World Record-holding adventurer Holly Budge joins Daniel on the Destination Unlocked podcast to share her inspirational story of turning the thrill of adventure into a force for good in the world. Holly is inspired by female empowerment and animal conservation - she's worked out a neat way of tying all of her interests and skills together... and says you have everything it takes to do it too.

Links referenced in this episode:

• wildlifepositivetravel.com
• howmanyelephants.org

This is Destination Unlocked with me, Daniel Edward.

Well, welcome back to Destination Unlocked.

Great to have you here with us today for a very interesting conversation.

This is a conversation that starts with adventure, but really lands so squarely on

making a positive impact with your travel.

So much of our travels, especially in this very Instagrammable

world that we are living in right now, look very self-indulgent.

We travel for our own benefit.

We travel for our own experiences, our own stories, our own 'Gram, whatever it is.

But underneath that self-indulgence, we do all have those personal passions

that we feel so strongly about.

And if we can combine our travel experiences, our own adventures

with doing good for the causes that mean something for us, then

I think we've really nailed it.

And today's guest, Holly Budge, has done exactly that.

Enjoy.

Welcome, Holly.

It's great to have you here.

Tell us, what are you unlocking for us today?

Hey Daniel.

Thank you for having me.

I'm unlocking travel with purpose and impact.

Which is so you, because you have turned your travel

into something which has great purpose and makes a huge impact.

We're gonna get into some of the charitable side of your travel within

this conversation, but to set the scene.

Let's go back a little bit and work out how you even got into this place where you

were able to use travel with such impact.

I wanna go to a particular moment when you did something upside down,

you did something totally opposite from how most people would do it.

When most people think about Mount Everest, they go from the

base camp up, but you decided to do it the other way round.

I love the way you just described that!

Upside down Everest.

I became the first woman to skydive Everest, that wasn't my first skydive.

I'm pleased to tell you,

the lead up to that happened quite a few years before that jump took place.

I went travelling in New Zealand and I did a tandem skydive, and I

was blown away by the experience.

I fell in love with this idea of moving to New Zealand and

becoming a skydiving camera woman.

A little bit ridiculous 'cause I really knew nothing about skydiving

or filming, but that didn't matter 'cause I knew I could have a go.

I could learn those skills, do my best.

So I came back to the UK, and then I saved enough money to go back to New Zealand and

do my skydiving AFF course and then figure out how to get employed as a camera woman.

I eventually landed my dream job and was getting paid to jump out

of aeroplanes up to 12 times a day every day, and it only took three

skydives a month to pay my rent.

So it was a pretty good setup in my early twenties.

But what it did, Daniel, was it gave me this massive confidence

and this self-belief that I could do whatever I put my mind to

when I'd achieved this big goal.

I call this hanging onto my 21-year-old mindset.

When people ask me what would you say to your younger self, now

that I'm 47, I say, what would my younger self say to me right now?

You know, I didn't overthink things.

I didn't procrastinate too much.

I thought, this is what I'm gonna do and I'm, I'm just gonna

give it everything I've got.

And it, it panned out.

It was an amazing lifestyle, but it taught me so much.

The people that I was hanging around with, that I was working with

were just so incredibly positive.

I think that really helped pave the way for me, in the

adventures that were to come.

Another thing that it did was it taught me about normalising fear.

When I first started skydiving, it was really terrifying, plummeting to earth

at 180 if you are on your head 120 miles per hour, if you are on your belly.

Is an assault?

On all of your senses.

It's really terrifying.

And I remember sitting in the aeroplane watching experienced skydivers, cameramen,

tandem masters, just looking totally relaxed, laughing and joking in the plane.

And I was really scared thinking I wanna be like them.

And that planted that seed I could be like them.

And eventually I was like them; skydiving became as normal as

getting up and cleaning my teeth.

Many of us really push ourselves, and really maximise

our potential as human beings.

I think we can do so much more.

The more extreme the adventures got, the more I just leaned into

them and tried to normalise.

So jumping outta planes strapped to a

parachute became second nature.

And then you saw an expedition to Everest advertised.

The first ever skydiving adventure on the mountain.

With a few thousand jumps under my belt, I just thought, you know,

I've already got the skills to be able to say yes immediately to this adventure.

I rang up the organiser, it, it became apparent there were

no other women signed up.

I knew that that was my hook for getting sponsors on board.

So I said, yes.

He said That will be 24,000 pounds.

