Who we are
Southern African 4x4 hire with heart
Hi! We’re Matt and Leah — the husband and wife team behind Zulazula. We’ve spent years packing our trusty Ford Ranger (aka: Range Range) with our ever-expanding camping gear and heading out into the bush.
Zulazula 4x4 was born out of a passion for exploring the far reaches of Southern Africa and the limitations of a 9-5 job. How can we create the time needed for big overland trips without sacrificing our careers? We take our office on the road.
We’ve climbed mountains for a bar of signal, traded fuel for wifi, and said too many times, “Sorry, my internet cut out” as yet another meeting was interrupted by dodgy signal or 3-day campsite power failure.
Zulazula is our answer to the challenges of truly remote working.
We’ve done the hard miles so that you don’t have to. We know exactly what you need to explore far-flung areas, whether it be for a couple of days or a couple of months. And better yet? We know how you can do it while working.
What we believe in
Freedom for exploration
We have a knee-jerk, instant-nausea reaction to anything that slightly resembles ‘organised fun.’
We love to travel without restraints, searching for the hidden nooks far away from everything. For us, that’s almost always meant having our own wheels — whether it be a 4x4 in Southern Africa, a Tuk Tuk in Sri Lanka, motorbikes in Vietnam, a bicycle in the UK, or our own two feet all over the world.
It also means having a home we can plop down wherever we like, so of course camping is always our preferred abode.
Zulazula is born out of a desire to wander, and to do so at your own pace, wherever the road takes you with as little restriction as possible.
Ethical travel
We have a deep respect and love for wildlife and our natural environment. We’re spoiled to live in Cape Town and to have explored many of Southern Africa’s phenomenal national parks and natural areas of beauty.
We’re also acutely aware of the struggles that local communities face in South Africa and across our borders and believe that tourism can work to empower locals, if done ethically.
It must be stressed, we are not experts on conservation or communities. But we are willing students, and we hope to share the knowledge we gain along the way with all of you.
Comfortable discomfort
You know the cliche, ‘life starts outside of your comfort zone.’ We’re not here to tout more of that, but we do think that there’s a very sweet balance between a little bit of discomfort and a whole lot of peace.
Everything takes a little longer, is a little more work when you’re camping. A simple coffee is a 12-step process, dinner is a back-to-the-roots cave man mission. But oh how sweet to slow down. To give up autopilot living in favour of decisive, deliberate action.
That being said, there’s really no need to sleep on the dusty floor, eat out of rusty tins and drink warm beers.
No, no. We believe in cold beers after a camp set up. We believe in soft beds after a hard day on the trail. We believe in romanticising our lives, especially when they’ve been reduced to the most simple pleasures.
