Why Our Citizen Science Tours Are Getting Rave Reviews

Featured Image: Happy group enjoying our Mungo Outback & Conservation Journey Photo: Amanda Lamont

We investigated why our citizen science tours are getting 5 star reviews: it's all down to our guest's desire to give back to nature (and to meticulous planning)

TripAdvisor: "Outback Trip of a Lifetime"

That’s how one of our guests described their trip to Mungo National Park recently in a review on Trip Advisor. We love hearing from our guests after a tour. 

This is especially wonderful when most reviews are from people who have travelled on one or more of our “Conservation & Citizen Science” tour collections.

More often these days people are choosing tours that enable them to support nature. Australian Geographic Travel is proudly offering tours that actively give back to the environment.

Here’s some excerpts from recent reviews that describe our guest's enthusiasm for caring for nature:

“A very well structured and planned tour. We got extra with all our presentations and the Research Centre tour. We did a Coral Survey and entered the data with Coral Watch”
TOUR: Turtle Conservation of the Southern Great Barrier Reef

Our guides in particular are getting excellent feedback for their knowledge, attention to detail and support on tour.

“Two fantastic guides, Scott and Mark, were extremely knowledgeable about wildlife, birds, natural and local history. Our heads were spinning with all the great information and there was a recap each day…..They also care deeply about the environment and wildlife and it shows in their work.”
TOURS: Orcas & Numbats South-west Western Australia, 
Whale Sharks & Nature Ningaloo in Western Australia

Guides are the “face” of an amazing team that puts everything in place to ensure our guests have a fulfilling experience whilst giving back to the natural world. 

How do we do that?

Meticulous planning ensures citizen science success

The following examples are from our partners at Echidna Walkabout Nature Tours (EWNT). 

To ensure citizen science success EWNT conservation staff produce a detailed Running Sheet for each tour which includes:

• hour by hour plan for each day
• comprehensive species lists
• tour booklets*
• briefing and interpretation notes
• sunset & sunrise time and moon phases
• weather forecasts

*Tour Booklets are specific to each tour and contain information on the major natural history aspects of the trip including a hard copy species list (this species list is also provided online for later use).

Designing high quality conservation and citizen science tours requires skills that may not be obvious to the participant on the tour. For instance EWNT takes into account:

• Guests’ abilities
• Historical wildlife movements
• Weather conditions and season
• Available water in waterholes 
• Climate over the past year (or more)
• Road & Track conditions
• Time of year (sunrise, sunset, moon)

Sophisticated online tools are used by Echidna Walkabout’s specially trained guides. Throughout the trip they utilise and update this information on their phone or computer. You’d be surprised how much your guide does after they go to their room at the end of the day or early in the morning before you meet them. 

Citizen science & post tour follow up 

A major part of all our tours is to record sightings of wildlife and plants for use by researchers and scientists. EWNT uses online citizen science forums like eBird and iNaturalist to identify and record much of what we see on tour. This is incredibly useful to science: "A history of the biggest discoveries by citizen scientists"

Your guide also photographs interesting discoveries on the trip as well as general photos to record the trip. The idea is to document any unusual findings.

After the tour we follow up by sending you an online species list and the guide’s photo album enabling you to remain involved in our citizen science work. You can even add photos to the album if you’d like follow up or identification of something your saw.

Shortly we’ll be taking all this a step further by making all our online species lists available directly to the scientific community or to anyone who would like to use it.

You can read more about our Conservation and Citizen Science programs here: Can a tour help conservation? Travel company leads the way

More reviews from TripAdvisor

“Our guide was fantastic fun and having grown up in the region knew all the best places to go to find the birds in particular a lot of the birds of prey.”
TOUR: Southern Eyre Peninsula Bird Watching Tour

"It was a great visit to Kangaroo Island with Australian Geographic Travel. We had an exceptionally knowledgeable local guide Lee from Exceptional Kangaroo Island. Which also provided great catering. The conservation experts were great. And the scenery outstanding. Fabulous place to visit"
TOUR: Kangaroo Island Wildlife & Conservation

See more at TripAdvisor

Please always let us know what you thought of the trip, it helps us work out what we’re doing right (or wrong) so we can make your next trip even better!

Citizen Science tours by Australian Geographic Travel help you Give Back

AGT operates a wide range of citizen science tours right across Australia. These tours are designed so you can help nature while you enjoy it. You can find and book them here: Conservation & Citizen Science Tours