Tour Operators

Geckos Puts Spotlight on Little-Known Festivals

Geckos Adventures has introduced trips to some of the world’s least-known festivals to meet demand from millennials searching for authentic local experiences in off-the-beaten track places.

The new range includes food, music and cultural festivals that will mean Geckos travellers could find themselves dancing in the streets at Morocco’s colourful Gnaoua Festival, getting elbow-deep in pickled cabbage at South Korea’s Kimchi Festival or doing the conga at Santiago de Cuba’s annual Carnival.

Five months ago Geckos dropped their age range by 10 years to become the first travel company to focus solely on 18- to 29-year-olds seeking an alternative to “party bus tours.”

The new one-off Geckos Festivals trips include Gnaoua Festival Morocco. With around 500,000 revellers flocking to the port city of Essaouira each year, the Gnaoua Festival is a huge music festival. Indigenous to Northern Africa, Gnawa music is a mystical, religious chant, with tunes often lasting several hours. There’s also time to explore Marrakech, hang out in the windsurfing hotspot of Sidi Kaouko and drink mint tea with Berber people in the mountain village of Imlil. The nine-day trip costs $945 per person and departs June 27.

(http://www.geckosadventures.com)