Native American tipis tours

Tucked away within a national environment of consumer capitalism, traditional Native America clings to old values; respect for the environment; careful use of the earth’s resources and understanding of the important place of ceremony within native society and communities…not as a recreational activity for interested visitors. By joining one of our journeys you are endorsing and supporting the values traditional tribal elders want to pass to the generations to come. Part of your tour fee will be put to projects which preserve cultural heritage and you will see the tangible results in our indigenous cultural preservation products and schemes which help the spread of ‘Native Pride’.

We offer financial and practical help to the Cheyenne Children Services – a non-profit organization that offers hope and practical support to children living in the worst of conditions of poverty on the reservation. Wherever possible we include visits to CCS within trip itineraries and many tour members create lasting relationships with the traditional Cheyenne Nation through the CCS child sponsorship program.

All of our local tribal representatives are respected members of the indigenous community and represent a broad cultural and professional spectrum: from spiritual and ceremonial leaders, to traditional chiefs and headsmen, to educators, TV documentarians, world-renowned artists, award-winning journalists, award-winning musicians, and movie advisors. Each is connected to the "grassroots" Native community, and many are descendants of legendary men and women whose names and deeds resonate through history to the present day.

All tour members can feel secure that they will be guided culturally as well as geographically on all of our journeys. Our website is rich with information for first-time visitors to Native America, and our Responsible Tourism Policy is clearly posted (both of which visitors can read or download) and all information and concepts are further promoted by guides throughout the tour including cultural appropriation (and how to avoid it), tribal etiquette and relationships, our ways of applying traditional principles to modern life, our Recycling policy, our Green Office policy, our Paper Policy “Want it not? We’ll waste it not!“, the “Leave No Trace” campaign, carbon offsetting with our partner NativeEnergy, the native-owned company which recently arranged the offsetting for Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, and supports reservation wind energy projects.

100% of your tour fee stays in the locale of your journey, with our company using tribal services as a first choice, and independent service where there are no tribal options. If you are staying at the tipi ranch, you are in the heart of the reservation where there are no hotel options within a 50 minute drive. We eat food prepared by local people rather than in chains and this offer you the unique opportunity to experience both American fare and traditional and contemporary Native American foods or meals in a culturally appropriate environment.

We ask tour members, please take advice from your guides before you buy Native American jewelry and Art since the market is overwhelmed by mass-produced fakes from sweatshops in the Orient, Mexico and many other areas. This erosion of one of the few economic lifelines for many Native Americans is an insidious threat to their very survival, and so on most of our journeys we facilitate opportunities for you to buy direct from the artists. We are members of the strictly governed watchdog body AICA -American Indian Crafts Association, and strongly recommend that if you are not buying art direct, that you buy from members of this excellent organization.

We ask tour members to be aware of the water situation here, and use water thoughtfully. The western states of the US have been on drought warnings for about six summers now and native farmers have been badly hit since few can afford to buy in hay for their animals at the presently much-inflated prices; consequently many have had to sell their livestock at rock bottom prices. For example, traditional Navajos who raised sheep for the wool for weaving are suffering, as are many Cheyennes who are not able to feed their horses. We offer suggestions on how tour members can help conserve resources in many small ways.

We keep our groups sizes to a minimum on every journey we do – we believe small is beautiful and that while up to 10 people coming to a local community is a group of visitors, with many more than that you unavoidably morph into tourists. We pride ourselves on never taking tourists! Trips like ours depend on relationships of trust and sincerity and personal contact is integral to the whole experience.