Letter From Our Director
Dear Parents,
We hope you like our Reef and Rainforest Family Wildlife Adventures website with its new design format and greater range of destinations and sample itineraries.
As many of you will know, Caroline and I became parents some years after starting Reef and Rainforest in 1989, and our children, Tom and Tilly, have since joined us on many trips to a large number of world class wildlife destinations.
Our first Family Website resulted from discovering the lack of holidays which offered anything other than sun, sand and sea, a week in a gite or villa, or perhaps a visit to Disneyland in Florida. We realised that many of Reef and Rainforest’s natural history destinations were eminently suitable for families with young children like ours – given the right itineraries.
Having travelled widely BC (Before Children) - as have many of you - we certainly did not want to forego travelling to adventurous tropical places while waiting for our children to grow up, and were certain many other parents felt the same. We thus resolved to develop a programme to appeal to those parents who, like us, wished to explore in depth the wider natural world in the company of their young children.
Thus began a series of exploratory trips to research suitable hotels, resorts, lodges and other facilities for young families. Tom and Tilly enjoyed themselves immensely, and in the process we ourselves gained some surprising insights.
Firstly, our initial misgivings about flying long-haul with young children were largely unfounded. Children, it seems, are often more resilient than adults on long flights. When provided with a suitable range of toys, games and books they amuse themselves very well, and are usually able to sleep in seats that might seemed cramped to their parents. The earlier children begin flying long-haul, the easier they become accustomed to it. Tom flew with us to Dominica when he was just one year old, and now takes long-haul flights in his stride.
Secondly, children appear to possess an inherent curiosity about the natural world. Tom and Tilly love rooting around in rock pools; learning the medicinal uses of jungle plants; snorkelling amongst colourful corals and reef fish; spotting bright birds, agile monkeys, slow sloths, jewel-like poison dart frogs and iridescent butterflies; taking photographs; collecting coconuts; boating to uninhabited islands; exploring Mayan temples; riding horses to volcanic craters or along Pacific beaches. When combined with the more traditional holiday pastimes of swimming, paddling and playing in the sand, the result was a valuable enhancement of their general education and life experiences.
Thirdly, we found that we took great pleasure in being with the children, observing their delight and wonderment in discovering for the first time the fabulous natural history of tropical regions. Through their eyes we re-evaluated many of the discoveries we had made on our travels BC, helping us appreciate more profoundly the mysteries of nature, ancient cultures and the world in which we live.
Finally, it became apparent the children valued our presence far more on such journeys, and we appreciated the precious time spent with them. We felt strongly that, given the constraints of normal working lives, it would be a real shame to have left them at home with granny or in the perpetual care of kids’ club minders. We nevertheless made full use of available babysitters during the evenings to have some time to ourselves.
We hope to take you on similar journeys, so that you too will come to realise the very real benefits of such wildlife adventure holidays in educating and stimulating your children (and yourselves), and, in the process, bringing the whole family closer together.
We wish you the happiest of family holidays for the future..gif)
Yours faithfully,
Alan & Caroline Godwin
Our trips can help uncover latent talents within your children. During one of our exploratory journeys (to Venezuela) Tom took the picture of a young puma (see picture opposite) which won the runner-up prize in the Ten Years and Under category of the 2007 Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. We thoroughly enjoyed the presentation dinner among the dinosaurs in the main hall of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington and meeting all the other photographers.
