Sustainable Travel Our Way

At Africa Adventure Consultants we strive to minimize our overall footprint on this earth. We are especially aware of the environmental challenges that the delicate ecosystems of Africa are facing, and now more than ever are taking an active role in protecting these areas for future generations. Our primary focus to help save the planet is to reduce carbon emissions. Our US office is now 100% carbon neutral and we are offsetting 50% of the carbon emissions on every safari we sell (since January 2008). With our Travel Green program, travelers have the option of offsetting the remaining 50% of their safari’s carbon emissions.

Travel certainly impacts the world environmentally, but without travel we’d miss out on opportunities to see new places, meet new people—to think and live globally. In Africa, wildlife reserves would not have the income to continue protecting wildlife, the millions of people employed in the tourism industry would be unemployed and the critical sharing of cultures would not take place. We believe travel is imperative to fostering a peaceful world.

Not only do we focus on reducing carbon emissions that our travel produces, but we always consider sustainable and earth-friendly practices when designing and planning safaris. If the safari begins with a smaller carbon footprint, there is less carbon to reduce overall. Some keys to reducing a safari’s carbon footprint include incorporating human-powered activities wherever possible: walking, hiking and canoeing or kayaking to replace vehicle powered activities. We also use lodges and camps that use solar power, locally grown produce and water recycling facilities. Africa is actually a highly sustainable tourism destination as many camps and lodges have been operating using sustainable methods for years—it was the only way to survive. In addition to sustainable practices at lodges, preserved and protected open space throughout Africa helps to create carbon sinks, and prevents deforestation and desertification. We are careful to craft safaris that make the best use of road and air transfers without back-tracking or circumnavigating wherever possible.

Our most sustainable safaris include our Tanzania Walking Safari and the Selous Walking Safari, where walking is the primary game viewing activity and means of transport, rather than vehicles; our Botswana Migration Routes leaves a small footprint and makes use of mobile camps; and our Tanzania Maasai Adventure a cultural walking tour where we leave only footprints behind and encourage authentic interactions that help preserve Maasai culture.