What Happened to Country and Coastal Touring?

Country and Coastal Touring enjoyed 10 years of touring. A family business, my dad (Charles) and I started CC Touring wince we wanted to share our passion for Durban (our home city) and our love for the bush.

We’ve loved taking travelers all around South Africa and shown them our favorite things about SA and in turn enjoyed meeting new people and learning more about them.

And then covid struck.

I clearly remember the Tuesday that the South African government announced their intention to enter a “lockdown”. I had a French couple booked on a city tour and had to explain to them that they were now confined to the hotel.

That Thursday we entered into lockdown and with that, tourism died.

At first we thought we would simply weather the storm until tourism returned but then Charles contracted covid and after being very ill for nearly a month decided it was time retire and look after his health.

For myself, I wasn’t sure tourism would ever return as we limped from wave to wave and so took the heartbreaking decision to shut down Country and Coastal Touring for good.

The last year or so has been tough on everyone. I, like many of my fellow guides, had to change direction very quickly. Fortunate for me I had a trade (carpentry) that I obtained after leaving high school and so I fell back on that.

Lately however I have noticed the winds changing ever so slightly. Some old clients had contacted me on Facebook and asked if I was still around and whether I could assist in planning trips to South Africa.

The more I looked into it, the more I realised I missed tour guiding and that come hell or high water I wanted to get back into it. However, Country and Coastal was closed and it didn’t seem right to resurrect it without my dad.

So, after giving it much thought, I decided to get back into tour guiding and launched this website, Durban Safaris and Tours. I felt the name perfectly described what it is I do and offer – no more, no less.

And that’s all there is to that story. Over time I hope that DS & T’s becomes as popular and successful as CC Touring was.