Gillian
I grew up in Johannesburg, and I have never been very good at staying still. From as early as I can remember, I felt the pull of the world beyond my familiar streets. Over the years I have travelled to almost every continent, never for the stamps in my passport, but for the people, the cultures, and the memories that have shaped me. Travel became my calling and followed me across the globe, from Joburg to a home and family in the UK. It became my craft as much as my calling: years as a travel adviser and manager at Pentravel, one of South Africa’s leading leisure travel companies, followed by a role as senior consultant for Aer Lingus. Recently, as a senior travel advisor, I arranged journeys for VVIP clients, among them A-list actors and musicians, the kind of travel where the expectations are high and the details endless. It has taught me that almost nothing is too ambitious, too intricate, or too far beyond reach to be made to happen. Working in British travel, I have watched what people want begin to change: fewer are content with the same week in the same resort, year after year, and more are longing for something richer and more adventurous, a journey that actually stays with them. I understand that longing completely, and I cannot think of a better place to answer it than where it all began for me: South Africa, my homeland. A country so beautiful, and so diverse in its culture and its landscapes, that I cannot wait for you to experience it.
Cathy
I have travelled all over the world and lost my heart to more cities and cultures than I can count. My career took me through corporate travel and then the luxury cruise industry, working with Royal Caribbean and P&O Cruises, escorting travellers to the far corners of the world on the holidays they had dreamed of all their lives. Always moving, always discovering. And yet, for all of it, I never once wanted to live anywhere but the Cape. This is home, and nowhere has ever come close. Two years ago, I took up open water swimming, and something shifted. Slipping into the cold Atlantic and seeing Table Mountain from the water, I realised I had spent a career showing people the world, and yet the most extraordinary place I knew was right here. Beauty like this is not meant to be kept to yourself. A country this beautiful has to be shared.
Why Thula
Why we founded Thula
There is a difference between booking a holiday and being understood. Most of the travel industry has forgotten that difference.
We built Thula to be the opposite of that.
We do not sell South Africa. We know it. Every route in our journeys, we have driven ourselves, slowly, the way we want you to experience it. When we recommend a clifftop suite over a city hotel, or a longer drive for a better sunset, it is not a sales script. It is two friends telling you what we would choose for ourselves.
That intimacy is the whole point. We get to know you and the version of South Africa you are dreaming of, and we build around exactly that. No call centre passing you between departments. One relationship, from the first conversation to the moment you land back home, still smiling.
It also means we say no to things that do not serve you. We turn down properties that do not meet our standard, however well they sell elsewhere. We will not pad an itinerary with extra stops just to extend the price tag.
This is our country. It changed how we see the world. We are not interested in adding you to a database. We are interested in you standing, even for a moment, in a place so beautiful that every worry falls away, where you fall in love with South Africa. Everything else is just logistics.
- thula / ˈtuËla / verb · Zulu
- to be quiet; to be still. To bring a sense of peace.
Come and find your still.
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