Can travel pave the way to happiness?
Fancy cooking with a Peruvian family at great altitude, tracking zebra herds as they migrate, or being a marine biologist for ten days? These are the most unique travel experiences.
While it’s not a new idea to travel mindfully, some tours help us to make meaningful contributions to science, conservation efforts and local communities and see the world in a new light. In the process, your travels can feel more fulfilling and instill a sense of achievement; of doing good. Read on for inspiration.
Helping hands
Feel less guilty about the chores you’re not getting around to at home by putting your back into projects for those less fortunate. Since 2015, World Expeditions has been working with the Peruvian community of Huilloc to install cookstoves for 200 families. The traditional wood-burning cookers are not flued and fill the confined kitchens with thick smoke, a daily health hazard that mostly affects women and children.
In 2015, Donna Lawrence, sustainable tourism manager with World Expeditions, went for one of the first installations of cookstoves with chimneys. “People are looking for that deeper involvement, and when these types of projects are managed well they’re beneficial for the community and the traveller,” says Lawrence.
World Expeditions works with a Peruvian manufacturer of cookstove kits that retain a lot of the traditional features, plus have a chimney. The family receiving a stove gets involved, dismantling the old cooker and making the adobe bricks needed to install the new one. When the tourists turn up, they all work alongside a trained installer. “It’s a combined effort over two days,” says Lawrence, who stresses that upskilling local tradespeople is an important part of the project. “The family helped us and we got to know them – it’s an authentic immersion into Quechua culture and a beautiful add-on to any trek in the Andes.” So far, 65 new cookstoves have been installed, and since this year, World Expeditions has been sending funds for installations outside of tours. “We can see the impact it’s having so we wanted to speed it up. This is one of our three Regenerative Travel projects – we fundraise from small donations when people round up the cost of their trip.”
Citizen scientists
Wannabe marine biologists can kick their fins on an expedition cruise. Coral Expeditions will run its third Citizen Science cruise in March 2024. “These cruises allow people to effectively be marine biologists for 10 days,” says Dr Dean Miller, scientist and co-founder of not-for-profit Great Barrier Reef Legacy. “We did everything from reef-health surveys all the way to beach clean-ups,” he says of the first sailing in 2021.
Guests are guided to help researchers on a variety of species surveys. On Miller’s voyage, they were able to watch him collect coral for the Forever Reef Project, Australia’s only living coral biobank. “It’s a coral ark; an insurance policy given all the impacts on the reef, most notably climate change,” says Miller. The coral biobank is housed in the Cairns Aquarium, with tours available.
Miller was impressed with how cruise guests volunteered to dive in. “When you see people picking up rubbish off beaches on their holidays, that’s the true definition of eco-tourism,” he says. “In Australia we’ve really opened our arms to the idea that we should leave a place better than we found it, which is what these citizen-science expeditions are doing.”
Separately, Miller guides annual dwarf minke whale cruises where guests take photos and fill in whale-behaviour diaries for the Minke Whale Project – and swim with them. “We’re not offering the whales anything but our company and they seek you out to play with you – it’s really cool.”
Wildlife protectors
In return for this guaranteed income, the community has taken down fences that previously led to a decline in wildlife along part of the great migration route for wildebeest and zebra herds. The Maasai retain their traditional pastoral practices by grazing cattle in rotation, out of sight of tourists. “It has turned land that was fenced into small areas, where wildlife couldn’t move through, into more than 420,000ha of land in the Maasai Mara, and wildlife has flooded back,” says Francis.
“Guests are guided by a Maasai, on their land. They’ve grown up with the wildlife; they’re fabulous trackers. They tell you not only about the animals but how they relate to them through their culture. As well as it being an enriching experience, guests know that the land they’re on would not be full of wildlife that’s flourishing without them visiting, because some money from every booking is used to pay the lease fee to the community who removed the fences.”
Responsible Travel’s Trip for a Trip program is a feel-good bonus: tourists who book with the company fund a day trip for a disadvantaged child.
