About Visit Natives
Our mission
We support tourism that benefits indigenous peoples
In general, most tourism doesn't benefit indigenous people even when it takes place in their ancestral lands. Our trips support local families and communities in receiving greater economic benefits.
This will reduce the need for individuals to leave their homes for better financial opportunities in cities while preserving indigenous peoples' traditional way of life and cultural heritage.
We preserve indigenous cultures
Indigenous cultures are an essential part of our world's identity and diversity. However, these communities face many challenges that threaten their very existence.
We embrace and support indigenous languages, cultures, beliefs, and knowledge systems, and ensure that these vital pieces of our collective history remain intact for generations.
We promote sustainable travel
Our goal is to promote sustainable tourism in light of the challenges brought by climate change, particularly for indigenous communities who rely on nature.
Indigenous peoples have a unique ethical and spiritual connection with the environment, which we can all learn from. Our aim is to help travelers reconnect with nature and appreciate its beauty.
Our consept
Indigenous tourism provides opportunities to promote greater cultural understanding while enhancing indigenous peoples' capacity and economy. All our tours and expeditions are designed and run by the indigenous people themselves.
Our indigenous hosts warmly welcome travelers as their guests, not as tourists. The hospitality is extended to all: family members, neighbors, friends, and unknown visitors. Indigenous people take hospitality very seriously and it makes your stay authentic, memorable, and unique.
Welcome to observe and participate in everyday life, including feasts, rituals, and ceremonies. With us, you can create memories and friendships that last for a lifetime.
Trips that matter
Lands inhabited by the indigenous peoples contain 80 percent of the earth’s biodiversity. Most of our tours take place in locations that are included in UNESCO's World Heritage List.
These breathtaking natural wonders are the ancestral lands of indigenous people like Maasai, Hadzabe and Sami reindeer herders. Sustainable indigenous tourism is a way to support the survival of unique cultures, traditional knowledge, and indigenous people's rights to their native and ancestral lands.
Sustainable
We can minimize our travel's environmental impacts and maximize benefits for local people. On all our tours, you stay with indigenous hosts in their homes, villages, and homesteads. You sleep in a tent or a cabin, and you eat local food that is prepared by your indigenous hosts from local ingredients.
Our experiences take place in remote locations where there is no electricity, no roads, or no wi-fi connection. You can completely slow down and enjoy the surrounding nature with a low impact on the environment.
We are comm
Ethical tourism
Visit Natives protects the rights of the indigenous peoples. We work in close consultation with WINTA (World Indigenous Tourism Alliance) and all our work follows the Indigenous Tourism Engagement Framework for protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples through tourism.
The framework is based on the United Nation's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007, the Larrakia Declaration 2012, and benchmarked against other important international guidelines on the rights of Indigenous peoples.
How we share profits
70 % Goes to the indigenous host family & community
30 % Goes to Visit Natives
Our story
My name is Anniina. The story of the Visit Natives started in Africa, in a very hot and dry savannah, many years ago, while I was a student at Helsinki University in Finland. I studied African Studies and Anthropology, and before graduating, I wanted to learn more about the Maasai pastoralists' culture and language—the famous tribe in East Africa.
I traveled to Tanzania and lived with the Maasai while conducting my fieldwork for the Thesis. I observed and participated in Maasai's daily life, fetched water, participated in feasts, and drank cow's blood straight from the vein. That was one of my best experiences ever that changed my life.
Ever since, I have missed similar experiences when I travel. Something more special, where one could have a chance to live with the native people and learn from their culture and nature. I have to return as their culture and way of life are fascinating and unique. Moreover, I missed my Maasai family and friends, who treated me like their daughter and one of them.
Years passed, and I tried to figure out what I wanted to do in my life. With a passion for traveling, encountering indigenous cultures, and sustainability, I created my dream job, Visit Natives, which enables me to do good while traveling and support indigenous cultures like the Maasai.
Join our trips and travel for good!
Meet our team
Anniina Sandberg
Anniina is the founder of the Visit Natives. She has an MA in African Studies from the University of Helsinki. Her expertise is intercultural communication, indigenous cultures, and ethnography. She founded Visit Natives because she wanted to create her dream job where she can work with and help the indigenous peoples.
Noondyetian Laizer
We believe in the power of women to change their lives and the world around them for the better. Noondyetian is a Maasai woman from Mto Wa Mbu, Tanzania. She works closely with the Maasai women, so their perspectives and solutions are heard loud in our work to empower women through sustainable indigenous tourism. Noondyetian hosts guests in her home, in a Maasai boma too.
Nils Sara
Nils is a native Sami reindeer herder from Kautokeino, Norway. He manages all the homestays in Norway and he welcomes guests to his home too. Nils has dreamed about sustainable indigenous tourism for a long time. He is very passionate about his work and he makes sure that all the homestays are made of high quality.
Oddbjorg Hetta Sara
Oddbjorg is Nils's wife and she is also a native Sami from Kautokeino, Norway. Besides her own day job as a teacher, Oddbjorg gives Visit Natives consultancy on issues involving the indigenous peoples and she is also our databank. If you don't know something, ask Oddbjorg!