Elephant Friendly Travel Companies

This is a slightly different post compared to what I usually write about. But I can’t help myself! I saw the news on a Danish travel blog Rejseblokken (which I can totally recommend btw, especially if you live in Denmark).

The News

Basically a lot of Danish travel agencies, have joined other international agencies, in banning elephant riding i.e. banning the elephant tourism entertainment. News I am really happy to hear. It is World Animal Protection who’s campaigned has made it possible. I’m not going to go into detail about how elephants are as animals but you can read much more about them here and if you want to know how they “break” elephants you can read about that here (it’s done in an absolutely horrible way!).

My Elephant Experience

When I was a little girl I rode an elephant in a circus. My mom told me that they (the people at the circus) asked people if anyone wanted to try and ride an elephant, and she grabbed me. I don’t remember much of the experience myself, I only remember the feeling of the elephants skin but not actually being on it. In the beginning of my teenage years I thought it sounded cool to go to Thailand (or any other area) to ride an elephant. I remember seeing photos of it online, but it never really occurred to me that the elephants had been mistreated. That may have been incredibly naive of me to think like that, but I didn’t think about it. Until one day I realised that they indeed were; mistreated. And from that day on I knew I didn’t want to ride an elephant, or attend a circus or any other industry that forces elephants to ‘perform’. I have not in my adult life visited a circus nor will I ever do so if there are animals involved in the performance. That’s not something I can support, but that’s a personal preference and we all have our own opinions and preferences. This is mine.

Anyway, I just wanted to share what I deem as great news for the travel industry. Yay for not supporting the elephant entertainment industry! Hopefully this will lead to these ‘elephant businesses’ to close down.

Here is a complete list of the companies. And below are two photos of some cute elephants!

(Photo credit: Unsplash)