We were recently alerted to an article about 2 travel companies, Responsible Travel and Intrepid Travel, dropping elephant trekking tours.
Our only question was, "What took them so long?!"
We're genuinely shocked and surprised that these big companies had been promoting these cruel elephant treks until recently.
Our founder was rejecting elephant trekking back on her own career break in 2005, before the abuse the elephants suffered was widely known. Since we started this site, we've been incredibly strict, and lost out on advertising revenue, in order to keep to our principles of only promoting career breaks that are responsible. Therefore, we have never promoted elephant treks.
What we have done, is partnered with a number of organisations to promote responsible elephant conservation work - helping to protect these magnificent creatures now and in the future. It's a more fulfilling career break for the people who trust us to help them find such projects too - they work hands-on with the elephants, washing, feeding and caring for them. Plus they get to learn about them from committed and responsible local staff who can teach them far more about elephants than they ever would have imagined!
If you'd like to take a conservation career break that has been vetted and approved by the stricted process in the industry (ours), then click here to find all our conservation projects.
Related reading:
This blog post from CBS-approved partner Projects Abroad: Elephant rides - what I wish I'd known.
Matthew Karsen, of popular travel blog Expert Vagabond, has a post on Why you shouldn't ride elephants in Thailand.
This blog post from 2011 on World Nomads says Why elephant riding should be removed from your bucket list.