Impact

Go Local

Safari at home

‘Miles from nowhere – at home.’ – Will Jones

In 2021, we set up our first non-Africa operations, Go Local. Employing the same conservation-driven travel model used in our work in Africa, this sees private mobile camp-led itineraries take place in the UK and US, with a view to extending the service into Europe.

In reducing carbon footprints, reintroducing travellers to the wonders of their own backyards, and supporting local rewilding and wilderness protection projects, the aim here is to build on our ambition to make people think twice about travelling, and that when they do, to do so in the knowledge that it is for the long-term benefit of all. The significances of these wildernesses aren’t just a local issue. They’re of national and, therefore, global importance.

In the US, this means partnering with one of the country’s finest adventure guides to include a range of high-impact journeys, from rafting the Selway River in Idaho to mountain biking the White Rim trail in Utah to fishing and surfing Alaska’s waters. Responsibly sourced, each is designed to explore and support some of the US’s most extraordinary wildernesses.

In the UK, it means working closely with excellent off-grid private mobile camp specialists to explore the wilds of the British Isles, each expedition stitched together by great knowhow, a wonderful set of activities, and the occasional stay in fixed accommodation dedicated to the cause.

Reducing footprints

We believe travel should be a life-changing experience, not a consumer good. We possess a relatively lean carbon footprint, have a five-year plan to become carbon neutral by 2025, and practice a form of conservation-driven travel specifically designed to support at-risk ecosystems in Africa. Catalyst and support for long term sustainable development, that travel – low volume, high impact – changes lives for the better. It’s necessary.

Even so, we have until now been an exclusively long-haul travel business. We’re well aware that until the aviation sector is able to develop and commercialise more sustainable fuels at scale, the options for the conscientious traveller is either to decide not to travel – long or short haul – or to do so in the knowledge that the negative impact of that travel is being offset. To this point, Wild Philanthropy has developed a Safari Carbon Calculator, a tool designed to measure the emissions of individual safaris. While an important stopgap, carbon offsetting can only be regarded as a bridge to more sustainable options.

1812 was a job for Prana for their 2018 Fall Catalogue, website, and social launch. Refer to licensing doc for usage rights etc. Locations are centered around Anchorage, with trips to the Ruth Glacier Hut, Tidal Bore and Bear Glacier, other locations TBD. TALENT: NOLE COSSART, CHRISTIAN RAMIREZ, ANNA ERHGOTT, TAIANA GIEFER PHOTOGRAPHER: CHRIS BURKARD FIRST ASSISTANT: RYAN HILL ASSISTANT: RYAN VALASEK VIDEO: BEN WEILAND

Going local

Travelling less does not mean not travelling. While a total disaster for the business of travel, Covid-19 has forced us all to look much closer to home for the kinds of experiences we’re used to expecting of the far flung. As well as offering a form of low carbon emission travel, the opportunity to go local comes at a time when rewilding and wilderness-protection projects throughout the UK, across Europe, and in the US are such that we are on the cusp of entering a new climate-change-driven age of local wild travel. Whether homegrown or borrowing from models perfected in the likes of eastern and southern Africa, this is the sort of travel that is wildly adventurous, that contributes significantly to the local communities that are – in one way or another – its hosts, and that opens our eyes to the natural world, to the relative fragility of its beauty, and to the part we can all play in its protection.

Our aim, therefore, is to give travellers the chance to visit the extraordinary wildernesses in their own backyards – responsibly, adventurously, and in a style befitting what it means to safari the very wild. A complement to the rarer trips taken to Africa, they’re as expertly sourced, expertly designed, and expertly guided. If going local’s you, please do get in touch. We’d love to take you miles from nowhere – at home.

For more on our Donor Traveller programme, Declaring a Climate Emergency, Wild Philanthropy, the Safari Carbon Calculator, and our Five-Year Plan, please see below. Any questions, do get in touch with either Will Jones or Paul Herbertson.

Reducing footprints

Going local

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