I said, no problem.

didn't have 24,000 pounds, but that didn't matter.

that just set that bar really high for me to go out there and find

sponsors, people to buy into my vision.

And that's never an easy thing.

Finding sponsors.

You have to be quite creative.

But, I did manage to get the expedition sponsored.

And then it entailed jumping out of a small aircraft at 29 and half thousand

feet, just higher than the summit of Everest and then I pulled my parachute

18,000 feet and I landed at 12 and a half thousand feet, which was the highest

civilian landing area at that time.

And it was a pretty interesting experience.

I, um, fell out of the plane accidentally.

You put in all of this training, all this preparation, visualisation,

getting sponsors on board, keeping sponsors on board, and nothing

prepared me for what actually unfolded.

Door opened, first person to skydive Everest.

Jumped out, was about three or four seconds behind them.

My camera flyer climbed out onto the camera step.

I'm giving my count ready, set, and next thing, my camera flyer's

hand is on my shoulder, pushing me back into the aeroplane.

And unbeknown to me, the pilot had held up the stop sign.

Don't let the jumpers out, was too late.

I had too much momentum on my ready, set, go backpedalling in the door, and

I actually fell out of the aeroplane.

So when people say, was it an incredible experience, it was pretty

terrifying at that point in time.

Why did the pilot try to stop the jump?

clouds rolled in so quickly.

You know, one minute is blue sky.

Next minute you're completely engulfed in cloud.

so I had no visuals on the ground below and when you're skydiving, you don't have

fancy equipment telling you where you are in relation to your landing area.

So for me, it was imperative to get myself through the clouds,

pull my parachute at 18,000 feet.

then luckily I did make it back to the landing area, ' cause there

were very few other places where I could have made a safe landing.

had to make it back there.

And then about three minutes after I landed complete white out.

So I felt really fortunate to walk away safely from that jump.

when I landed, there was Reuters, the Global News Agency there.

Then I was on the front of the Kathmandu times when I flew home

the following day... i got upgraded and my cameraman stayed in economy.

I said, I'll see you in London.

And then I got put in a hotel room courtesy of the BBC, and I did six

live TV interviews in 24 hours and a load of other like radio, and media.

That was more scary than the expedition.

Being put in a room with a camera saying, don't look anywhere , but at the camera

you're just going out live to America.

With a lady in my ear asking me how did I acclimate?

was like, oh, I dunno what she means.

So I said, very well, thank you.

And you, But that sowed that seed for me.

How can I harness the power of global media for a greater good

than me jumping out of an aeroplane?

We'll come back to that point when we talk about World Female Ranger week.

That was where that seed was sewn for me.

So off the back of the Mount Everest Adventure, that seed for

headline seizing adventures had been sown, and you were contacted about

another first of its kind expedition, which actually resulted in you being

awarded a Guinness World Record.

What did you get involved in after Everest?

So it was the world's longest horse race, 1000 kilometres

across Mongolia on semi wild horses, to which I asked, what is a semi wild horse?

So in Mongolia, the horses fend for themselves in the winter months.

So the semi wild is, literally a small child will go off into the mountains and

come back with a string of 30 horses.

They are actually ponies, but they don't like you calling them ponies, so

it's respect thing to call 'em horses.

They're pretty feisty these animals.

So they're rebroken so that someone can jump on their

back and ride them every year.

When I got back from skydiving Everest, I got a phone call two weeks later because

you put everything into these great big goals and then you think, well, what now?

What next?

And everyone else is asking you What next?

And I got this phone call and they said, hi Holly, would you like to take

part in another World first adventure?

And I said, yes.

What is it?

They said it's a thousand kilometre horse race across Mongolia on semi wild horses.

to which I asked, what is a semi wild horse?

And I said, yes.

So what is a semi wild horse?

So in Mongolia, the horses fend for themselves in the winter months.

Literally a small child will go off into the mountains and come

back with a string of 30 horses.

They are actually ponies, but they don't like you calling them ponies, so

it's respect thing to call 'em horses.

They're pretty feisty these animals.

So they're rebroken so that someone can jump on their

back and ride them every year.

And became a world record.

yeah, it was pretty intense.

So I rode a total of 25 horses.

We only had two rules to the race.

We couldn't ride at night and we couldn't ride one horse more than 40 kilometres.

We had no topographical information.

So it was just a GPS race.

We had set checkpoints and it was just insane.

