The Green Bug story:

The owner, Leif Ryman, grew up in the mountains of Eastern Oregon, spending his youth interacting with nature, and stumbling into adventures around every corner.  He was raised with the values of respecting nature, and different peoples’ beliefs and cultures.  His family summer vacations could probably be described as Eco/Adventures around the country, visiting natural areas, and National Parks, before Ecotourism was even in regular use as a term to describe that type of travel.  At a young age he was fortunate enough to have visited many of the great National Parks throughout the Western US.  This led to a great appreciation for nature based travel and an early education in the responsibilities of traveling to delicate natural ecosystems.

Later in life Leif spent time on a Rotary Exchange in high school living in Sweden, and studying in Ghana West Africa in college, with these experiences he learned about the importance of respecting local cultures and beliefs and the potentially negative consequences of tourism on them.  He also learned how important it is for people around the world to be able to learn about the ways others live without disturbing their cultures and beliefs with their own.  Taking what he learned in early life with his experiences in later life, then combining them with an active lifestyle it is easy to see how he became and Adventure Eco-Tourist.

Green Bug Adventures was started after Leif had been out of college for a few years and working a desk job.  He constantly longed for more adventure and travel and re-connecting with Africa where he had spent some time in college and had fallen in love with the people, culture, land and adventure.  He ran across an article in Inc. Magazine about an adventure travel company started by someone much like himself which had grown to be pretty successfully in the last 10 years.  After communicating with the owner about the opportunity to be a part of this company and potentially help to expand it into Africa he decided to start his own company when it looked like he would not be able to work with this other business.  Green Bug Adventures is now the outlet of all of Leif’s passion for travel, Africa, and adventures, he wishes to share with the world.

10 Reasons Why you should  take your next vacation with Green  Bug Adventures.

1. You will experience unique off the beaten path African travel, away from the touristy over visited Eastern African parks and attractions, that our competition seems to focus on.

2. You can feel good about your vacation knowing that you money is going to the local people who need the support, and that substantial effort has been made to reduce the negative consequences of tourism in the destinations that you visit.

3. At least 75% of the cost of your trip will be spent in the country or countries you choose to take your trip.

4. We do not compete with local tourism providers, we find the best of these providers then evaluate them and partner with them to offer you our customers the best that there is to offer.  We then provide you with excellent customer service, a safe way to purchase you tour, pre and post departure customer services, and rather than trying to sell you something we find the best option for what you want.

5. The vast majority of lodging providers, and service providers (be it tour guides, transportation, and activities) are evaluated for cleanliness, services, quality, environmental responsibility, and social responsibility.  Our high standards are used in every step of the decision making and we have even developed a the Green Bug Adventures Ecotourism rating system to help communicate to you how these companies are meeting the standards.

6. Not only do we make sure the companies that we work with contribute to the communities that we work in, but we also contribute to the communities where we are based in the US.  This means that we contribute to conservation efforts in the US along with Africa and work with other community based initiatives through volunteering, Leif Ryman has also volunteered a lot of time to projects that help to improve situations in Africa.

7. While you are on vacation your fun and enjoyment is our number one concern.  You will not be overwhelmed with any sort of ideological agenda.  Our Ecotourism initiatives will be seamlessly worked into the most amazing experience of your life.

8. In addition to offering traditional carbon offsets for your vacation which have controversial effectiveness, we give you the option to donate the same amount of money that you would on a traditional offset to a conservation program or location of your choice that you visited during your trip.  We believe that global warming and CO2 reduction is important but we feel that the forests that already exist and contain the CO2 gasses are at great risk and need the help more than planting young forests that will not be as initially effective.

9. We believe that Africa’s number one resource is its people and culture followed by the nature and wildlife.  Taking this into account we provide a good balance between the two, and then the addition of adventure activities.

10. We take the time to pre-screen and prepare our travelers for their trip.  This makes sure that you are best matched to the best trip for you and that when you go you know what to expect and how minimize your impact.

 

Ecotourism:

As a company that subscribes to the ecotourism principles we take a number of steps to reduce the effect on the environment of our company and our trips.  We also strive to make sure that we are sensitive to the communities and countries that we work with making sure that at least 75% of the proceeds of our tours are spent in the country of destination.  To do this great care is taken in the choices of where our guests stay, the transportation that they use, and any other companies or individuals that we work with. To learn more about Ecotourism and our standards and policies in relation to Ecotourism please visit our Ecotourism site here. You can also read more about how we choose the lodging providers and guides.

Lodging:

On each trip there are a number of different choices for what kind of lodging is available and what kind you would like to utilize on your adventure.

 

Eco-lodges, Hotels, and Guest Houses: Care is taken to find comfortable clean places for your overnight stays that are preferably locally owned, give back to the community, participate or contribute to conservation, and provide interpretat ion for guests.  This is done in two different steps the first is an evaluation that the accommodation provider completes, which is a series of questions about their establishment that we use to put them into our Ecotourism Rating which you can find out more about here.  The second part involves making a visit in person to the establishment to make sure they are living up to the standards in the rating, and also to evaluate if cleanliness and level of service of the establishment are up to Green Bug’s standards.

We also like to collect as much feed back from our customers about their stays at each destination to improve the facilities we are working with for future cu stomers.  This will effect how we continue to work with these establishments and could even potentially mean that we stop working with those establishments if they can not maintain a level of responsibility, cleanliness and service that our customers and Green Bug Adventures requires. Unfortunately in some areas the importance of Ecotourism and international tourism standards has not been adopted by locally owned establishments.  In some of these cases lodging will be provided by family owned and operated establishments that are owned by expats that live within the country and spend most of their proceeds in their community and give back to the community in many other ways.  Education will be provided to local establishments in the area on how these standards can be met in the hope that more and more locals can see the value in such standards. To learn more about the selection process, Green Bug Adventures Ecotourism rating, and each lodging establishment please visit our lodging page.

Home stays: Green Bug Adventures offers the opportunity to stay with families at many destinations particularly rural areas.  These home stays are arranged and provided by community based tourism operations that we work with.  This is a wonderful way to make one on one connection with people and make lasting friendships.  The home stays are with middle class families and the fees associated with the stay will go to paying for the food and also reinvestment into the community.  Home stays are usually an option as an alternative to a formal lodging establishment, so this is an optional choice which can be made on the form for the adventure you decide on.

Camping, Tree Platforms, and sleeping outside: In some areas there are options for camping, or sleeping on a tree platform in the jungle, or on the roof of a building under the stars of the savannah, or even in a Hippo hide for overnight wildlife viewing.  All of these choices are alternatives to other lodging options, so if this is not of interest to you, we can still arrange a bed in one of the lodging providers that we work closely with.  You will be presented with these options when customizing your adventure.

Guides:

On all of our tours you will be provided with a local guide who will travel with you throughout the whole trip.  We choose these guides based on their cultural knowledge and outward going friendly personality (which can not be learned for the most part).  This guide will be there for any questions that you may have, to work with any concerns you may have with accommodations or meals, and just to make sure you are comfortable and having a good time.  Many of the destination that you will be traveling to, there will be an additional guide that joins you at each of these areas that has expertise in that particular area, be it a national park, a community based tourism project, or one of the many other fascinating destinations.  So you will have someone that is well rounded and very personable to help you with anything that you may need, then experts at each location, that are there to offer you in depth interpretation. Please visit our guides page to learn more about the guides in each country.