Southern Africa small group tour

Environment

Travel is an opportunity to experience different cultures, meet new people, taste weird and wonderful foods and – for many – get close to wildlife you may have only seen in books or David Attenborough documentaries. This trip offers travellers the opportunity to view wildlife in their natural habitat in the Etosha National Park, Cape Gannet Island, Okavango Delta and many other spectacular places. While wildlife viewing is a big part of many of our itineraries, we strive to only view animals in their natural habitats and to do so with the greatest level of respect.

Unfortunately, at Victoria Falls there are many businesses offering an optional 'walk with the lions' experience. We ask all travellers to steer clear of this activity as it’s contrary to our responsible travel policy. The lion walking industry directly contributes to the captive breeding and canned hunting of lions.
In an effort to reduce single use plastic during this trip we provide reusable cloth bags to all of our travellers. It’s easy to use plastic excessively, especially in the hot months. However, we encourage our travellers to buy large 5-10 litre bottles to refill their small water bottle.

Namibia has suffered a succession of droughts over the past 40 years and has faced serious challenges providing water for its citizens. Water is therefore a precious commodity. Cape Town, where this trip starts has been facing equally challenging water shortages recently. Our trained tour leaders are well versed in advising travellers on initiatives to manage water consumption. We encourage travellers to treat this scarce resource with the utmost respect. We encourage our travellers to take short showers, never leave the tap water running unnecessarily, and to plan laundry days carefully.

Unfortunately on the vast majority of this itinerary, using local transport is not reliable or feasible. So we use private, locally owned transport. We ensure our vehicles/fleets are well maintained and fuel-efficient. We also endeavour to include a range of other local transport options such as Canoe where possible.

This trip is run by our own local Southern Africa operator who shares our commitment to responsible travel, from waste and water management to ensuring we are leaving as minimal a footprint as possible. Our local team are trained on our global responsible travel policies and practices. We also use a range of other local suppliers for different activities throughout this 4 country itinerary.

Community

An important part of travel is mixing with the locals and experiencing “real life” in destination. On this trip we stay only in locally owned hotels or guesthouses that are locally staffed, enabling the money you spend to stay within that community. We source local activities which we believe are sustainable to the economy in that they allow the flow of income from visitors to be distributed to a greater audience rather than remain concentrated with tourism providers, this could be as simple as a meal in a small local restaurant, a home-cooked meal, or staying in a small, boutique hotel.

Our philosophy is to act local and that means respecting the local traditions and ensuring both men and women are conservatively dressed with legs and arms covered when entering villages and other small communities. We also take care to form genuine and mutually beneficial relationships with local people. An excellent example is the guided walks at the Petrified forest, the Twyfelfontein site and the villages of the Hambukushu and Xwe Bushmen.

We have a Foundation which was set up to empower travellers to have a positive impact on the communities they visit. Our Foundation now supports over 50 local, grassroots projects around the world. Over the past 15 years, The Foundation has distributed over AU $5 million to projects tackling areas such as sustainable development, human rights, child protection, environmental conservation, wildlife protection, education and healthcare.