Like I had a night where I got stuck in the mountains, lost my horse.

Temperatures, go from 30 degrees to minus two.

We had no water.

I had another horse sink in a bog.

This was 13 hours a day in the saddle crossing rivers where

the horses were swimming.

The rivers were high and fast.

On one river local guy on his horse, had to help us across, so he was leading

his horse and his horse was swimming.

My horse was swimming, water all over the saddle, everything and you're

just thinking, what am I doing?

It just, it was raw and it was real,

All sorts of things happened in this nine days , but what an

incredible way to see one of the world's last great wildernesses.

It's not often you explore a country with such freedom.

but it was incredible.

And it raised a lot of money for a charity as well.

So it was a massive selfish indulgence, but it had impact

associated with the adventure.

And it does show that right from the get go of

doing this in a career sense.

You were very good at connecting up the different elements of how do

you turn travel into inspiration.

You have to have people to share it with.

You have to have an audience to talk to.

You have to have people who have funding that ability to get out there

and do these things that are very unusual and most people might talk

about it and never do anything with it.

Those skills, way that you've used them, you are able to take people to places that

most people realise they will never go.

It is interesting what you say about skills because I think

there's no better time to be alive learning new skills than now right.

For me now with my charity work, my charity work is all design led.

I came up with the idea and my whole travelling exhibition for

How Many Elephants came about 13 years ago when I was doing a

Master's in sustainable design.

I just couldn't have done what I've achieved with the charity with my

tour operator, without having those design skills, without being able

to speak . I say when I go into schools and they say, you know.

How Can I get into conservation or how can I get into this?

And it's like, it doesn't matter what you're trying to get into.

Learn the peripheral skills, figure out how to use Canva.

Never been an easier time to be a graphic designer than right now.

figure out how to speak to an audience, figure out how to write a really

good article, not, just using AI.

Using AI as a tool to help you.

Figuring out all of those peripheral skills so that it doesn't matter

whether you are trying to get a sponsor on board or whatever you're

trying to do, you can present yourself in a really professional manner.

I think in this day and age especially, be able to cut through

the noise, I think you gotta be polished, you gotta look professional.

It is all about joining the dots with different skill sets.

And I get the sense, obviously from the outside that those

earlier days of the jumps were a little bit about proving to yourself

what you could do, but then also It was about female empowerment.

That then has grown as a project to a much more global level These projects

and the reach just grow and grow, on the heels of previous successes.

Yeah, I realised adventure.

Was just a great platform to get global media coverage and to raise

funds, and I think it's a tool.

For some people climbing Everest might be the end goal.

For me, it's just a stepping stone in taking the flag of my charity to the

highest point on the earth to talk about elephants and talk about female rangers.

Everest gets me through that front door.

But once I'm in and I'm chatting and it becomes, part of the story,

I'm talking about my charity work.

I'm talking about elephants, I'm talking about female rangers, female empowerment,

I just think, how brilliant is that?

That I'm using adventure just as that stepping stone.

I don't think adventure's my true passion and purpose.

I think my true purpose is, my conservation work, my

charity, How Many Elephants?

But the hook is the adventure and that opens the door.

That gets people thinking.

Yeah and it's great, I'm getting.

Paid to talk about elephants.

If I pitched elephants and pitched female rangers, I don't think I'd get

into the events that I am, but actually people come up to me at the end and say.

You know, we're so glad you weren't just another mountaineer talking about, I

did this, I did this, I climbed to the summit, and that's the end of the talk.

It's about making impact way bigger than myself.

It's a shame that that's unusual, but that is quite unusual.

Yeah.

But to me, i'd feel a bit empty if that was my achievement for achievement's sake.

I've spent so much time on the frontline patrolling with all female and mixed

anti-poaching ranger teams in Africa.

And I say this a lot: when I went to the front line for the first

time, and it's such a, volatile, changeable, unpredictable place to be.

It really did make climbing Everest look like child's play.

When you're climbing Everest, it's entirely voluntary.

You've put yourself there and you've assumed that risk.

But when you're on the front line with these rangers that's their everyday jobs.

They are the last line of defence protecting endangered

wildlife and wild spaces.

And it is an incredibly challenging, dangerous place to be.

And yet they're doing that day in, day out.

So it is about zooming out, looking at the bigger picture,

getting some perspective on it.

How did you fall in love with wildlife?

I've always loved animals.

I remember like the jungle book and drawing out all the animals and just.

