tanzania travel

Personalized, life-enriching travel

The annual wildebeest migration, seen on a safari in Tanzania.

What we do

At Zicasso, we are dedicated to designing personalized, life-enriching travel experiences. We bring your travel dreams to life on tours curated around your preferences.

We connect you to our top travel specialists from around the world who are most qualified to plan, personalize, and book a trip around your specific needs and interests. They design itineraries around what you want to see and do most.

How it works

  • 1

    Share your travel dreams with us

    Tell us about your ideal trip and the kind of experiences you'd like to include. We will use these initial ideas to connect you with reputable, pre-qualified specialists who are the best fit for you.
  • 2

    Our specialists design a tour just for you

    Our specialists will arrange an initial phone consultation or exchange emails with you to better understand your specific interests and vacation preferences. They will use their local expertise and your initial ideas to curate custom itinerary proposals for your consideration.
  • 3

    Customize your trip and book when ready

    Further personalize itinerary proposals with your dedicated travel specialist. After your itinerary is refined to perfection, book it through your specialist, who will then confirm all services and coordinate all logistics – including 24/7 support throughout your trip.
  • 4

    Share feedback with fellow travelers

    After your trip, we'll invite you to share a review, so you can help other travelers with your candid feedback. Only travelers who have purchased a trip through Zicasso are eligible to share their travel reviews.

Zicasso founders Yuchun Ku (COO) and Brian Tan

Our Story

Brian Tan and Yuchun Ku started Zicasso to solve their own travel challenges. As busy executives in Silicon Valley, this husband and wife team wanted to explore two new international destinations each year - but didn't have time to fully plan their vacations.

As founder and CEO, Brian leads the company with a laser focus on excellence.

He's recognized as a leader and visionary in the industry, often quoted in top travel publications and regularly speaking at shows like The New York Times Travel Show.

Brian's never-ending curiosity to learn and understand our world has taken him to more than 45 countries - from climbing the Great Wall of China to diving the Great Barrier Reef. He has a particular passion for African safaris and wilderness conservation.

Brian received his MBA and MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, as well as a BS in Electrical Engineering from Brown University.

Founder and COO Yuchun leads our team in client relations, analytics, and finance.

Yuchun's travels to over 50 countries have taken her to all corners of the planet, from the Andes to Zanzibar. Her passion for travel particularly centers around her interests in food, history, culture, and especially wildlife. She's always ready to return to Africa for another safari!

Yuchun holds an MBA from the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Architecture from UC Berkeley, and an MS in Engineering from National Taiwan University.

As our CPO (Chief Play Officer), Rico ensures that the Zicasso team maintains high productivity by taking regular walks and playing endless games of fetch.

He also provides senior management with daily coaching on how to maintain boundless energy and enthusiasm.

Rico didn't graduate from any reputable training schools (and frankly, didn't see the point given his career aspirations to become a CPO.)

Our team

The Zicasso travel team is committed to ensuring client satisfaction. From the moment you reach out with your initial ideas, to finalizing your personalized, luxury travel plans, we're here to help you every step of the way. Click here to meet the team that makes your dream trip possible.

Meet the team ›

How we select our top travel specialists

We are committed to designing exceptional, personalized travel in collaboration with our travel specialists who are among the top 10%, or indeed, the top 1% of local experts and tour operators in the world.

To ensure our tours exceed traveler expectations, we have pre-qualified and selected only the best specialists. Here's how we achieve this:

  • 1
    We personally interview each potential specialist in detail to determine their expertise and service levels. An initial interview typically lasts two hours.
  • 2
    We require that travel specialists have traveled extensively within the countries and destinations they sell, and continue to travel there every year.
  • 3
    We review examples of their customized travel itineraries in depth.
  • 4
    We continuously monitor their industry references, professional reputations, client testimonials, and more.

Our commitment to quality

In addition to the time spent vetting the experience, credentials, and capabilities of our travel specialists, we commit many hours to their training, setting quality expectations, and coaching their staff. To achieve consistent excellence, we have found that there are absolutely no shortcuts in this process!

But we don't stop at this initial vetting and training. We also monitor quality based on honest reviews from our trusted travelers. All Zicasso travelers are invited to write reviews when they return from their trips, and each travel specialist must maintain a minimum 4.25-star average rating out of 5 stars. Every review comes from a real traveler who has been on a trip with Zicasso.

Our values and community

Zicasso's community is one in which discerning travelers seek the best in quality, authenticity, and value delivered by our travel specialists. In surpassing the expectations of our travelers, our specialists receive the recognition they deserve and consequently get more business. Travelers and travel specialists come to Zicasso to help each other experience the very best in travel - from both their perspectives.

To promote and reward excellence in travel, our community is guided by the following core values:

  • We believe in open and honest communications - and no hidden agendas

  • We "do the right thing" and act with integrity and fairness

  • We respect each other's time and effort

  • We treat others the way we want to be treated

  • We are always here to help each other experience the best in travel

In the spirit of these values, Zicasso also pledges that:

  • We always operate with the highest integrity

  • We never spam

  • We never share our users' names and contact information with any third parties

  • We take your privacy protection extremely seriously

How we make money

We charge a fee to our travel specialists. However, no travel specialist can pay their way to become part of Zicasso - our vetting process independently reviews whether they are exceptional enough to join. Our travelers do not pay to use our service.

This is the same way in which eBay, Amazon, and other online marketplaces make money. Because Zicasso's travel specialists know that they are competing for your business, they strive to deliver the best tours and services for your travel dollars.

What's with the name?

The Zicasso name evolved from our desire to personalize each trip with experiences that are unique, authentic, and a million miles from mass tourism. This is a feat that we believe is beyond the capabilities of AI - an art that's best left to true travel destination specialists. Like the great artist Picasso whom we admire, "Zicasso" represents our relentless search for the unique and the original - out of zillions of possibilities.