James Cannon Boyce

In January of this year, I had the amazing opportunity to revisit Naboisho, and reconnect with so many friends there who are deeply and positively involved in the project. On a previous trip there, I had learned that Naboisho means “coming together” and indeed, what you see there as a guest is a remarkable convergence of amazing camp operators, a dynamic and engaged community and the amazing benefit of tourism dollars – when it all comes together it is a beautiful thing to see indeed.

Senchura Kaleku, a safari guide who is also continuing his education thanks to the conservancy and his father at his father’s home.

Naboisho is part of the remarkable conservancy movement in Kenya – more specifically, Naboiosho and the surrounding conservancies have doubled the area that is protected in the greater Mara region. As a 50,000 acre conservancy integrated into the Masai Mara National Reserve and sittingin a critical area for the wildlife migration, Naboisho has flourished and grown remarkably since I first visited almost five years ago.

An elephant walking to catch up with the herd at sunset – with the Serengeti in the distance.

Not only does Naboisho provide a sanctuary for wildlife, it provides monthly rent payments to over 500 Maasai families and provides employment for hundreds of people, from safari guides to chefs.

Projects such as The Maa Trust – powered in a great part by the conservancies – provides additonal jobs and opportunities – created projects for women to also be employed and empowered.

All of this is at risk.

Already we are hearing stories of conservancies running into significant financial difficulties – and what would happen to them? The land would be sold; it may well become a ranch or rice farm and the opportunity that I had, to visit a place like this, with my children, will be gone forever.

So that’s how we came up with the idea and thank you for reading, and for your help.

Eco-tourism has done so much good in the last twenty years – preserving and protecting amazing places like the island of Chole off the coast of Tanzania, or the unknown areas of Inle Lake in Myanmar.

We both have had the opportunity to visit Naboisho in Kenya – were the local community benefits greatly from tourism revenue, and tourists benefit greatly from a once–in-a-lifetime safari experience in isolation and beauty.

As Covid-19 started to spread across the world, and we saw the impact on the travel industry, we worried not for the large hotel chains, or the airlines, but for these special places around the world that need revenue to survive. And to provide for their staff, and community.

For years we have also had the idea of how could we digitally unite people and properties around the world – so more people visit more properties who are doing good in their communities.

The Covid-19 crisis and its immediate and substantial impact on some of our favorite places spurred us to more immediate action.

First, we are reaching out to properties around the world – if you own such a property, or if you know of some, please email Greg Bows at greg@travelonthegood.com. We are going to work with the properties to create a community of like-minded people around the world.

We are also going to negotiate with the properties and pre-purchase in bulk rooms from them so that they can get much needed cash immediately.

Second, we are looking for partners to then essentially pre-pay for their travel now. The advantage is we already have 10 properties around the world and when the world opens up, partners will received at least 50% savings on their stays if not more.

If you are interested in this side of things, please email James Cannon Boyce at james@travelonthegood.com.

Even better, of course, is that we have properties joining from South Africa to Myanmar, from Scotland to Belize, so partners will have many, many choices around the world to choose from.

We then are building a network of sites, from Africa On The Good to Asia On The Good – they will act as communities and drive some revenue to our company.

The current crisis also showed us that these special places need better support and better networks, and most certainly as the world slowly opens up and returns to a new normal, whatever that is, it will be critical that these properties have access to customers in a smarter, more efficient way.

Author: James Cannon Boyce

Naboisho: The Power Of Coming Together.

How We Can Help Now.