5 independent reviews for Mauritania small group holiday

Reviews for Mauritania small group holiday

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review 7 Jan 2024

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?

Rock Art, Mherith Oasis, and Ouadane

2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?

Get nearest in the front of the plane as Visa queue long. Don’t forget torch for camping and good walking shoes that get very dusty in the sand.

3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

Yes

4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?

Guide was a little rushed to accommodate the rest breaks every afternoon. Timekeeping needs to be better. Excellent drivers on some difficult terrain.

review 14 Jan 2023

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?

Waking up in the middle of the desert

2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?

Long drives, lots of police controls, be patient.

3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

Yes, the country needs tourism and the jobs it creates.

4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?

Although the guide was helpful I would've liked him to provide a brief cultural, historical information about the places we visited.

review 7 Mar 2022

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?

Breath taking landscapes (with no other tourist around), where the journey and adventure is as important as the destination(s)

2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?

Enjoy and definitely have a spare battery for your camera/phone

3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

Unfortunately not really due to the type of trip, but guide and driver were very conscientious about all these matters.

4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?

Exceeded my expectations by so far!!!!

review 1 Apr 2022

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?

Realising how big and desolate the desert is, but how life can still emerge and grow. The importance of water. The resilience and ingenuity of people. The value of camels. Ben Amera and the Ayisha - phenomenal. Wild camping underneath them- the starry skies. The iron ore train. Cap Blanc - the birds and the location. Animal tracks in the sand after our night wild camping. The family living in the middle of the Guelb er Richât

2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?

Take soap as well as loo paper. Glasses as well as contact lenses. Make sure to have long sleeves and long trousers to respect the local culture in some of the more conservative places, and t-shirts with half sleeves for elsewhere. Be prepared for long long drives across the desert - can be bumpy. Travel sickness pills? Liner for sleeping bag is all you need on some nights so bring that as well as the sleeping bag.

3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

Not obviously. This was the only part of the trip that disappointed me. I would like to have had more contact with people from the areas we visited, more opportunities to find out what their situation was and how, if at all, our tourism helped them. In particular, please can you think about abandoning the use of plastic water bottles and asking people to bring water purification tablets or equivalent instead. If each of us drank 3-4 bottles a day over 9 days, that is around 150 plastic bottles unecessarily used. Would also show leadership. Also, more time in the Banc d’Arguin -if there were time for a tour of part of the reserve eg at Cap Blanc, this would give a local guide some employment,

4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?

Generally excellent - the guide and drivers were great. Reliable, thoughtful and considerate and read the group very well. One thing that would make it even better, 5*, would be to provide visitors with information about eg birds, music, food, dress, politics, history and geography (and definitely a map with places visited marked). 1 double sided sheet for each topic would suffice; would be super helpful eg to have pictures of the birds/animals you are most likely to see, with a little paragraph about them.

Read the operator's response here:

Dear Candy, I hope you are well. Apologies that it has taken some time for us to respond to your feedback about this trip. I’m really pleased to hear that you enjoyed your time in Mauritania and gained a lot from your experiences here. It sounds like you made some fantastic memories. I’m glad that you felt well looked after by your guide and drivers. We always prefer to work with local guides and drivers - not only does this ensure that money stays within the local economy, but also local people know their country best, which really enhances the experience for the group. Unfortunately, the guides at Banc d’Arguin aren’t very experienced with international tourists, so we wouldn’t be completely confident in allowing them to lead one of our groups. That said, we will certainly consider spending more time at Banc d’Arguin on future trips, and see how we can incorporate this into the itinerary. Interaction with local people, and doing this well, is important to us. We try to include meaningful experiences wherever possible on our tours, and when appropriate, take the opportunity to interact with people when opportunities arise along the way. It’s great that you were able to meet a family in the Guelb er Richat, and get an insight into their way of life. Unfortunately, not all local people are open to visits from tourists so we try to strike the right balance with this and make sure that we don't intrude too much. We are very conscious about single use plastic and as part of our responsible travel initiative, we are looking at ways to cut down on this, such as asking our travelers to bring a reusable water bottle which can be refilled during the tour. We do find that people would rather not drink water that has been purified with tablets, so this is a challenge, but it’s an issue that we are taking seriously. Please be assured that any plastic bottles used during our trips are disposed of properly and taken to recycling centers back in the cities, where these exist. I’m sorry that you felt our traveler information was lacking a bit in terms of culture and geography. We provide some information about culture, practical information and a suggested reading list in our country notes for each destination, but try not to overwhelm people with the amount of documentation we provide. Some travelers prefer more detail, others prefer less, and of course personal interests vary. Our guides are really the experts in terms of country knowledge, so they are based placed to inform our travelers during the tour, answer any questions and bring their culture to life. We will definitely consider how we can improve our country notes and pre-departure information going forward, to make them more trip specific. Thank you for mentioning this, as well as your tips on what to bring - we can add some of these to our packing list. Thank you. Kind Regards, Michaela Tart Travel Consultant

review 9 Jan 2019

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?

The cold that first night. The sandstorm. Racing across the desert at 100 km/h. The Nouakchott fish market.

2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?

Don’t bring contact lenses and do bring a sleeping bag. Consider bringing helpful gifts for the locals, e.g. small solar lights.

3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

Local people definitely benefited from our spending on hotels, restaurants & souvenirs.

4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?

A couple of hiccups which were to be expected; otherwise FABULOUS.

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