How sustainable is your African safari or how to choose the most sustainable travel style?
African Travels is a Social Enterprise and aims to contribute to the sustainable development of Africa while you as a traveler enjoy an unforgettable beautiful trip. Your Africa trip has a positive impact on the local population, nature, wildlife and the environment without compromising on the quality of your trip. We come from Africa and aim to offer trips that are responsible. Money as a means, impact as a goal!
Toerisme is Tourism is essential for nature conservation
Tourism is still the main source of income in most of our destinations. Thanks to tourism, a lot has been achieved in the past in the field of nature conservation, education and sustainability. We consciously choose our local partners who are most committed to this, on all fronts within their company..
Which travel style is the most sustainable?
African Travels biedt verschillende reisstijlen aan om het Afrikaanse continent te verkennen: self drives, accommodatie African Travels offers different travel styles to explore the African continent: self drives, accommodation group tours, private safaris, camping group tours and fly-ins. Which travel style scores highest when it comes to positive impact?
Camping group tours
Our camping group trips are the most sustainable option because:
- You share transport with other travelers and therefore emit less CO2
- The trip is accompanied by a local driver and local guide, so no need to fly in people from overseas
- Our local partners have their head office/ residence in Africa, so most of the revenue and proceeds remain in Africa
- The food is largely purchased in local markets, it is fresh and the most sustainable option Tents leave few traces except that for sanitary facilities that need to be present. Animals generally experience little inconvenience from campsites
- Many camping trips take at least 3 weeks to 3 months. This allows you to justify the emissions of the intercontinental flight a little more as opposed to making 10 short city trips within Europe.
- The tour leader can advise you where you can buy honest souvenirs or products and excursions during the trip for fair salaries, against animal suffering, etc.
- With visits to national parks, you’ll contribute to maintenance, wildlife conservation, and local salaries
- With your trip you contribute to the education of the local population. They come to see that the protection of wildlife is essential and provides income, whereas in the past a leopard was only seen as a danger to their own livestock and would be shot.
- You overnight at small-scale camp sites owned by locals. We consciously choose this so that the income remains at the destination and does not flow away to the country of a foreign owner as is sometimes the case with the larger hotels
- For each trip booked we plant a number of trees via Trees4All in order to compensate in a small way for your CO2 emissions
Accommodated group tours
During our accommodation group tours you overnight in small-scale lodges, bed&breakfasts and locally run hotels. We work together with small-scale local sustainable partners who, like African Travels, have sustainability as their goal.
- You share transport with other travelers and therefore emit less CO2
- The trip is accompanied by a local driver and local guide, so no need to fly in people from overseas
- Our local partners have their head office/ residence in Africa, so most of the revenue and proceeds remain in Africa
- The food is largely purchased in local markets, it is fresh and the most sustainable option Tents leave few traces except that for sanitary facilities that need to be present. Animals generally experience little inconvenience from campsites
- Many group tours take at least 3 weeks to 3 months. This allows you to justify the emissions of the intercontinental flight a little more as opposed to making 10 short city trips within Europe.
- The tour leader can advise you where you can buy honest souvenirs or products and excursions during the trip for fair salaries, against animal suffering, etc.
- With visits to national parks, you’ll contribute to maintenance, wildlife conservation, and local salaries
- With your trip you contribute to the education of the local population. They come to see that the protection of wildlife is essential and provides income, whereas in the past a leopard was only seen as a danger to their own livestock and would be shot.
- You overnight at small-scale accommodations owned by locals. We consciously choose this so that the income remains at the destination and does not flow away to the country of a foreign owner as is sometimes the case with the larger hotels
- For each trip booked we plant a number of trees via Trees4All in order to compensate in a small way for your CO2 emissions
Private safari
- You will be driven by a local guide/driver and create a local salary
- You promote local development through the fact that guides need to be trained
and learn a lot about conservation and sustainability
- We work together with small-scale local partners who, like African Travels, have sustainability as their goal.
- The tour leader can advise you where you can buy honest souvenirs or life products and excursions during the trip for fair salaries, against animal suffering, etc. This promotes the local economy
- Local guides know all about conservation and the do’s and don’ts so as not to disturb the natural habitat of the wild animals
- There is hope that electric safari cars are the future. At the moment they are not yet strong enough to cover long distances off road. As soon as this is possible, we will start offering them.
- Although a private safari is tailor-made, we will include our most sustainable
- accommodations where possible
- Sustainable safari on site with local guides, use of electric safari vehicles or electric boats where possible, drinking water via refill bottles or recycling of plastic, participation in Seedball project and others, protection wildlife initiatives
- By visiting national parks you contribute to nature conservation. The revenues are used for park maintenance, conservation, wildlife conservation and local salaries.
- We carry out our self-drives in collaboration with local partners who know the accommodations and destinations even better than we do. This creates multiple local salaries and the proceeds remain within the country as opposed to when you book your trip independently via an online travel platform.
- With your trip you contribute to the education of the local population. They come to see that the protection of wildlife is essential and provides income, whereas in the past a leopard was only seen as a danger to their own livestock and would shoot it.
- You spend the night at small-scale accommodations owned by the locals. We consciously choose this so that the income remains at the destination and does not flow away to the country of a foreign owner as is sometimes the case with the larger hotels
- For each trip booked we plant a number of trees via Trees4All in order to compensate in a small way for your CO2 emissions
- We try to avoid domestic flights as much as possible, but sometimes a flight can save a lot of time. Where possible, we recommend a train ride instead of a domestic flight.
Self drive
- In our travel proposals, we include small-scale sustainable accommodations that are run by local residents or local organisations
- With a self drive you travel overland, which is always better than a fly in safari.
- Sustainable safari on site with local guides, where possible with an electric safari car or electric boat where possible, drinking water via refill bottles or recycling of plastic, use of solar energy, participation in Seedball project and others, protection wildlife initiatives
- Optional excursions (boat trips, walking tours, adrenaline activities, etc.) are booked with the most sustainable organizations available.
- By visiting national parks you contribute to nature conservation. The consveration fees and levies are used for park maintenance, conservation, wildlife conservation and local salaries
- We carry out our self-drives in collaboration with local partners who know the accommodations and destinations even better than we do. This creates multiple local salaries and the proceeds stay at the destination as much as opposed to when you book your trip independently cian an online platform
- With your trip you contribute to the education of the local population. They come to see that the protection of wildlife is essential and provides income, whereas in the past a leopard was only seen as a danger to their own livestock and would be shot.
- You overnight at small-scale accommodations owned by the locals. We consciously choose this so that the income remains at the destination and does not flow away to the country of a foreign owner as is sometimes the case with the larger hotels
- Per trip we plant a number of trees via Trees4All to do a small compensation for your CO2 emissions
- We try to avoid inland flight where possible, however, this sometimes is necessary if time is limited
Fly in safari
- Some of our destinations are so remote that the only way to get there is via air charter, or you would otherwise spend days to get there. These accommodations contribute undoubtedly to teh conservation of the destination and they play an important role in termss of flora and fauna monitoring
- The small-scale accommodations we use, are mostly built leaving a minimal footprint on the environment. Thse camps are often packed up at the end of the season and nothing gets left behind, so nature restores itself to its original state
- We collaborate with small-scale sustainable partners with whom African Travels share the goal to be as sustainable as possible
- Because these accommodations are less accessible, it contributes to keep the wildlife ‘wild’ and nature unrept.
Questions or comments? Please contact us!