If coming face-to-face with elephants and giraffes is your idea of a vacation, Africa Calls.

Christina Alfieri, co-owner of Africa Calls, Ltd., said the business began when people started asking her mother, Babette Alfieri, to put together small tours to Africa.

“My mother likes working with small groups, and she had the experience in Africa,” Christina Alfieri said. “One thing led to another, and Africa Calls was born in 1989.”

Based in Santa Fe, the family owned travel company focuses on south and east African destinations.

“Every trip is unique,” Christina said. “We don’t have pre-set packages. We like matching people to places.”

The company also arranges for people to interact with a number of African cultures including the Masai and Samburu people, the Bushmen and the sand cultures.

“Many of our tours stay in thatched houses, and you really get a sense of being in the true wilderness,” she said. Depending on the destination, many tours are met by her stepfather, Phil Berry, a wildlife naturalist who has lived in Africa since 1946.

The mother/daughter team works out of a home office and arranges tours for an estimated 150 people — from individuals traveling alone to families to small special-interest groups — every year.

Christina Alfieri suggested that potential travelers plan a trip at least one year in advance to make sure everything gets “tacked down.”

Tours range in length from 14 to 21 days. The least expensive tour starts at $9,000 per person. Prices can rise to $25,000 per person, depending on what a person wants to see and do and how they want to travel. Tours can incorporate travel by luxury trains as well.

Babette Alfieri, 65, began working in the travel industry in New York in 1971. Four years later, she joined South African Airways where she worked in sales and marketing. She began traveling to Africa, and in 1980, she started working for Abercrombie and Kent, a African-tour operator.

Babette spends seven months out of every year living in a bush camp in Africa; the remainder of the year she spends in Santa Fe.

Christina Alfieri said she began traveling with her mother to Africa at a young age. As she grew older, she helped arrange tours for others. Eventually, she earned a degree in economics and business management while dividing her time between New York and Zambia. She worked for Chase Manhattan Bank and Brown Brothers Harriman in Boston for eight years.

“But I missed Africa,” she said. “Spending my two-weeks’ vacation there wasn’t enough.”

In the mid-1980s, her mother bought a home in Santa Fe. Christina Alfieri moved here in 1998.

Nan Rees, of New York, said the company has arranged at least 12 trips for her and her husband.

“My husband and I have traveled to Africa for years, and after I met Babette at a party in Santa Fe, we had her arrange our next trip,” Rees said. “She and Christina are absolutely outstanding. The service they provide from start to finish, the research they do, is just beautiful. They make planning a trip a joy.”

Rees added that, at one time, she and her husband were forced to cancel a trip. The Alfieris “went to bat” with the airlines and an insurance company to retrieve all their money.

“I cannot applaud them enough,” Rees said. “I refer everyone to them.”

Two years ago, the Alfieris arranged a trip to Zambia and Botswana for local Andrea Fisher.

“I’d been there before and loved it so much I wanted to show my two sons,” Fisher said. “Christina spent a lot of time arranging things, and when we got there, everything just magically fell into place.”

“We were gone one month,” she said. “Everywhere we went, the sights, the food, the accommodations were remarkable.”