Why Elephant Experiences Have To Become More Ethical

As a holiday-maker in search of a once-in-a-lifetime trip away, your dream visuals are likely to include the following: glistening golden sun setting into the turquoise sea, palm trees stretching far beyond the sandy horizon, mouthwatering meals on every beautifully laid table and, perhaps, that trump photo of you riding a majestic elephant.

Posted on social media, the colorful snapshot sees you gleefully sitting atop the giant beast. However, that’s all it is: a snapshot – an ostensibly blissful image which doesn’t tell the whole story.

How Elephants Have Been Treated Historically

Every single year, tens of thousands of elephants are brutally killed for their ivory. Working illegally, ivory dealers employ poachers to shoot entire herds of elephants before hacking off their tusks with axes or chainsaws. Despite being shocked by the mass murder of elephants under those circumstances, no one seems to have given much thought to the desperate lives of the elephants forced to entertain a torrent of tourists each year, until now. Since 2008, Rickshaw Travel has been promoting responsible travel across their 24 destinations, enabling holiday-makers to experience local culture while minimizing the negative impact of travel. In 2016, their focus is on the Elephant.

The Big Issue

Around 75 percent of elephants in the tourism industry have been illegally captured from their natural habitat in order to satisfy the increased demand for riding and entertainment. The elephant then has to be forced to understand and obey human commands. To ‘train’ an elephant, babies are quickly taken from their mothers before having their spirit broken through physical and psychological pain, including isolation, starvation and beating.

Courtesy of World Animal Protection, via Rickshaw Travel

While waiting for an oblivious tourist to hop on their backs, the captive elephants are usually restrained in small enclosures by chains, fed a diet that doesn’t meet their needs and denied social interaction with their own kind. The results of this perpetual mis-treatment can be fatal.

The irony is that the more a traveler loves elephants, the more likely they are to want to ride one and feel so incredibly close to the magnificent mammal. But is a lifetime of pain really worth a couple of fleeting thumbs up on Facebook? Rickshaw Travel doesn’t think so.

A devastating example of the mis-treatment of elephants

The Way Forward

According to World Animal Protection, there is currently no global regulation regarding how wild animals are used in tourism. The big challenge then is to transform the tourism industry so that it becomes part of the solution to end cruelty to wildlife. Alyx Elliot, Head of UK Campaigns at World Animal Protection, said: ‘It’s clear that thousands of tourists are visiting wildlife attractions, unaware of the abuse wild animals’ face behind the scenes. We need to stop the demand for elephant rides and shows by exposing the hidden suffering behind wildlife attractions. If you can ride a wild animal, then you can be sure it is cruel.’

Rickshaw Travel has made it their mission to stand up for elephants by replacing all elephant riding excursions with ethical elephant experiences. They firmly believe that tourism can be of huge social and environmental benefit to the destinations they work with, so they aim to maximize the positives with their drive towards providing meaningful, responsible, and sustainable adventures.

Deep Into The Jungle in Indonesia

Rickshaw Travel’s new bite-size trip allows travelers to venture into the raw, remote Sumatran jungle where regal elephants roam the rivers and monkeys chatter in the trees. Not far from their rustic bungalow on the banks of the Kualsa Buluh River, guests can treat the elephants to a jolly good scrub down in the water. Rickshaw looks out not just for the animals but also for the native people – by offering this experience, they’re supporting the local community with a grassroots project that actively hires ex-loggers and trains them as guides.
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Watch elephants play at Elephant Nature Park in Thailand

The Elephant Transit Home in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage is very popular, but there’s uncertainty surrounding its attitude towards animal welfare. As a result, Rickshaw Travel has decided not to offer elephant experiences there, instead arranging visits to the Elephant Transit Home in Udawalawe. The Home provides a humane alternative to taking abandoned animals into permanent captivity as they aim to return them to the wild when they’re ready. It’s a fantastic place to observe the gentle giants living as a herd from the respectful distance of a viewing platform.
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Elephants can roam freely at Elephant Nature Park in Thailand

Elephant Encounters in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Chiang Mai’s Elephant Nature Park’s mission is to promote sustainable, elephant-friendly tourism by rescuing and caring for elephants that have previously been mistreated in camps and circuses. Here, visitors have the opportunity to meet over 35 elephants, as well as walk with them, watch them play, and even give them a bath.
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These experiences won’t just look epic but feel genuinely rewarding too, knowing that you’re a part of (and not just riding upon) something much bigger than yourself.
Click HERE to find out more about Rickshaw Travel’s projects and on-going developments!
The Culture Trip x Rickshaw Travel

Since you are here, we would like to share our vision for the future of travel - and the direction Culture Trip is moving in.

Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful — and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special.

Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.

Culture Trips are deeply immersive 5 to 16 days itineraries, that combine authentic local experiences, exciting activities and 4-5* accommodation to look forward to at the end of each day. Our Rail Trips are our most planet-friendly itineraries that invite you to take the scenic route, relax whilst getting under the skin of a destination. Our Private Trips are fully tailored itineraries, curated by our Travel Experts specifically for you, your friends or your family.

We know that many of you worry about the environmental impact of travel and are looking for ways of expanding horizons in ways that do minimal harm - and may even bring benefits. We are committed to go as far as possible in curating our trips with care for the planet. That is why all of our trips are flightless in destination, fully carbon offset - and we have ambitious plans to be net zero in the very near future.