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When Tim Farren headed to Zimbabwe for his first safari in 1995, he looked forward to enjoying the African experience, bagging a few animals, and learning as much as he could about a new culture.
But Farren wasn’t entirely prepared for what he found.
“The culture is so different. It’s not just the animals, because I’ve gone on several [subsequent] trips and not hunted,” he said. “The cultural experience is just mind-boggling, and you combine that with the scenery and these exotic animals that you spent your life seeing on TV, and it’s overwhelming. It’s a sensory overload.”
Farren returned to his home in Bangor with photos, memories … and a plan.
“Anybody who has ever gone to Africa will tell you, bar none, that they want to go back,” he said.
Farren was no different. But thanks to a friendship he had struck up with the safari outfitter, he also returned home with a fledgling business plan.
Scott Guthrie of Zindele Safaris told Farren he had a bit of a logistical problem. Prospective travelers from the United States and Europe were interested in traveling to Africa, but a sizeable time difference and a naturally cautious attitude made doing business difficult.
Guthrie needed a man in the states. He needed a consultant, a liaison, who could walk prospective clients through the African experience and tell them what to expect. He needed a stateside voice … a face … that would build his business.
Meet Tim Farren. The voice. The face. And the owner of Farren Global Adventures, a company that does exactly what Guthrie and others needed.
“Before he offered me [the chance] to serve as a liaison for him, I had already determined, ‘I’ve got to get back here,'” Farren said. “[Going to Africa] is something I’m going to do more than once in my life, God willing.
“So when the opportunity to do this came up, I instantly saw that, if nothing else, this was a way for me to promote my hobby-gone-wild,” he said. “[I thought] ‘This will get me back to Africa every couple or three years.'”
It has.
Since Farren Global Adventures opened in 1996, the 44-year-old Bangor native has returned to Africa seven times.
Farren Global has expanded its offerings and now works with 17 of the largest safari outfitters in Africa, covering Tanzania, Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. He also sends a few hunters to New Zealand, Scotland, and Quebec each year.
Last year, Farren Global Adventures served as the liaison on between 30 and 40 safaris for hunters, eco-hunters, and photographers. One key factor in Farren Global’s success: Tim’s wife, Valerie, has taken the reins and runs the business on a full-time basis while her husband continues to work in the financial services industry in the Bangor area.
It’s a long way from Bangor to, say, Cape Town, South Africa. But that distance – 7,684 miles – is one of the things that has made Farren Global attractive to stateside clients looking to deal with a real person, rather than swap e-mails across the globe.
“I couldn’t leave well-enough alone,” Farren said. “I just kept building it and marketing it like I would any other business. It has grown now to the point that my wife works it full time, and it’s a self-sufficient business doing very well.”
Business magazines often write stories dealing with our increasingly “global” economy. They say the world is shrinking and that technology makes nearly anything possible.
Tim Farren would likely agree. Ten years ago he and Guthrie hatched a simple plan to offer basic customer service to sporting travelers.
Now, Farren looks back and smiles. Then he looks forward at the adventures lying ahead, and his face lights up.
Global options abound
Tim Farren is a hunter. Make no mistake about it.
But he is also a businessman who realized early on that limiting himself to gun-and-bullet safaris, which he loves, would be ignoring a substantial potential market.
Farren says one of his strengths as a liaison is that he can figure out the kind of safari that suits clients best.
“Africa, people have a tendency to think of it as just one place,” Farren said. “You go ‘to Africa.’ But Africa is 57 countries. It’s not just a small place, and every place has something unique.”
While clients always have questions for Farren, the consultant always has plenty more questions for potential safari hunters.
“I can narrow down where you should go and where you shouldn’t go based, No. 1, on what your tolerance for adventure is, and No. 2, what [animals] you’re looking for,” he said.
Typically, clients will opt for a plains game safari for their first hunt. Farren is likely to send those hunters to South Africa, where they’ll find the critters they seek.
The more dangerous game – Cape buffalo, leopard, lion – are typically sought by those who’ve already gone to Africa once.
And Farren is confident that most of his clients will go back to Africa more than once.
“Probably 90 percent of our clients are repeat clients,” he said. “Africa lends itself to people going back nine, 10, 12 times. I’ve got one person who’s done 25 trips now, to Africa alone.”
And while there are plenty of different ways to hunt in Africa, and about 170 species of animal that are hunted, Farren realizes that many folks are looking for other options.
