
[Tell us your children's ages]
What it costs
We do not run a trip below $6,000 per person. That is the standard, not a price tag, and it is the price of the trip — flights are arranged separately. We publish it so you can decide in thirty seconds whether to keep reading.
Every departure flies out a mashgiach, and the kitchen runs with either a travelling chef or a certified caterer. The mashgiach arrives several days early and kashers the kitchens that need it. Kosher meat is flown in, and outside South Africa the food is flown out too. The hotels are five star. Around twenty travellers carry all of that between them.
Above the floor, price depends on destination, dates, group size and room occupancy. Those four variables move the number enough that a published price list would be a fiction, so we quote instead.
On cancellation: you can move the balance to another ERETZ trip or take a refund, depending on how much time has passed since purchase. The exact windows are written into your booking agreement, before you pay anything.
[See how pricing works] · [Request a quote]
The founders
ERETZ is run by Michal and Ofek, a married couple who spent three years living across Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Greece and Georgia, keeping kosher the entire time, and were married in Koh Samui with a rav. They built ERETZ so that a frum family could go where everybody else goes, without negotiating with their own standards to get there.
[About Michal and Ofek]
Ask us the hard questions first.
Most families who book with us start by trying to find the hole in this page. That is the right instinct. Send us the questions your rav would ask. Ask for the teudah for your dates. Ask to speak to the mashgiach, or to the rav at the beis din, or to a family who has already travelled with us.
[Send this to Michal and Ofek]
What happens after you send it. You get one email straight away with the general teudah attached. Then Michal or Ofek replies personally — not a sequence. The first conversation is about which departures fit your family and which do not. Only after that do we build a quote.