Sustainable tourism is characterized by a significant group of global travelers who care about the planet, its wildlife heritage, and its naturally evolving beauty best enjoyed on life-changing and extraordinary sustainable travel experiences.
Sustainable travelers are you, me and everyone else who believes it is a privilege to enjoy breathing fresh clean air, exploring untouched wilderness areas, cooling off on hot days in clean oceans and rivers. For it is here that we find our inner sanctuary and peace of mind while adventuring into new spaces, places and distant horizons knowing that as we travel, we ‘do no harm’.
What Do Sustainable Travelers Really Want?
Sustainable travelers want to be engaged and informed. We want to reduce the impact of tourism while we travel and explore. We make a conscious difference to the wildlife and local communities we are visiting with our responsible travel activities and environmentally focused choices.
Sustainable travel tourists want to see ourselves as part of the solution to a greener world. As custodians of nature ourselves, we are responsible travelers aware of how our ‘tourist dollar’ can support and uplift environmental conservation and community development, especially in places such as Africa, one of the world’s most wildlife rich and adventure conservation adept travel destinations where guests are encouraged to become involved in activities such as rhino tracking and elephant tagging and wildlife veterinary outreach.
Conscious green travelers – of all ages – care about personally informed experiences and learning about news ways to tread lightly on our shared natural environments and conservation initiatives on the ground. We specifically pick destinations close to our hearts, including walking safaris to not only view the Big 5 but observe at first hand the Little 5 too; and discovering there is even the Big 6 and the Big 7.
As ecotourism advocates, we want authentic experiences over that of packaged tours, which just churn out the same experience’s day in and day out. We enjoy sitting in Nature and allowing immersive environments to reveal themselves to us naturally. We are thrilled to sit under the stars and marvel at immense velvety skies, seeing shooting stars and hearing the hyena start the night’s hunt with a moon-directed howl.
First prize for sustainable travelers is accessibility to remote regions under canvas on a luxury tented safari camp booked on an exclusive-use basis. Here, our private safari camp becomes our new home in a new environment where we can dive into subjects such as the first origins of man, the San cultures of the Namib Desert, ornithology, geology, entomology, photographic excursions or astrology.
Sustainable travelers want to return again and see the positive impact and progress made on projects first initiated at the safari destination so we may verify we are making a positive impact to the world on a sustainable tourism basis.
Africa’s Sustainable Safari Travel Offering
The continent of Africa is unique and vast. South Africa, from its position on the tip of the African continent is one of the most alluring countries to explore. Offering a healthy tourism industry supported by like minded and professional tourism bodies and conservation pioneers, it offers a wealth of green travel opportunities from the depth of its rich, deep valleys, mountain heights and diamond encrusted shores, offering every type of sustainable eco-destination and green travel opportunity imaginable.
Global travelers can now choose from a rich menu of incredible travel options pioneered by green travel and sustainable tourism operators who make it their life’s work to support travel conservation so as to deliver greater understanding and education of the natural world, thereby ensuring its longevity.
How to choose a Sustainable Travel Experience
Sustainable travel can be and is a luxury experience… it all depends on what 5-star luxury means to you.
Five-star experiences can be sipping champagne in your luxury penthouse hotel suite overlooking Sydney Harbor while the concierge orders a taxi to take you fine dining in the city – an experience which probably wouldn’t win a global sustainability award.
Or, it can be sipping champagne in your private luxury tented safari camp set up in the middle of pristine Big 5 wildlife territory while your butler lights your path ahead en route through untouched bushveld to an 8-course silver service dining and entertainment evening experience where there is not another soul to be seen apart from your exclusive group. An experience which continues to win sustainability awards today and which offers a once-in-a-lifetime luxury travel exploration in Nature.
Top 5 Must-Have’s When Choosing a 5-star Sustainable Travel Experience
#1
A safari lodge or tented safari camp must be specifically designed to render the least amount of damage to the environment whilst providing top levels of comfort and luxury; which means it is usually entirely built out of removable structures which leave ‘no trace’ once camp is broken down.
#2
Easy and direct travel access which does away with logistic heavy itinerary destinations which are high on the FIT travel agenda. For example, this could mean choosing a Big 5 safari experiences close to the city of Johannesburg in the all new Dinokeng Reserve; instead of the complicated travel transfers required to reach the Kruger National Park, when both reserves offers the same wildlife experience.
#3
Sustainable travel means being flexible to travel during low season – knowing that the best time to safari in Africa is in winter’s low season when the bush vegetation is scarcer and the game easier to spot and track; and without the usually high season high impact crowds in tow usually witnessed during high season.
#4
Hosts which offer low-impact nature activities that encourage sustainable travelers to explore and discover their own natural talents and conservation skills, such as safari tracking and the wildlife characteristics of the region and photographic and painting activities, which call us to explore and express our personal view of the natural world.
#5
Cultural experiences which introduce travelers to customs, rituals and traditions of communities living in the region and provide an income for local artists and performers which flows back into the local community.
As sustainable travelers blaze their own trail, we are swapping Aspen for Africa and society gatherings for individual sanctuary in faraway places for the ultimate luxury in desert camping and off-the-grid private safari experiences where you can get safely and luxuriously lost in Africa.
Come play safely and exclusively with us here in Africa. Choose your bespoke safari destination of choice at www.haywardsafaris.com
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