Cultural Safari Experiences

Overview

Every park in East Africa has neighbours: farmers, fishermen, herders, forest communities. A cultural safari makes time for them. You walk through a village with someone who lives there, share a meal, hear the stories behind a place, and leave with a fuller picture of the country than a game drive can give.

These visits can be a trip in themselves or an afternoon inside a wildlife itinerary. Either way, we work with hosts we know, and the visit is arranged with them, not around them.

What you can do

• Village walks and homestead visits. In Mubaku, on the edge of Murchison Falls National Park, residents show you their farms, their homes and how they live alongside elephants and other wildlife.
• Music, dance and storytelling. From welcome dances in Uganda to the Gorilla Guardians cultural village near Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda.
• The Batwa experience. Near Bwindi, Batwa guides share the forest knowledge of a people who lived there long before it became a park.
• Coffee and food. Follow coffee from bush to cup in the highlands of West Nile, or cook a local meal over an open fire.
• Maasai village visits. In Kenya, alongside game drives in Amboseli and the Masai Mara.
• Journeys on foot and by bicycle. The Blue Nile Trails cross West Nile through villages, sacred hills and river country that few visitors reach.

Who it suits

Travellers who are as curious about people as about animals; families who want children to meet other children; returning visitors who have done the classic parks; and study or interest groups. Most visits involve gentle walking and suit all ages.

Visiting well

A good visit is a fair exchange. We arrange each visit with the community beforehand, and ask guests to follow a few simple courtesies:

• Ask before you take someone's photograph, and accept a no.
• Dress modestly in villages and at places of worship.
• Buy crafts directly from the people who make them if you would like a souvenir.
• Give through the community's own projects, such as the school or clinic, in place of handing out gifts.

Where your visit goes

Tourism should leave something behind. Afoyo supports community-based tourism around the places we visit, and the Mubaku Community Project is the one closest to us. Ask us how a visit is organised and who benefits, and we will tell you.

Planning your cultural safari

Tell us what interests you: daily life, music, food, history, crafts, faith. We will suggest the communities that fit and how to combine them with the parks on your route.