Mali tour, Festival on the Niger

This small group tour (8-12 people) is operated by a registered company from Timbuktu. This company is owned by a dynamic young man and supports his large extended family. All accommodation costs from the hotels in the towns and cities to the guest houses and camping in villages and in the desert go directly to local establishments or families.

In the Dogon country each village gets a tax for people passing through and an additional local guide is hired. All accommodation food and water costs go directly into the community. Well managed tourism in the Dogon country has helped to preserve this fascinating culture bringing in valuable income to a people living in fine balance in a difficult environment.

By supporting the Festival On The Niger you are helping to promote the quality and diversity of Malian music to an international audience.

Company Ethos:
This company aims to dispel a few culturally inherited myths about Africa and to show you a modern, vibrant, open, safe and progressing west Africa. We ensure that your trip only has a positive impact on the communities that host you.

Too often tourism in Africa centers around the amazing wildlife and stunning scenery whilst the most vibrant, colourful and fascinating aspect of Africa - its people - pass by the window of the 4x4.

I try to reverse the focus by taking you out into some of the amazing communities I have befriended over my 20 years of traveling this vast and extraordinary continent. The landscape is merely the background to the colour, music, vibrancy and hospitality of the people of west Africa.

Throughout the trip food and water is bought en route and as locally as possible. Before your trip you will be sent my Responsible Travel guidelines, and en route you will be advised about changing cultural sensitivities. This trip minimizes waste by advising clients to follow the African example and recycle everything. You will see how a system that provides no waste disposal produces very little waste. I encourage you not to bring anything that we in the west count as disposable such as razors or wet wipes etc because in Africa they are not disposable.

My company aims to minimize its environmental impact by:

• Only flying one way for my season of tours in west Africa. For my outward journey I drive to Timbuktu – and you may too!
• I do not have an office and my only paper based marketing product is a flyer. I have no brochures and do most of my mailing by email.

I support two remote communities in west Africa, Aguelhoc in the Tuareg region of northern Mali and Esu in the Northwest province of Cameroon where I will put 10% of my company profits into educational projects. I am in the process of establishing sustainable scholarships for achieving children to remain in education. As an alternative to carbon offsetting I offer you the opportunity to support these projects and thereby support communities which will be most affected by climate change.