Not surprisingly, his company offers those options.
“We were getting a lot of questions right out of the gate about photo trips,” Farren said. “Most of the safari companies in Africa, they do both photo and rifle hunting. With the photo safaris, you’re riding through the same countryside, you’re staying in the same lodges.”
Another intriguing safari allows hunters to assist local fish and game officials in their research work.
Farren markets them as “Eco-Hunts,” which are essentially a form of catch-and-release hunting.
“It’s a great concept,” Farren said. “We were one of the first booking companies in the country to do this.”
The hunt works like this: Track a rhino. Shoot it with a tranquilizer dart. Wait for the rhino to fall, then take all the pictures you want after the biologists take blood samples and implant a homing chip in the rhino’s horn.
The permanent homing chip, Farren said, is implanted so that any rhino that is poached can be located by fish and game officials.
“I describe it as Lo Jack for rhinos,” he said with a chuckle.
Farren said measurements are taken and sent to a taxidermist, who builds a fiberglass mount for the hunter.
“It’s not an alien concept when you think of what people do with marlin,” Farren said. “Most marlin and sailfish you see on walls, it’s a fiberglass mold of a catch-and-release fish.”
Farren said a hunter who had been on one such hunt told him that using a tranquilizer gun made the experience even more thrilling than a rifle hunt.
“It’s actually a little bit more challenging because you’ve got to get within 30, 40 yards, and then you’ve got about a 60-second lag time before that rhino goes down,” Farren said. “You’re hoping that he doesn’t run around, charging you, before he goes to sleep.”
Farren said his company has begun offering Eco-Hunts on elephant and Cape buffalo as well.
What’s next for Farren Global?
As Farren Global Adventures continues to grow, Tim Farren keeps looking for new offerings for his client base.
A series of conversations he had with another pheasant hunter on a recent trip to South Dakota resulted in one such service.
The hunter’s last name was Shroyer. He was the son of Sonny Shroyer, who is better known as “Enos” on the “Dukes of Hazzard” TV show.
Over the course of a week, the hunter and Farren spoke of their mutual love of the African continent and the troubles that have befallen its people.
“We got talking about the AIDS plight and social problems in Africa, and we said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do something to help give back to that country?'” Farren said.
It would. And it will.
The duo decided that many clients might be interested in “celebrity hunts,” in which one actor, musician, or athlete is paired with six or eight paying hunters.
Sonny Shroyer has already offered his support, and is pitching a celebrity hunt with “Enos” on his Web site.
Farren has verbal commitments from several others, including former athletes who were once household names in New England.
The best part?
“We’re going to give 5 percent of every dollar we bring in through these trips back to the local area we’ll be hunting or taking a photo safari in,” Farren said. “That’s going to go toward orphanages, medical supplies, school supplies to help the kids in those areas.”
Farren said there’s still a sizeable group of hunters who hear the words “African safari” and assume the cost will be prohibitive.
But he says plenty of hunters spend $7,000 or $8,000 on hunting trips to New Mexico for elk, or to Saskatchewan for deer. Hunters could, he said, spend the same amount and go on the trip of a lifetime to Africa.
Farren said the outfitters he works with have world-class facilities, and the guides pay particular attention to the safety of their clients.
“They take it very seriously, because there are a lot of snakes that can kill you, spiders that can kill you, animals that can kill you,” he said. “You’re just part of the food chain, and I’m not a fast runner.”
Farren said it’s entirely possible to sit in a vehicle and watch the actors in the food chain play their parts.
And while he still loves to hunt in his native Maine, he said the Africa experience offers something Maine just can’t: Danger.
“In Maine, we don’t have a predator base,” he said. “We have coyotes and stuff, but typically speaking, deer are going to die of old age. Nothing dies of old age in Africa, for the most part.”
And as Farren Global Adventures continues to grow, Tim Farren remains amazed that the plan hatched by him and Guthrie has worked so well, so quickly.
“I never dreamed it would take off as fast as it has,” Farren said.
“Right now it’s something that my wife manages real well. She likes to be a stay-at-home mom, and it’s turned into something that gives her almost a full-time job every day, and it’s manageable,” he said. “Some day, when I retire, I’m sure I’ll do this full time. It will be a great semi-retirement type of occupation.”
With an occasional return trip to Africa tossed in, just for fun.
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