THE SOLO TRAVELLER
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For Rebecca Draheim, studying to become a field guide in South Africa opened up an entirely different way of experiencing Africa. Photographer: Zach Savage.
Reading Africa
A Q&A with Rebecca Draheim
Briefly …
Tracks became stories, bird calls became clues and wildlife encounters became something to interpret rather than simply observe. For solo traveller Rebecca Draheim, studying to become a field guide in South Africa opened up an entirely different way of experiencing Africa – and ultimately a different life within it.
There is seeing a rhino, and there is finding its tracks and knowing it passed through before you arrived. There is watching a herd of elephants, and there is recognising the small movements that tell you when you have stayed too long. Even an apparently quiet landscape has something to say if you know how to read it.
Rebecca Draheim wanted to learn that language. After years of solo travel, safaris and conservation volunteering across Africa, she enrolled in field-guide training in South Africa. She went looking for a deeper understanding of wildlife and the landscapes around it. What she found would eventually change where – and how – she wanted to live.
You travelled solo to South Africa specifically to undertake field-guide training. What made you want to study wildlife rather than simply experience it as a traveller?
I had previously travelled to Africa four times solo, doing safaris across East and Southern Africa with G Adventures, as well as volunteering in Zimbabwe and Namibia. In 2015 while I was volunteering in Namibia with Elephant Human Relations Aid (EHRA), I met a woman who was doing her placement for a field guiding course through EcoTraining, and I just fell in love with the idea. One of the reasons I kept coming back to Southern Africa was that I enjoyed volunteering and being hands on with a team working towards something that had a greater impact. I had seen a lot and loved the idea of experiencing Africa beyond a safari or volunteering.
I’ve always been a wildlife lover and felt like wildlife conservation was my happy place. Except that it was my escape, it wasn’t my real life. So when I finally had the opportunity to go and get my guiding qualification, I knew it was a step closer to a different life I wanted for myself.
Camping … with the elephants. Image courtesy Rebecca Draheim.
EcoTraining’s field-guide course covers ecology, animal behaviour, species identification, tracking and much more. What did a typical day of learning in the field involve, or did each day unfold differently depending on what you encountered?
The general day started with either a walk or game drive at the crack of dawn. Because it was January, we would wake up at 4:30am to leave for the activity at 5:00am. The drive would take three to four hours, with a student driving under the supervision of the instructors. The drives were an opportunity for us to learn how to guide and drive at the same time, whereas the walks, especially the initial ones, were about learning the trees, grasses and flowers, navigation and safety, tracks and signs.
We would return from the activity and have breakfast, then go into a lesson on one of our modules. The different modules were guiding in the natural environment and creating a guided experience, geology, climate and weather, astronomy, ecology, biomes, taxonomy, plants (trees, shrubs, forbs, grasses), arthropods, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, animal behaviour, conservation and habitat management, and historical human habitation.
Study time. Image courtesy Rebecca Draheim.
After the day’s lecture, time was our own up until lunch and the afternoon activity. Because there is so much content to cover and learn in this course, most students spent this time studying. We would stay in the classroom, go to our tents, or sit by the river. One of my struggles was the bird calls, and so my tent mate and I would listen to them and practise identifying them for about 30 minutes every day. Then came the afternoon activity, again either a walk or drive. My course was split into three groups, and we would rotate between two drives and a walk. Then we would return and have dinner. Rinse and repeat.
But what you encounter definitely shapes the day and what you learn. Finding elephants and being able to watch and learn their behaviour, days when you don’t see much at all, or days when it pours with rain and you get soaking wet – these vehicles don’t have roofs!
Tracking a leopard barefoot; and my books, my cup of tea, and my view. Images courtesy Rebecca Draheim.
How did learning to read tracks, animal behaviour and alarm calls change the way you observe wildlife?
Learning and knowing tracks and signs gives you a glimpse into the past. You know that even though you didn’t see the rhino, it was here. Maybe the tracks are fresh, and you can follow them and might get lucky and find the animal.
“Learning and knowing tracks and signs gives you a glimpse into the past. You know that even though you didn’t see the rhino, it was here.”
