South Africa Garden Route luxury vacation

Planet

By traveling in a small group, led by a local guide, we ‘tread lightly’ to minimise our impact on local resources and the environment.

We do a number of wildlife-oriented activities, such as game drives in Amakhala Game Reserve and exploring the waterfalls and forests of Tsitskamma National Park. Our trips adhere to ABTA’s industry-leading animal welfare guidelines to ensure the best possible practices with regard to working animals and wildlife viewing.

We work with our partners on the ground to proactively eliminate or reduce waste, for example eliminating all single-use plastic water bottles and instead providing refills for re-usable bottles.

Our local partners support the Save Our Sausage Trees initiative in Botswana, which aims to address the issue of depleting forests in the area. The Mokoro is a canoe used by the people of the Okavango Delta and it is crafted traditionally out of a single mature Kigelia Africana tree (or sausage tree). Although increased tourism has had some obvious benefits to the area, this has also brought a higher demand for Mokoro boats and therefore more trees are being cut down. As a wooden Mokoro only lasts about 5 years, there are hundreds of these trees being felled per year and not enough to sustain this. We have consulted with the Okovango community, and we have agreed to pay half the price of a fibreglass Mokoro if a poler wants to purchase the other half, in order to save the trees.

By favouring smaller, locally run hotels and guest houses we have a much smaller impact on the surrounding environments.

We encourage guests to try local specialities such as ostrich sausages, traditional ‘Pap’ (maize & water) and snoek fishcakes. As these foods are all sourced locally it means there will be a reduction in food miles.

People

The use of a local guide means our customers will be well informed about local traditions, and cultural and social sensitivities.

This trip brings income and opportunity to the destination community through the inclusion of locally-owned hotels, vineyards and restaurants, the emphasis on eating locally produced food and support of other local enterprise.

In Cape Town there is the option to visit a local ‘Shebeen’, which originally meant an illegal drinking den, and now refers to a legal tavern as part of township tour. Our visit here really gives an insight into the life of many South Africans that a lot of tourists don’t get to experience. Small local businesses really benefit from this type of tour as we pay for a home cooked, typically South African meal. Travelers are also able to buy souvenirs here which further supports this establishment.