Surf and yoga retreat, South Africa

Planet

This multi-activity retreat has been carefully designed to minimize environmental impact and maximize benefits to local people in a meaningful way.

CARBON REDUCTION

All activities in this retreat are emissions-free (surfing, snorkelling, yoga, meditation and hiking) and in the case of the tree planting are carbon negative.

In terms of transport, there are no internal flights on this journey and total mileage is below 500km. Much of this could be cycled with or without a support vehicle and we'd be happy to provide both bicycles and support vehicle at additional cost. Unfortunately there is no public transport between the venues so a private vehicle has to be used.

Most of the accommodation providers on this journey use at least some renewable energy or are entirely off grid for water and power. All providers have made a written commitment to us in terms of their waste reduction and two are members of local nature conservancy organisations.

All food offered during this journey is locally sourced, seasonal and uses local farmers as far as possible. Vegan and vegetarian food is available throughout if requested.

ENVIRONMENT and WILDLIFE

All activities on this retreat take place on private land (except for the surfing which is at a public beach) where there are policies in place to manage alien vegetation and ensure the planting of water-wise indigenous plants. Part of this journey includes an afternoon of tree planting in areas previously overrun with alien species and cleared especially for the creation of a new forest.

Two expert wildlife guides are included on this trip: Dominic Chadbon known as The Fynbos Guy for his knowledge of that particular biome and also Edward Hart from McGregor who is an expert in mountain flora and fauna.

All accommodation, transport and activities suppliers on this journey have waste management policies in place to separate and recycle waste independently of municipal services.

People

We are a small and highly personalised private travel planning company: as such, we never build or conduct the same journey twice. Thus whilst this journey comes with an itinerary, this is entirely open to changes. We can include other activities such as ethical wildlife encounters, more or less physical activity, birding, wine tasting, ethical tours of particular areas of interest (architecture, flora, history, public art) and several other modifications. All our journeys are private and built exclusively for you.

LOCAL ECONOMY

This journey as with all our journeys makes use of only local guides who live and work in South Africa exclusively. Additionally, all the accommodation choices on this journey are locally owned (and in many cases managed by their owners) by South Africans and don't form part of international chains.

We are a registered business but we operate as a not-for-profit: this means that once our overheads have been covered for any given year, 100% of the profits for the company are donated to needy organisations that operate in our area.

We support Vrygrond Primary School, a school in the coastal town of Muizenberg that caters for children who live in some of the poorest districts of the city. The school has a particularly high success rate despite the challenges that many of the children face in their communities.

Within Vrygrond Primary School there is a division of the Life Matters Foundation – a numeracy and literacy intervention project located in several schools in Cape Town. They assess all the children in the school each year and conduct specific literacy interventions to fast-track reading ages so that children can re-enter the mainstream classrooms. We donate our time in reading to the children, training teachers and supplying books and stationary.

We support the work of Pack for a Purpose – we encourage our clients to donate some space in their luggage to bring items with them that are needed locally. If the journey is equipment specific (e.g. cycling or hiking) we ask our clients to donate boots or helmets to local development initiatives which Pack for a Purpose redistributes for us.


EMPLOYMENT, INCLUSIVITY AND DIVERSITY

This is an LGBTQ+ friendly journey.