Knowing the behaviour and their social structures also gives you better insight into what is happening and why. It becomes more immersive and not just a sighting. You know that giraffes feed from higher branches and evolved that way to reduce competition from other browsers. They eat the sweet leaves from acacias from between the thorns without getting cut up by them, and their tongues are dark to protect them from the sunlight and burning. Their social structure was considered a temporary association, but scientists now believe that they still have their family groups. They are just freer to wander and return, rather than staying together all the time. So it’s not just, “Oh look! Some giraffes!”
Interpreting what is around you, as a guide, is very important, not only to keep guests entertained, but to keep them safe. Elephants will lift their front leg when they’re thinking or put their trunk in the air to smell you. Knowing when you’ve gotten too close or overstayed your welcome with a herd of elephants can come from the shake and flap of the head. My view on the ethics of elephant encounters is that if they’re mock charging you, or charging you, you haven’t done your job in reading the situation.
The Assessment Drives were an opportunity for us to learn how to guide and drive at the same time. Photographer: Zach Savage.
What was it like putting everything you had learned into practice during your final field-guide assessment?
Before we did the practical assessment, there was also a theory exam, which required a 75% mark to pass. It covered all the theory from the different modules, from the anatomy of a scorpion and how a lunar eclipse works to the foot structure of mammals. As well as my feared component, the bird calls, which could have come from a list of over 100 species.
We were a large course of 20, with only two vehicles and two drives a day. It took us four days to get through everyone, and names were drawn out of a hat for the testing order. I was on day three, in the afternoon. Waiting and seeing everyone coming back and passing added to the build-up of stress and adrenaline.
By this point, as students, we had spent so much time learning and practising, then preparing for our drives. We planned our routes but also knew there was never a guarantee that we’d see anything. So being prepared to talk about trees and tracks was important, as was being able to identify bird calls and talk about the ecosystems around us.
When my assessment came, the only mammals we saw were impala, so luckily I had studied my birds, geology and plants very well, because that is what got me through to an amazing 97% for my drive. Then I just enjoyed the final few days of the course, and everything had this extra stress-free beauty to it.
When my assessment came, the only mammals we saw were impala. Photographer: Marilen Gable.
How did that first learning journey shape your later work and volunteering in wildlife conservation?
It wasn’t so straightforward. The end of my course coincided with COVID-19, and I found myself in quarantine in Australia by March. It was the strangest feeling, going from months of living outside to being stuck in a room. Fast forward a few years and I finally went back to South Africa to volunteer for four weeks in October 2023, with Selati Research Volunteer Programme backed by the Selati Wilderness Foundation. I enjoyed it so much, and it really was an eye-opening experience because it solidified that this is what I wanted to do. Having done the course, I was able to see the bigger picture in the management and conservation decisions being made and understand the reasons for particular activities we were doing as volunteers.
When I was home, I made a plan. I’d go back to do a short three-month internship with Selati Research starting in April 2024 (apparently, they were happy with the work I did as a volunteer!). That happened to lead to a full-time opportunity for 12 months starting in September of the same year, so I raced back to Australia and applied for my volunteer visa. Suddenly, I was working as a guide in wildlife conservation, which I did my best to document for my friends and family back home on my Instagram.
Sleep out. Photographer: Marilen Gable.
The course gave me the qualification to do the job, but I believe it was my passion for wildlife conservation which made the experience deeper for me, and I was able to learn much more than just guiding. After that year, I knew I needed to find my way back here. So I sit now, living part-time between Australia and South Africa, still organising my visa for a full-time move and hopefully a job working in wildlife conservation. I think this may have been a roundabout way of answering.
It’s easy to say, “Travelling changed my life”, but for me, the solo travelling and the people I have met over the past 10 years changed the course of my life, and led me to experiences which would see me packing up my life and moving overseas to start a new career.
I would highly recommend solo travellers who are wanting to experience something greater than a safari to enrol in a field-guide course. There are many types to suit different theory and practical levels. Or volunteer in wildlife conservation, as a solo travel experience.
You can connect with Rebecca on Instagram, and learn more about volunteering in wildlife conservation with the organisations Rebecca mentions via their websites: EcoTraining and EHRA.