DESTINATIONS HOMESTAYS ESCORTED TOURS
farm to relax and share stories of life from their respective countries.
w LEARNING ON THE JOB One of the major draws of homestay accommodation is the enriching and educational aspect that living with a local host can bring, whether it’s learning about traditional food and drink, day-to-day customs and practices, and even language skills. Lots of operators offer homestay
ASK THE EXPERT
Carl Cross, managing director, On the Go Tours “Homestays provide an immersive cultural experience and are a great opportunity to enjoy the daily life of the locals. If travellers embrace new customs and are sociable with their hosts, they’ll be able to reap the benefits and come away with a better understanding of local life, some new friends, recipes for amazing home- cooked local dishes, and memories that they can keep forever. Our Thailand Temples and Tribes tour is ideal for those wanting to gain an insight into the local lifestyle, with one night spent in a rural homestay in the village of Mae Kampong. Our hosts warmly open their homes and share their cultures and traditions with travellers. Homestay schemes also help to support local projects within the community.”
experiences that allow clients to learn about local traditions. For example, on Wendy Wu’s Reflections of Vietnam tour, which involves a homestay in the Mekong Delta, visitors can see how crispy rice paper and sticky rice are made, and drop into workshops to observe local crafts. Explore’s 13-day Backroads of Kerala trip includes four nights in homestay accommodation, one of which is based on a plantation where clients learn about farming and cooking. By getting to know their hosts and spending time with them, clients can also pick up tips about areas they should visit, from tucked-away restaurants that tourists would be
Homestay guests can learn about traditional food and drink, local customs and practices, and even language skills
unlikely to find, to crumbling temples, buzzing markets or cool backstreet bars.
w GIVING BACK By staying with a local family, clients can also help safeguard a community and improve its economy, so ethically aware clients can feel happy that they are giving something back to their newfound friends too. G Adventures’ new For Good project sees clients staying with hosts in Maribojoc on the island of Bohol in the Philippines. In 2013, Bohol was hit by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake, and many residents lost their homes. Since then, community project Gawad Kalinga has been helping the community rebuild, and G Adventures’ homestay programme works alongside it to rebuild homes, install proper bathroom facilities, and provide them job opportunities as hosts. Generally, bringing an increasing
ABOVE: Vietnam
LEFT: India
46
travelweekly.co.uk 10 November 2016
flow of travellers into poorer, rural areas will help improve quality of life for those that live there, but there’s also an argument that too much development could impact indigenous people negatively. G Adventures recognises this and has developed a set of homestay guidelines to provide suppliers and partners offering homestay accommodation with a list of good practices for the benefit of travellers, hosts, the surrounding communities, tour operators and the local governing bodies, to make sure homestays have a lasting positive effect on the host community.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
