Have you ever wanted to go trekking with gorillas in Rwanda or experience the midnight sun in Norway’s Lofoten Islands? What about if you could do it all in a sustainable, adventurous fashion?
Gondwana Ecotours was founded in 2013 after founder Jared Sternberg wanted to find a way to share his passion for helping the historically underrepresented people and their environments, while providing a positive meaningful, and relaxing experiences for travelers.
Gondwana Ecotours founder Jared Sternberg on one of his sustainable trips.
Gondwana aims to bring people from different continents closer together one trip at a time. The company is named after the more southerly of two supercontinents that were part of the Pangaea supercontinent, when all the continents were together and the world was one.
The web-based business offers sustainable tours worldwide from its headquarters in New Orleans. They specialize in sustainable adventure travel to exotic locales like the Amazon Rainforest, the jungles of Rwanda, Tanzania, Machu Picchu, Norway and Alaska.
Throughout each trip, Gondwana maintains an environmental and cultural focus while providing the vacation of a lifetime for guests.
Sternberg has either lived, worked or volunteered at most of their destinations and has developed relationships with the guides they use. For new destinations, he does scouting trips where he makes sure to vet the local guides the hotels, and restaurants, drive-times, and more.
“One of the coolest parts of our hand-crafted trips is really taking time to make friends with people from another culture,” shares Sternberg. “It definitely makes for an unforgettable experience.”
The most popular Gondwana destination is Fairbanks, Alaska, for their Northern Lights Adventure.
The most popular Gondwana destination is Fairbanks, Alaska, for their Northern Lights Adventure.
Gondwana does a number of things to make each trip sustainable. They carbon offset the flights for all of our guests, collaborate with and donate to local non-profits at each destination, prioritize locally-owned, boutique hotels, restaurants, and activities, and have small group sizes to lessen our impact, provide and use refillable water bottles, recycle, choose sustainable activities as much as possible, and incorporate some hands-on learning when it makes sense.
Upcoming trips include destinations such as Norway, Tanzania, and Machu Picchu. A year from now Sternberg hopes to have doubled their sales yet again. In addition to current destinations, he would also like to add Patagonia, a region in the southernmost tip of South America, and a summer trip to Alaska to see Grizzly Bears spearing Salmon beneath waterfalls.