Some holidays itineraries read like this: “Day one – snorkelling, Day 2 – kayaking, Day 3 waterskiing, Day 4 – museum, Day 5 – camel ride, Day 6 – indigenous village trip”. More often than not, visiting the local people is thrown in on the end of an itinerary like a last minute thought. Personally, I am wary of companies which offer such trips at the end of the holiday, as if the local people are just attractions, like the ‘song and dance’ number at the end of a show.
There is nothing showy about The Adventure Company, however, and its leading responsible tourism provider status has been recognised by many awards. Each trip they offer supports a specific project or charity, which you can either visit while you are there, or donate to on your return. They have set up their own charitable foundation for this purpose, and support small independent projects which would not otherwise get international funding. Most of their family holidays encourage children to mix with local children, through a school visit or a meal in a local family’s home. Indeed, their mission is to invest in education, not only by supporting schools abroad, but by educating their clients at the same time.
They have just taken things one step further by offering ‘hands on’ holidays in 2009. These offer travellers opportunities to not only go on extraordinary adventures in exquisite destinations, but to also get involved in worthwhile local projects while they are there. On a family trip to Namibia, for example, you and your children will climb some of the highest sand dunes in the world, and also stay in a community-based tourism project run by Namibia’s San people. Still struggling to hold onto their traditional hunter gatherer lifestyle, they are keen to share their culture with visitors, and will teach you the skills of tracking wild animals and gathering bushfood.
There is plenty of wildlife viewing on these holidays too of course but, in keeping with their stringent educational and ethical policy, it is usually done hand in hand with a conservation project. On the Namibia trip, you can watch the big cats the country is famous for from the base of the country’s largest conservation charity, The Africat Foundation, where you also camp for a night. Similarly on their trip to the beaches of Costa Rica’s Tortuguero National Park, the green turtle’s nesting ground (as well as the much rarer loggerhead, giant leatherback and hawksbill turtles), you spend two days working with a turtle conservation group. What better way to immerse yourself among the region’s precious natural heritage than by assisting biologists and research assistants as they patrol the beaches in search of endangered species, protecting their nests, and collecting research data?
Because the company is so hands on with the communities it works with, the type of activity you can do will always be changing, depending on what is happening in the destination at the time of your visit, and where help is required. If you are helping at a school, for example, one month they might ask you to teach, and another you might have to fix the roof.
These holidays are not cheap, as many are to far-off destinations, and require a lot of careful management in order to maintain a good ethical status. But if real jungles and real people are more your thing than the Disney version, your family trip of a lifetime won’t cost you a lot more than the full works in Orlando. But the memories, experience and inspiration, will, almost undoubtedly, be priceless. See www.adventurecompany.co.uk for details.
(This article was first published in The Irish Times, 1 November 2008)