Location: Benin, Togo
Departures: 2012 to be announced
Duration: 8 days
Group size: 2 - 6+ people
Price: From £815 - £1535 (depending on size of group) including full board from breakfast day 2 to lunch day 8 and transport. Excluding dinner day 1 & 8, all drinks and flights.
Highlights: Learn about the rich and complex traditional Voodoo belief system from those who know best: the Voodoo priests themselves!

This eight day tour of Benin and Togo introduces the traveller to the cultural heritage of these two amazing countries. Take to the vibrant markets of Lome famous for the selling of various ingredients for traditional medicines and incantations, visit rural villages where traditional ceremonies and rites are still alive today, be welcomed in to the homes of local communities, learn about the mysteries of fetish worship and voodoo by assisting rituals and ceremonies, and after all this excitement, relax and soak up the sun on a palm fringed beach. The company who operates this tour not only has more than 23 years experience in the area, but has also helped organisations such as National Geographic and The Discovery Channel with their local expertise.

Travellers experience
The tour team is used to travel with children. They guarantee that to really enjoy the experience they must be between 8-10 years old. At this age the experience is for them extraordinary, and they have recorded many accounts of this.

The populations the guests get in touch with whilst travelling in the different countries - Mali or Togo, Benin or Ghana etc. – are mostly friendly and the long experience in Africa of the team has created many relationships and friendships to guarantee true and emotional experiences for travellers, even in the most secluded villages.

The operator considers tourism as a professional activity and they are very responsible in order to guarantee the safety of our customers such as convenient transportation, adequate food preparation, security, etc.

The guides are either bilingual or trilingual, and are extremely knowledgeable of the destinations culture, rites and social values so as to make your trip as informative and smooth as possible.

Environmental responsibility
When camping, in order to not have an impact on the local environment, gas is used instead of wood for fires and for heating.

A policy has been set up which trains staff to make sure that the guests do not leave any rubbish or ‘alien material’ behind when leaving the camp, but also great attention is paid to leaving the least traces possible when visiting the places on the itineraries.

Water use is limited to the bare essentials. Water from wells is used for washing and cooking, and mineral water  for the guests.

Cultural responsibility
The traditional festivals of the countries in which journeys are organised are true and not "for tourists". This is the tour operators specific "quality trademark": to offer to the travellers the occasion for a contact still genuine with the daily reality of the populations they get in touch with, and with the several traditional ceremonies, that have remained almost unaltered.

The tour operator is committed to the conservation of the cultural heritage of the local populations destinations visited during the tours. Measures are taken to minimise the negative effects of tourism, and respect is always shown during the visit.

Economic responsibility
All of the operators sub directors, guides, drivers, mechanics, cooks and administrative staff are locally employed and they have set up various training schemes in order to benefit them with useful skills.

Most of the ingredients used for cooking are locally produced and sourced so as to benefit the local producers and offer an authentic experience to our guests.

On occasions money has been donated to villages in order to answer to their requests for community development projects such as financing a village school in the north of Togo (helping in fixing the roof, paying the teacher, providing them with school material), financing the construction of a water pump in south Burkina-Faso and building a school for 300 children in Benin.

Many other community development projects have gone ahead because of good will of our travellers such as one guest who financed facilities in a school in Accra.

Social responsibility
Often people are tempted to give money to children... since they see them in trouble and it is often the first thing they ask for. But giving money directly can have serious consequences because the amount a Westerner can give is often much more then what the father earns, and this can create serious imbalances.

It is advised to guests to give pencils and pens, exercise-books and paper as these will be useful at school. If anyone wants to donate money, better to give it to parents or to the chief of the village. Also sweets, biscuits, and other foods are not recommended, because even if children love them, when the tourists are gone they become needs that cannot be satisfied.