I've always been a big fan, but for me it all came about, my

elephant charity, 13 years ago.

I was studying a material called Vegetable Ivory, which is a nut

from a palm tree from South America, and it's almost identical in colour

and texture to Elephant Ivory.

So I was designing stuff using this material, and then I wanted to go

and really explore the material and its capabilities by doing a master's.

And my tutor said to me, Holly, if you want to do really well on

this master's, you can't ignore the material similarity to elephant Ivory.

And I went down this rabbit hole of researching the African elephant

crisis, and I was so horrified by the statistics of 96 elephants being

poached each day for their ivory in Africa, that I wanted to use my skills

as a graphic designer to come up with an innovative awareness campaign.

So I built this necklace.

It's, it's 96 elephants.

It's quite a piece.

It's won six design awards so far.

So it's 96 elephants cut in vegetable ivory to show the daily poaching rate.

And I've weaved a narrative into the necklace.

One elephant is facing the other way to say that this crisis

can still be turned around.

I love your necklace, I can see why that has won awards.

It's a fantastic piece.

Thank you.

There's less than 400,000 elephants left in the wild in Africa and

somewhere between 20 to 30,000 elephants each year are still being poached.

So I came up with this necklace and this exhibition.

So my exhibition showcases 35,000 elephants on a wall to

show the annual poaching rate.

And when you see and connect with this data in a purely visual

way, it really hits home hard.

Monochrome, elephants, just black and white, repeated 35,000 times.

And the campaign is non gruesome.

It's non gory.

It's nonpolitical.

But it really hits home.

And because it's non gory, it's allowed me to connect with many different

audiences, including schools and people that don't wanna see gruesome imagery.

You can't unsee something.

And I'm one of these people that if I see a image that will stay with

me for days, if I see something really gruesome and and graphic.

So it's become a bit of a USP of my charity that any newsletter, any film,

anything that you open from How Many Elephants will won't have gruesome,

gory content . 'cause I think we've become desensitised to that approach.

That's something that I really like about what you do.

It's always leading on the positive.

You can shock and scare people.

That's done by countless people, and, with some effect there's a reason they do

it, but it doesn't make people feel good about what they're doing necessarily.

Generally if people don't feel good, they don't act on it.

So I think by focusing on the positives and the stories of hope.

for me, I have to focus on those positive stories or I wouldn't

be able to work in this space.

The thing massively surprised me, and I'm gonna ask

this question in, I suppose in a controversial way, but I think

it's an important one to ask still.

The ivory trade is still worth $23 billion a year.

That's massive.

The controversial part of the question is, the other part of Africa's current story

that a lot of people are talking about is, how do we help people out of poverty?

$23 billion a year sounds like a good way of getting people out of poverty.

Clearly it's not going towards that.

So where is it going and apart from supporting the elephants, why else

is it so important to stop that?

Yeah, I mean there's, there's definitely a big gap when

you see such poverty on the ground.

I think it's the same story, the world over, the kingpins, the rich getting

richer, and the poor getting poorer.

And I think it's a really valid point to a lot of people.

Especially with the work I've done in schools, I've worked with thousands

of school children, and the poacher is always painted as the bad guy, And I've

stood there in countless classrooms and said to children, I'm gonna give

you a new perspective that really could change the way you think about this.

And I just say, I don't think the poachers are the bad guys.

Then I explain why I don't think that.

They're just right at the end of the scale.

They're the puppets.

Doing the hard work, doing the dangerous work.

To be a poacher, you've gotta be pretty hardy to survive out in those

environments, for days or, or weeks.

It's no easy task.

And then you've gotta consider a lot of the poachers.

They're opportunists.

And they're just trying to put food on their tables, you know,

they're trying to feed the kids.

a lot of the work we do with the kids , especially in Africa, is

about saying, don't look at the poachers as something aspirational.

'cause a lot of the poachers are driving around in the big cars and they

look like they got disposable income.

So you can imagine the children growing up in those communities

could think , I wanna be like that.

And you couldn't blame them because there's no one else necessarily showing

them a different or a better way.

So I think it's really powerful when I work with the Rangers.

I'm now working with 6,000 female wildlife rangers around the world.

I work across 18 African countries and when we go into these schools with

high energy, last year, World Female Ranger Week, now in its sixth year.

We were live in Zambia.

We had 90 female rangers, in the Kafue National Park.

And we went to these schools and the energy, it was like a travelling

road show, with a, girl band.

