Philosophy

We are on a mission to explore the earth’s natural wonders. 

We currently offer tours to Central America and Southern Africa and will be adding additional tours based on whether we believe it qualifies as a natural wonder. If you are interested in a natural wonder and don’t see it listed as an available tour, let us know and we will work to create the tour.

We believe in helping people see the most amazing places for the best possible cost. 

We work hard to identify ways to reduce costs while maximizing experiences.

We are proud of our 100% safety record and have helped over a thousand people with the opportunity to experience nature’s beauty through our tours. 

We only select tours that have the highest safety ratings and operators that demonstrate a desire to go the extra mile to take care of our clients.

We recognize that nature is a highly sensitive environment. 

We limit our tours to a maximum of 16 people to ensure that we are not contributing to the decline of the nature.

We believe there is an adventure to fit everyone. 

We view travel as transformative and want to make it available to as many people as possible. We will be creating wellness and fitness programs to help those who have an adventure dream to achieve it. If you are interested in this, please let us know as we are looking for future adventurers to pilot this program.

about

Meet Sharon

Natural Wonders Tours was born out of my desire to share my love of nature with others.

To honor the natural world in all her beauty. To educate and inspire others to preserve nature. To give back to conservation through donations.

I appear to have always had a restless nature.

I started exploring at the age of 15 months when I set out from our home down the dirt road to see where it led. I was discovered three houses down the road. Much to my mother’s dismay, that was not the extent of my wandering, as I set out a few months later to see what was up the road the other way. To my pleasure I found a patch of dirt where I played quite happily until I was retrieved.

In the winters we would head to the Drakensberg Mountains to go hiking. At 9 years old I hiked the Sentinel Trail and climbed chain ladders to the top of the Amphitheater (9600ft). In those days we had no fancy equipment – just a repurposed water bottle on a braided strap. On one occasion I remember we ran out of water and my father’s solution was to filter water from a stagnant pond through a handkerchief. Those were the days where adventure happened on the fly as there were no maps, GPS, cell phones, fancy equipment, hiking shoes or internet for research. It was you putting yourself out there in nature and winging it. When we weren’t adventuring in the mountains, we were challenging the surf at the beach or vacationing at the lake, where we spent our days sailing, camping, paddling and biking. Adventure was woven into the thread of daily life and it was the best childhood I could ever have asked for.

I worked as a magazine editor and travel writer, visiting Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and other regions of South Africa.

After a very intense experience in nature, I realized I wanted to work in nature at some point in my life. I wrote these words at that time for an article for the magazine and this, more than anything is what I want people to experience on my tours:

There is nothing that quite comes close to matching the incredible energy experienced when visiting Africa. It radiates from every pore; you become aware of it in the big skies above you, the earth throbs beneath you to an ancient pulse and you can feel that the people, animals and plants all vibrate with a harmony which is lost to over-commercialized first world metropolises.

My restless spirit eventually took me to London and America and eventually after Lyme disease changed my life as I knew it, I returned to my first love: nature.

I wrote a book The Nature of Change, which described my change cycle of rediscovering my true natural path, and laid out a guide for others to follow should it so inspire them. Writing the book reminded me of my deep-seated desire to work in nature, and after leading tours for friends, I realized that my adventurous childhood was the best training ground to work in travel.

As Helen Keller said:

Life is either a great adventure, or nothing.

Cheers!

sharon-sig