BY DELISA THWALA
MBABANE– The extensive positive coverage of Eswatini’s charms as a tourist destination has continued in recent months, with a number of great features in key publications across Europe.
In January, a wonderful and comprehensive 12-page article by travel writer Sabrina Gaudio was published in the prestigious Lonely Planet magazine in The Netherlands.
Sabrina was clearly blown away by her experiences in Eswatini when she visited in late 2022 as a guest of the Eswatini Tourism Authority.
As is so often the case, she was very pleasantly surprised by the variety she discovered in the Kingdom, stating: “What Eswatini lacks in size, it makes up for with breathtaking nature, an extensive range of activities and an incredible amount of wildlife. In fact, Eswatini offers perhaps the most magical wildlife experience ever: coming face to face with a rhinoceros”
The feature is accompanied by Sabrina’s beautiful photography and includes a detailed fact box covering all the places she visited and stayed at, plus a credit to Ja Afrika, the Dutch tour operator who has first-hand knowledge of Eswatini and who organized Sabrina’s travel to Eswatini.
Lonely Planet is perhaps the biggest global brand in travel publishing and in 2020 they named Eswatini as one of their Best in Travel Top Countries to visit.
The pandemic disrupted the impact of that great accolade, but now that international travel is up and running again, all the reasons that Eswatini is showered with praise in articles and features like this are still there for its visitors to discover and enjoy
Sadly, the current edition of the Lonely Planet Magazine in The Netherlands, complete with its Eswatini feature, will be the last one printed. As such, of course, it’s likely to be highly sought-after, even a collector’s item.
Belgian photographer and writer, Jonathan Ramael has also continued to produce even more great coverage of the Kingdom.
Having visited for the third time last year with the task of updating Eswatini Tourism Authority’s photographic library, Jonathan has already added a highly entertaining entry about the country to his Trot Op! Blog, which has collected him an award nomination. Now, he has an article out in the current edition of ‘Goodbye’ magazine, Belgium’s top travel magazine.
Across eight pages and accompanied by his wonderful photographs, Jonathan covers many of Eswatini’s diverse tourist attractions, including the famous Umhlanga Reed Dance that he was lucky enough to attend during his visit.
Like Sabrina, Jonathan also highlighted that, although Eswatini is not widely known as a tourist destination, it is home to all that a visitor to Africa needs: ‘There is almost everything to experience that you can expect from an African trip: beautiful views, thrilling cultural events and a lot of excellent safari parks.’