And they were like rock stars, these women.

On the final day of this week, we had a thousand people come from the communities.

We were on national tv.

We had politicians there saying about the importance of

women working in these roles.

And you just think those children that were there that day and the children that

were at those schools that we visited.

They'll remember that energy.

They will remember that as a really positive, energetic day.

That's a huge part of what I do: awareness and education.

And I think that is so key because.

What I've seen, especially with the more opportunist poachers as opposed

to the very well equipped, you know, night vision goggles, helicopters,

silencers, you know, all of the gear I'm talking about the opportunist poachers.

What I've seen with them is, you could say, and I'm making these

numbers up, but you could say, here's a hundred dollars to go and poach an

elephant, which is illegal and it's really hard work and here's $200 to do

something that's legal and way easier.

And what we've seen is they'll do both.

Ah.

That's a really big problem right there.

So in answer to your question, yes, it is a massive funding gap and certainly none

of that money is making it back on the ground to the people that really need it.

But that's where I think working with the rangers, especially the women, but men and

women, they're out there day in, day out, working in very challenging conditions.

Often not with the right equipment, often with no insurance, in

really hostile working conditions without the correct support and yet.

They're so influential in their communities, so who better to

educate than them from within?

A lot of people understand what a poacher does, that's fairly

obvious, what does a Ranger actually do?

Great question.

So the frontline rangers, will patrol day and night.

So for example, the Black the first all female anti-poaching team

possibly in the world, and they'll walk a different beat day and night.

So they're unarmed, they have pepper spray and handcuffs, and

they have an armed response.

If and when they need it.

So the idea with them is they're like the Bobbys on the beat.

They're like the policemen that we used to have that patrolled

the streets without guns.

Okay.

So they will check fence lines for incursions, they're monitoring the

wildlife and they'll go into communities and work with the schools, the children,

and do all of these kind of jobs.

The armed rangers that have sprung up, are fully armed.

And that's pretty scary going out with a fully armed 'cause

I'm always unarmed and you know, there's no arm response behind them.

They are the armed response.

So when we are doing an ambush, sitting out, waiting for poacher's torch lights

all night in the pitch darkness, you know that when we find the poacher's

torch lights, we are moving in.

It's a pretty full on reality that.

And a lot of these women now are the breadwinners of their families.

With that, they've now built houses.

They've bought land.

The kids are in school.

They're in school.

They've got access to better healthcare.

They're the frontline rangers, but the term ranger is incredibly broad.

So through World Female Ranger Week, I'm now working with supporting

roles to frontline rangers.

So that might be helicopter pilots, that might be scientists, biologists,

veterinarians, that might be travel guides, working with a tremendous

amount of female travel guides.

Ranger is, is just an umbrella term now.

It's just, there's just a huge amount of variation.

But most people do think of frontline rangers when they think of that term.

And those armed rangers, are armed because poachers

would turn their guns on the Rangers.

Yep.

There's an element of that.

They're definitely law enforcement officers, but to be honest.

Most of the rangers that I've spent time with, they haven't

used that gun to shoot anyone.

They've got that gun for protection.

So you know, if they've gotta let off a shot, if animals are coming too near.

But it really sends out a very strong signal as well to poachers

and people aspiring to be poachers that there are armed rangers out

there protecting the wild spaces.

So I think that sends a very clear message as well.

I think it's so clever, what you've learned and, been able to

action through what you've learned.

One of the things that massively surprised me when you go to the How

Many Elephants website, you don't see an elephant, you see a bee.

And It fascinated me both to find out that elephants are scared of bees,

but then to see the logical steps that you are making to actually prevent

these interactions between elephants and humans ever needing to happen.

I guess the bees are like nature's own rangers, Elephants are scared

of bees, so I'm working with an amazing NGO in Tanzania called Wild Survivors.

So in the hotspot areas, they're lining beehives along

the boundaries of subsistence farmland and elephant corridors.

So the bees keep the elephants out of the farmer's crops.

The bees pollinate the crops.

The local women who often are the wives of the farmers are processing

the honey, selling it to local safari lodges, and then with the proceeds

setting up organic vegetable gardens and selling the vegetables to the community.

So it really is win-win, win, win.

And through How Many Elephants?

We've now got about five and a half kilometres of beehive fencing.

Working with Wild Survivors and in this one area in the Ngorogoro, Serengeti

ecosystem, we've seen a decline of human elephant conflict incidences

by 91%, which is just phenomenal.

