Namibia family hands on adventure

These adventures are designed to give you a chance to give something very real back to the regions you visit during your trip. Whilst still a great family holiday, on these trips, time is scheduled in (usually 2-3 days) to visit and assist with worthwhile projects, directly benefiting the local people or environment. On this trip, time is spent at a local Namibian community based tourism project, learning about the San bushmen way of life and traditions and also experiencing it yourselves.

On this trip: Namibia has an amazing cultural heritage and on this trip you will experience it personally, spending two days at a community based tourism project run by the San bushmen in the North East of the country. The San will teach you about their way of life and impart their legendary knowledge of native animals and also some of their survival skills! They will take you on walks where you can learn to track wild animals and also discover how to gather bushfood.

This trip is focused on supporting the efforts of the San to preserve their knowledge and heritage for future generations, please be aware that during your time at the camp, facilities are basic.

The Himba are another of the main ethnic groups of Namibia, and on a visit to one of their villages you will get an insight into their lives. The Himba and the San both lead traditional lives and have vast knowledge of the country and its natural resources, yet you will be able to see how distinct they are from each other.

A township tour in Swakopmund provides yet another introduction to a community in Namibia. This urban setting will probably feel far more familiar to you than the Himba and San communities, but you will discover that the townships have a history and culture of their own as well, and their residents are proud to introduce it to you.

We know these visits won’t always make a lasting impact to a project, but we hope that during your time here you will see just how valuable your support is to this worthwhile project and you will leave feeling that you have made a small, yet important, contribution back to the area through which you’ve travelled.

All of our small group adventures are designed to impact as little as possible on the regions through which we travel – this trip is no exception. We work closely with a Namibian agent who employs local guides, drivers and the Group Leader on our behalf and money from our visit reaches a wide range of people from local hoteliers and traders to restaurateurs. Our small groups have minimal impact on the environment, and our interaction throughout the trip with local people helps demonstrate the importance of preserving the region’s cultural heritage whilst protecting sites of historical and natural importance.

This trip also supports and spends time at The Africat Foundation, a conservation group involved in numerous projects. They provide animal welfare for large carnivores such as cheetah, leopard, lions and hyena including raising orphaned animals. In addition to this the Africat Foundation run research projects to better protect these animals in the wild and provide solutions for man and nature to co-exist.

By staying at Africat we are not only able to provide income for the charity but travellers can also learn about the fantastic work they do and are then able to transport this knowledge to help inform others. For more information about the Foundation and its valuable work you can go to their website at www.africat.org.

Our Responsible Travel Code: Clients who travel with us will automatically receive a copy of our Responsible Travel leaflet. This contains details and advice on how you can make a positive difference when you travel. If you would like a copy in advance of travel please contact us.

Charity Partnerships: We work in partnership with the following charities. SOS Children is the world’s largest orphan and abandoned children charity, helping some of the world’s most vulnerable children whose parents are not there for them. We also support Friends of Conservation – an international charity committed to working with local people to develop a balance between their needs and the wildlife with which they share the natural habitat and ecosystems. Other charities that we work closely with include the Born Free Foundation, an animal welfare charity working to prevent animal suffering in captivity and to protect them in the wild, the Galapagos Conservation Trust - a UK charity that raises funds and awareness for the conservation of the Galapagos Islands, and The Travel Foundation, a UK charity that has been established to promote responsible travel practises throughout the whole of the travel industry.

Carbon Balancing: Global warming is a real issue and is a direct result of your travel. We have teamed up with the Tourism Industry Carbon Offset Service to give you the opportunity to offset the carbon emissions from your flight. You’ll be asked upon booking if you want to donate to the solar stove and poverty reduction project we are supporting in South Africa – with set amounts from £4. As a company we offset the carbon emissions from all staff travel and office energy use in full.

Our Foundation: We’ve highlighted a few of the ways in which we offer our support, financially or otherwise, and now you can, too. We have set up our own foundation, which will administer funds donated by you and us. A small donation of £1 per person will be taken when booking a holiday and that money will be put to good use by one of our carefully selected projects. If you don’t want to make the donation, just tell us when you book. To encourage you to do this and to put our money where our mouth is, we’ll match every single £1 donated and this we’ll give to our charity partner, Just a Drop. This is a global charity founded by members of the international travel industry, aiming to provide clean water and sanitation where it is most badly needed. In the developing world it costs just £1 to supply water to a child for nearly 10 years, so for every single person who travels with us, we’ll give Just a Drop £1.