{"id":224,"date":"2014-08-18T11:27:20","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T15:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ustoa.com\/blog\/?p=224"},"modified":"2024-02-22T11:08:32","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T16:08:32","slug":"tour-south-africa-like-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustoa.com\/blog\/tour-south-africa-like-local\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour South Africa Like a Local"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2TKRBmBxm8g?list=UUlcz2pkcQ4XWy-ncCoLZ5Dw\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Members of the <a href=\"http:\/\/ustoa.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">United States Tour Operators Association<\/a> know the best way to experience a destination is through the local people. While in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southafrica.net\/country\/us\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Africa<\/a> with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.swaindestinations.com\/africa\/destination\/68\/south-africa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Swain Destinations<\/a>, Kelley Ferro, travel expert, video journalist and contributor to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tripfilms.com\/search\/videos?q=ustoa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tripfilms.com<\/a>, had the opportunity to visit, meet and interact with locals and gain real insight in the South African life today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>More on how to tour South Africa like a local:<\/strong><\/p>\n<h5>Get Off the Tour Bus<\/h5>\n<p><em>by Nina Dietzel,\u00a0<em>AFAR Ambassador<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/afar.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AFAR\u2019s\u00a0<\/a>co-founder Joe Diaz likes to boil \u2018traveling like a local\u2019 down to \u201cGet off the tour bus and sit at someone\u2019s kitchen table\u201d. On our first day in South Africa with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/gocollette.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Collette<\/a>, that\u2019s just what we did. We got off the bus and visited Alina Mlotshwa\u2019s home in Soweto to have lunch. <a href=\"https:\/\/ustoa.com\/blog\/get-off-the-tour-bus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the full post here.<\/a><\/p>\n<h5>Being Hugged by South Africa: Behind the Scenes of our Swain Destinations Tour<\/h5>\n<p><em>by Kelley Ferro<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Our 20-seat plane skipped and bounced down the dirt runway and I had to blink a few times to realize that I was looking out the window at the African bush. Just 20 hours ago, I was waving goodbye to glittering Manhattan and now I was on a charter flight over the rolling plains of the Sabi Sands. Our pilot joked that he usually saw lions on this airstrip as he touched down. This was Africa and here it doesn\u2019t matter who you are or where you are coming from, you all just dive right in. <a href=\"https:\/\/ustoa.com\/blog\/hugged-south-africa-behind-scenes-swain-destinations-tour\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the full post here.<\/a><\/p>\n<h5>A Local Perspective in South Africa<\/h5>\n<p><em>by Nina Dietzel,\u00a0AFAR Ambassador<\/em><\/p>\n<p>To me, South Africa is one of the most fascinating countries to visit. It is furiously multi-cultural; a young democracy struggling to grow up fast to meet the country\u2019s many challenges.<\/p>\n<p>When I was invited to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gocollette.com\/tours\/africa\/south-africa\/spectacular-south-africa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">join Collette\u2019s tour<\/a>\u00a0back in April, I was overjoyed, and at the same time I was a little hesitant to accept my assignment. The charge was to \u2018travel like a local\u2019 and I wasn\u2019t quite sure how to accomplish that in a group, dashing\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.afar.com\/highlights\/hector-pieterson-museum-soweto?context=wanderlist&amp;context_id=32729\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">from highlight to highlight<\/a>\u00a0across South Africa. <a href=\"https:\/\/ustoa.com\/blog\/a-local-perspective-in-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the full post here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Members of the United States Tour Operators Association know the best way to experience a destination is through the local people. While in South Africa with Swain Destinations, Kelley Ferro, travel expert, video journalist and contributor to Tripfilms.com, had the opportunity to visit, meet and interact with locals and gain real insight in the South [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-south-africa"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tour South Africa Like a Local - USTOA Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Travel experts Kelley Ferro and Nina Dietzel detail how they tour South Africa like locals with USTOA members Swain Destinations and Collette.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ustoa.com\/blog\/tour-south-africa-like-local\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tour South Africa Like a Local - 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