So.

The biggest threat to African elephants these days is not poaching anymore.

It's human elephant conflict.

Populations are getting bigger and bigger, expanding into wild spaces.

Elephant habitats are shrinking.

Shrinking.

So it's sadly inevitable that there will be conflict.

I think it's a real.

blessing and a privilege to have been able to get out there and seal this

stuff, and I love the fact that now you're also making it possible for other

people to follow in your footsteps and get that firsthand experience themselves.

Tell us more about that side of things.

Over the last 13 years that I've been working with female

rangers, I've just built some incredible relationships with them, built on

trust, and because of that, they've allowed me to bring small groups where

I'm leading the trip where you can.

Come to the front line and get fully immersed with an anti-poaching team.

So you'll go on patrol, you'll go on day patrol, you'll go on night patrol.

We go to communities, we go to schools, and you really do get

this firsthand glimpse into their world, which is, is very unique.

I believe I'm the only tour operator running a week long immersion with

the Black Mambas in South Africa.

I've got a trip with the Mara Elephant Project in Kenya where you actually

get helicoptered into a forest and then patrol with the Rangers in there.

I've got a trip in Slovenia for meeting European female Rangers and I'm hoping

I'm gonna have a trip where you can visit the beehive fence as well.

I set up my own tour operator Wildlife Positive Travel, and the

reason I did that is because I want to maximise the money that's going

back on the ground to the Rangers to support their conservation efforts.

And when I tried to partner with other, bigger, tour operators, just

too much of the money, the profits were being lost in the middle.

So I guess I, I made myself the middle woman and I made able to pass on almost

all of those profits back to the Rangers.

So it's a brilliant way to raise funds for my charity.

But it's also a brilliant way to connect donors with

firsthand direct action impact.

I call it experiential philanthropy,

I love that term

isn't it?

It's a good one.

I'm, a big believer that experience leads to.

Philanthropic deeds because the more you feel something, the more you're

doing it and you're embedded, the more you understand why it's important,

you've invested your time into it.

Now the next thing is you might invest either money, if you've got the money, or

you might go out and talk to other people.

Share that message, spread it further, and the more people that are talking

about these things and then doing a little deed, the more it grows.

Yeah, so if it floats your boat, you're listening to this.

I have two trips running in November this year.

One in South Africa, one to Kenya, um, and then a Slovenia trip in September.

I'm just really excited about it.

It just feels such a natural next step from working with all these incredible

women to be able to take people out there, and, see what they're doing.

Where's the best place for people to find more information?

wildlifepositivettravel.com.

elephants.org is the charity and the impact.

And I want to come back to the point quickly, Daniel, of how do I harness

the power of the global media for a greater good than me jumping out of an

aeroplane is now World Female Ranger Week, which I set up six years ago, and

it's all about amplifying the voices of female rangers in the global media.

We've now had over 500 million views.

Which

is phenomenal.

And a lot of that is about connecting donors with direct action projects.

One of my favourite expressions, which I didn't come up with, but I

use it all the time, is conservation without funding is just conversation.

So it's about advocacy, but it's about getting the money on the ground as well.

what would you say is the top thing that you can

see or do on your travels that's gonna make a positive impact?

Oh, there we go.

I would say, . Due diligence before you go on the trip.

So really figuring out that you're going with a good company

is a good starter for 10.

, And I think, trying to support local, but that's the world over, isn't it?

It is like trying to support local, smaller businesses rather

than just your bigger businesses.

I think that really helps.

And coming on trips like mine, I know that's a, a bit of a plug, but , if you

come on trips like mine and you've done that due diligence and then you know so

much of that money is going back and you know, it's exactly where it's being spent.

What would you say is a tourist trap to avoid?

just flocking to the same places that everyone else does.

Recently I saw a picture that I just found deeply alarming of the great migration,

the wildebeest migration, and people were outside of the Safari vehicles,

with deck chairs, you know, and you just think, what, what is going on here?

You don't get out of your safari vehicle in, in any safari I've ever

been on, you don't break that shape.

what, What are the guides thinking in the first place?

Letting people get out, but just the amount of safari vehicles

when you see them crowding the wildlife just breaks my heart.

So it is all about trying to find, where are the quieter places, where are

the less visited places that are just as beautiful, but without the crowds.

With going to Africa for conservation trips in mind, particularly,

what would you say is the best time of year to go out and do that sort of stuff?

