HOTELS Bulungula Xhosa Community Lodge - Eco-Friendly Backpackers Paradise

Bulungula Xhosa Community Lodge - Eco-Friendly Backpackers Paradise

July 10, 2017 by UNIQ Hotels

Location:

Nqileni South Africa Africa
Eco-FriendlyNature

The Bulungula Lodge (pronounced boo-lun-GOO-lah) is part backpacker’s roadtrip, part cultural immersion, and part package holiday. It was set up in 2005 as an experiment to see if eco-tourism could help the local economy, and it has been a resounding success. Getting there is part of the by train, bus, and car. You stay in a traditional Xhosa rondavel hut and have the choice of self-catering or eating at the lodge.

The lodge is partly owned by the village and is fully integrated into the local culture and economy. The villagers are happy to take you on a tour, teach you local arts and crafts and show you a good party time. There are no beggars and pickpockets here because tourism is fully integrated and helpful to the local community. It seems everyone is winning at the Bulungula Lodge.

Book Online

PRICE FROM $8

The Rolling Hills of the Wild Coast
Bulungula Lodge huts in black and white

Photo by Meta Severin

Bulungula Lodge huts on the rolling hills

Photo by Meta Severin

Bulungula Lodge huts

Photo by Meta Severin

Bulungula Lodge hut interior

Photo by Meta Severin

Community local people
Bulungula tribe
Coffee Bay - Wild Coast
bulungula river mouth
Canoeing the Bulungula River
Wild Coast Beach South Africa

Photo by Meta Severin


Book Online

PRICE FROM $8


Nqileni, 5070, South Africa


Related hotels

Feynan Ecolodge - Off the Grid and Off the Map

Feynan Ecolodge - Off the Grid and Off the Map

There are no light switches at Feynan Ecolodge. No minibar, no television, no electricity sockets in the rooms. What you get instead is candlelight flickering off stone walls, a sky so dense with stars it feels structural, and the sound of nothing in particular. Located deep inside Jordan's Dana Biosphere …

Huus Quell - In the Swiss Alps, a Hotelier Built His Dream From Moonwood

Huus Quell - In the Swiss Alps, a Hotelier Built His Dream From Moonwood

There's a button on the door of your room at Huus Quell that cuts the Wi-Fi. It's a small thing, but it tells you everything about what Jan Schoch is going for here. The founder of Switzerland's first tech unicorn, a former Goldman Sachs man who spent years on Wall …

Blancaneaux Lodge - The Lodge Where Francis Ford Coppola Made His Hideaway

Blancaneaux Lodge - The Lodge Where Francis Ford Coppola Made His Hideaway

Somewhere in western Belize, a waterfall is tumbling into a turquoise pool that almost nobody sees. It isn't on a popular trail or a backpacker's bucket list. It's just sitting there, doing its thing, above the jungle canopy of the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve, which stretches across 107,000 acres …

Tropical Glamping - Sleeping Above the Ocean on Nusa Penida's Wildest Coast

Tropical Glamping - Sleeping Above the Ocean on Nusa Penida's Wildest Coast

Wake to manta rays gliding through turquoise water 150 meters below your bamboo bed. This is glamping at its most audacious – a sustainable bungalow perched on Nusa Penida's dramatic eastern cliffs, where you can shower with ocean views, lounge in a net suspended over the void, and watch nature's …

Hotel Qvevrebi - Sleeping Inside A Wine Jug In Georgia's Ancient Vine Country

Hotel Qvevrebi - Sleeping Inside A Wine Jug In Georgia's Ancient Vine Country

There are plenty of hotels that claim to put you in touch with a place's culture. Hotel Qvevrebi in eastern Georgia takes the idea more literally than most: it has built 20 cottages shaped like the qvevri, the ancient egg-shaped clay vessels that Georgians have used to ferment and store …

Aura House Bali - IBUKU's Three-Story Bamboo Villa Above Bali's Ayung River

Aura House Bali - IBUKU's Three-Story Bamboo Villa Above Bali's Ayung River

There are places you visit and places that visit you back. Aura House, a hand-shaped bamboo structure curling along the edge of Bali's Ayung River gorge, belongs firmly in the second category. It was designed by IBUKU, the architecture collective founded by Elora Hardy - daughter of Canadian jewelry entrepreneur …

Domaine des Etangs, Auberge Collection - Deep in the Charente, a Medieval Castle Reinvents Itself

Domaine des Etangs, Auberge Collection - Deep in the Charente, a Medieval Castle Reinvents Itself

Somewhere in the Charente countryside of southwest France, on a 1,000-hectare (2,500-acre) estate of forests, lakes, and open pastureland, there is a tennis court floating on a pond. There is also a 13th-century castle tower where you can sleep beneath a glass ceiling and look up at the stone ribs …

Hana-Maui Resort, a Destination by Hyatt Residence - The Far Side of Maui

Hana-Maui Resort, a Destination by Hyatt Residence - The Far Side of Maui

Most resorts want you to stay on property. Hana-Maui Resort wants you to stay in a different way entirely - unhurried, untethered, and largely offline. Rooms here have no televisions, no alarm clocks, and in some cases no radios. The spa uses heated lava rocks and Hawaiian healing traditions that …

More articles Explore all posts →