The web
Top five picks for community-based tourism accommodation in sub-equatorial Africa
Nothing beats the experience of staying with locals and supporting their local communities. The WHL Group puts forward here five of its favourite community-based accommodation initiatives in Africa. Liziwes Bed & Breakfast in Cape Town, South Africa As a long but growing list of travellers has already discovered, little rivals the cultural experience of staying […]
Local life with the Odula family on Rusinga Island, Kenya
Fed up with the endless grey and drizzle of a London winter and the monotony of my office job, I decided it was time to finally make my African dream a reality. For some time, I had been entertaining thoughts of roaming the Kenyan savannah on a big-game safari, but I was also keen to […]
Travel like a local
The local travel movement is one of the newest sustainable travel sub-categories to surface. Local travel has the same set of values as sustainable travel. Local travel aims to respect and positively impact the local people, culture, environment, and economy. According to the Local Travel Movement website, this movement “was started by a coalition of […]
A world of misguided tourism campaigns
Blamed for “casting Australia as a nation of tone-deaf people and drawing on dowdy 50-year-old stereotypes“, the latest Tourism Australia campaign hasn’t gone down well on home shores since launching earlier this week. You can watch ‘There’s Nothing like Australia‘ here, but be warned: jabbing yourself in the ears with hot barbecue tongs would bring […]
Going local in Marrakech, Morocco
My passion for Morocco came to me over 10 years ago during a trip in the south of the country. Since then I have been back many times, but the short visits ended one cold, wet, December afternoon in London when I received a call from a new contact asking me to spend a week […]
Want to travel locally? Walk!
One reason that I’ve walked over 6,650 kilometers around the Mediterranean Sea is to connect with local communities and be exposed to new people, places, cultures, cuisine, ideas and socio-political idiosyncrasies. Though I hope to circumnavigate the entire sea within twenty years, which is the amount of time it took Odysseus to return to Ithaca […]
Travel like a local in Budapest
Local Travel. The idea is not new and there have always been travellers who roamed the globe with the desire to learn cultures, lifestyles and society from inside, but the concept of local travel is just beginning to take shape. Thus, new movements are beggining to emerge around the idea, which is basically to contact […]
The travel industry’s dilemma
Bridging the gap between independent and organized group travel An age-old conflict exists between travelers who prefer to strike out on their own – independents – and those who prefer to join organized tours – groupies. Independents refuse to part with their sense of self-driven freedom and adventure. The spontaneity of flying solo with a […]