Completely depends where you're going and what you're doing.

I really like November , that's why I'm running my trips out in November.

I just love the, the shoulder seasons.

I just try and avoid peak seasons.

I really like rainy season, fantastic wildlife viewings.

And I like it when it's really green and lush, but I get that

some people don't want to go on holiday and, have it raining,

especially if you come from the UK.

But again, it's about looking beyond just peak season, peak season.

And you can get some brilliant deals as well, in shoulder

seasons and off season as well.

would you have a top book or film recommendation for people who

are interested in doing good through their travel; making a positive impact.

You know, there's so much brilliant content out there.

Oh, what, that would be a hard one to, to pinpoint one in particular.

But I think there's, there's some, really amazing organisations out there working

with really reputable tour operators.

Like I'm a member of ATTA Africa Travel Trade Association, and a lot of the

members are fantastic, so if you start looking at the content they're putting

out, you find some really good stuff.

Something that we haven't spoken about at any point

in today's conversation, which is very unusual for an episode of

the Destination Unlocked Podcast.

Is food.

We haven't mentioned it at all, but, given that you've gone to some quite

exciting places, , what would you say has been your top food or drink experience?

I love.

When I was in Zambia for the World Female ranger week, I had the pleasure of

staying in Lolebezi, African Bush camps.

I've stayed at a few of their camps.

Really, really love the feel of it, but the food was phenomenal.

So we are right next to the mighty Zambezi with the elephants crossing.

And we are on this boat having this most spectacular lunch, and the elephants cross

the, like, they're swimming past you, like it's super deep and fast flowing water.

And you literally, you could.

Practically, not that I'd ever would, but you could practically touch 'em.

And I remember this isn't a food thing, but I remember, the hippos

were coming one way and the elephants were coming the other.

And we are eating our lunch in a boat in the middle.

At a safe distance, but in the middle of them.

And the hippos went under and the elephants, I don't think had quite figured

out that, that, and then there was this big, ah, and it was, it was spectacular.

So it was an amazing lunch, beautiful food, but the, the wildlife interaction

and there was no one else out there.

It was just us.

So, not quite an answer to your foodie question, but, 'cause I

don't think I'm really a foodie.

When you're out with the Rangers on the front line, you, you have their

local maze meal and, and stew and, you know, it's, it is all very basic food.

I get excited when the food is brilliant, but I don't seek destinations

or, or places based on the food.

It is almost a bonus if the food is amazing.

But the food did stand out to me at Lolebeze.

It was amazing.

And the ginger shot they put in in the morning at 5:00 AM so you have

this shot of ginger when you wake up.

Little touches like that is what sets some places apart from others, you know,

just the detail that's gone into it.

That certainly would wake you up.

Oh my gosh.

Final question.

And perhaps a very important question, given that we were touching on ivory

earlier and there is still a huge illegal trade of ivory, but if you are going

out to these areas, whether you're going to do good or just to experience it

for yourself, what would you recommend as a top authentic but legal souvenir?

Definitely don't be buying ivory and it's really hard

'cause then there's legal ivory that's vintage ivory, but often that's

new ivory disguised as old ivory.

So probably best just don't buy ivory period.

Legal souvenirs.

I always try and buy, crafts where you meet the maker.

I love it when I've bought something and I've had a chat and you've

asked all about that person and their inspirations for that.

That's my favourite way to buy souvenirs, and that might be on the side of a road.

We might pull over and meet a lady like weaving or, you know, making pots or

doing screen printing or whatever it is.

I think it's, it's really great to support local artisans, and meet the makers.

But I try and stay away from any animal product.

Holly Budge, founder of How Many Elephants

and Wildlife Positive Travel.

Thank you so much for unlocking purposeful travel with Impact.

Thank you for having me.

Well, what a fascinating conversation.

Thank you so much again to Holly Budge.

How Many elephants.org and wildlife positive travel.

My goodness, it just goes to show a bit of adventure from what we see on the

outside can have so much underneath it.

And it can go so far to do so much good.

So if you've been inspired to do good with your own adventures, fantastic.

And if you want to join Holly on one of hers, well, Wildlife Positive

Travel is the way to do exactly that.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Destination Unlocked Podcast.

If you did, share it around with your friends, and I look forward to seeing

you back here next time you want to go armchair travelling somewhere

inspirational around the world.

I'll see you then.

Bye-bye.