Embracing nature
Flora fanciers can help preserve precious nature trails by joining a seed-collecting walk. Tasmanian Walking Company partners with the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens to collect seeds from rare and endangered species for the state’s seed collection centre. The next seed walk is to Bruny Island in January, when seed-collection centre manager James Wood will guide participants to collect seeds found on the track. They also help him clean and store the ones he carefully gathers off-track. To date, 324,027 viable seeds have been gathered on these walks in line with seedbank needs. Specific targets on the January walk include rare orchids and the threatened endemic perennial Euphrasia fragosa, or shy eyebright.
In April, ecologist Danah Leary will lead the company’s Cradle Mountain Autumn Botany Walk. “I love seeing guests’ relationship with the environment change during the six days on the Overland Track,” says Leary. “The dramatically varying beauty of the alpine and sub-alpine environments, which switch to ancient Gondwana forests, buttongrass moorlands, to dry sclerophyll eucalypt woodlands dotted by tarns,” she says, referring to the mountain lakes. “It’s awe-inspiring.”
The six-day botany walk “is full of evolutionary history surrounding ancient and fascinating plants along the hike”, says Leary, who’s also an artist and invites guests to join her in botanical drawing. “I bring all the materials and we draw in the evening in the huts – like a sip and draw,” she says. “Last time, we had perfect weather and I carried all the materials down to a waterfall and we spent an hour drawing. There were some very talented people.”
Bringing history to life
Gaining a deeper understanding of a historic site such as Machu Picchu can prevent it from becoming simply an experience to tick off a list. “I’ve travelled a lot to South America, and people have accused me of demystifying Machu Picchu,” says Dr Chris Carter, an archaeologist and guide with Academy Travel. “You have to go there, but if you see it the right way you realise it’s one of a big collection of sites.”
Next year, Carter will lead a tour to Turkey by land and sea. “You’ve got to see Ephesus, but it’s been rebuilt and it can be quite busy,” he says. “I try to paint the landscape, not just of the building in the middle of it. There’s a lot that comes before and after; it’s not an isolate.” He takes guests to explore a smaller area in depth, rather than seeing a little bit of a lot. “We’ll be following the old maritime route, and back then Ephesus was a port – today it’s miles inland,” he says.
“I want to show what archaeologists see when we first go into a landscape – not just the stuff that’s been tidied up, but the raw evidence,” he explains. After 20 years of hosting tours, he has gained the trust of families in remote places such as at Lydae and Arymaxa. These locals have built small tourism businesses based around ruins on their land, and the sites are now more popular than when Carter first came through. “The other day we found a tomb. We have found a number of sites that were not yet on the record – little sites but really interesting. If you want to go beyond the obvious, there’s so much to discover. One guest said to me, ‘I’ve always liked looking at things – now I can actually see them’.”
Walking in two worlds
It’s been a tumultuous year for Australia’s First Nations peoples, who continue to reach out to those wanting to learn about their culture. Indigenous-owned Welcome to Country is a great starting place to find a range of experiences and operators, from guided art-gallery tours and whale-watching walks to multiday immersions.
Last year, Katie McLeish, the non-Indigenous chief operating officer of Welcome to Country independently booked the three-night Wukalina Walk in Lutruwita, Tasmania, owned and operated by Palawa people. “I liked the idea of experiencing culture on country with First Nations guides, and combining it with exercise,” says McLeish. “Our guide Cory was with us throughout, and along the way other First Nations people came and went and shared their stories.”
Accommodation for the first two nights is in a camp with culturally inspired sleeping huts and a large domed communal area. “The camp is spectacular. We were met with a glass of sparkling wine and the food was amazing – abalone and wallaby lasagne, and we got to try mutton-bird because it was the season,” says McLeish. “All the way, we were learning about bush tucker, plants, animals and stories from the ocean. You switch between the delight of being on country in an amazing natural environment to engaging with history that is often confronting. Because of the context, you can absorb it, and that’s a really precious thing.”
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