In 2024, I hosted our first-ever group trip. After years of planning and booking trips for myself, family members, and friends, we had finally done it! It was a self-drive budget camping trip, gleefully called Camp Clarens ’24, that included a stay at a beautiful campsite, exploring the idyllic small town and hiking the Golden Gate National Park. Once the itinerary was out, my friend, Tshiamo, and I worked together to bring a group of strangers and old friends alike together for a weekend in the jewel of The Free State, Clarens, and if you were to ask any of us, we would say we struck gold.
Under a blanket of the sky’s brightest stars, something incredibly special happened at an off-grid campsite. Each of us made connections and shared conversations, opening up about why we needed the break, our career paths, hopes for the future, our passions, pasts, and even letters written for our future spouses. These were the types of conversations you only have with close friends, now shared among a group of strangers, openly so. Although I fully attribute this to the character of each amazing human being on our trip, it affirmed my belief that travel is a powerful tool for building meaningful and authentic connections.
When we share the experience of travel with each other, we open ourselves up to each other in ways we rarely do when we’re at home. Firstly, you’re typically at your most excited or calm self or, on the other side, your most stressed and vulnerable depending on what’s happening around you.
When you’re travelling with others, you’re brought together with the shared goal of moving through spaces together, and because of it, you are linked and, in some way, learn to rely on each other to make it through the trip. When things go wrong, you band together. When things go well, you share joy together. In between the highs and the lows, you share small, seemingly mundane moments that are the truest parts of any authentic connection; getting along with someone simply for who they are.
When you’re travelling alone, you are placed at the centre of your world. Your focus no longer belongs to your screen, the people around you, the work you have to do or that thing you’ve been craving all afternoon. You (and primarily your safety) become your priority, and you’re pushed to rely on yourself first to make it through your trip. When things go wrong, you rise to every occasion to move yourself out of any bad situation or reach out for help (something many of us struggle with). When things go well, joy radiates from within, and you get to share that joy with yourself. Everything in between is a part of the process of learning about yourself and your surroundings and experiencing travel in a way unique to you. Solo travel is a radical practice of self-reliance and self-love.
When you combine exploring a place deeply, being your most authentic self and sharing that experience with others, travel can be an incredible force for fostering and nurturing community.
“I am because we are. We are because I am.”
— African Proverb (Ubuntu philosophy)
This continues when you connect with the locals and members of the communities you visit. Nobody knows a place like its locals and there’s no greater tour guide than a local. The best insights about the places I’ve visited were always from the people who lived there. Every time, without fail, the experience of the place deepens. Whether it’s through getting incredible suggestions, an expert guide, or watching locals live their everyday lives, people are the best part of travel.
Moreover, community, and specifically the community upliftment of the places we visit, is an integral part of sustainable tourism. This ranges from protecting and respecting the environment and the traditions of the communities we visit to ensuring that we are travelling mindfully, among other things, we’re excited to explore when we look further into what it means to be a sustainable traveller. This means that we learn about the people of the places we visit while making travel choices that prioritise the preservation and benefit of these communities. Either way, we are always getting so much more than we give when engaging with locals.
EaTravel Pillar Two: Community
While we continue exploring destinations and sustainable tourism, we will look at how we foster and nurture community through our work, our eaTrips and the communities we visit. In essence, we believe and will lead from the belief that travel helps us connect with the people we travel with, ourselves and the communities of places we visit. So stick with us if you look forward to seeing the world through the eyes of others!
When it comes to being a human in this world, and specifically when travelling, community is an integral part of it all. This is why Community is a core pillar of eaTravel’s philosophy, and we hope that you will join ours!
Thank you for being here!
Exploring, always,
Maz
