Meet Barbara
Throughout her career in the travel industry, Barbara has taken as many opportunities as possible to experience the destinations that she sells. When asked to give her top 5 highlights, she just added a sixth for good measure.
Barbara’s face lights up when she recounts a close encounter with an impressive yet gentle elephant bull on her mobile safari experience in Botswana. In close second place is her 2011 trip to Namibia with Skeleton Coast Safaris. It was a 3-night safari, but it felt like a 10-day action packed adrenaline ride. The memory of watching lion cubs using their mother as their jungle gym on a walking safari in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park is as vivid now as it was that day. In fourth place is the abundance of underwater life and colour at 2-Mile Reef in Mozambique. The Great Barrier Reef has nothing on the Bazaruto Archipelago! Number five must be the immersive 4-night Quality Control Adventure to Tswalu in South Africa. During a fun-filled few days with meerkats, a safari on horseback, incredible wildlife sightings, a passionate guiding team like no other, night drives and a dune dinner, Barbara experienced an unparalleled holistic approach to conservation and tourism first-hand. And the one experience she cannot leave out, is her game capture adventure on horseback in Badplaas. Ask her about it!
Not unlike other independent travel specialists, Barbara rolled into arranging trips and has been arranging holidays through Southern Africa since 1990. Growing up in KwaZulu Natal in South Africa, she developed her independent spirit during her high school years as a boarder at St Anne’s Diocesan College in the misty village of Hilton. When it came to career planning, all Barbara envisioned was to find work that would enable her to experience and explore more of the world.
At the age of 21, with a secretarial diploma from Durban Tech and a reference from Unilever in hand, she headed for the UK to do just that. Barbara soon found her way to the world of diplomatic relations in Geneva. She worked for the South African Mission to the UN, the International Trade Centre, UNICEF and the UNDP before securing a position at the International Air Transport Association. Especially during her 7-year tenure at IATA, she took full advantage of the opportunities to travel across Europe and beyond.
In 1985, Barbara moved to Johannesburg, and in the following 5 years she worked in different sectors of the travel industry, from PR services for the inspiring Dr Enos J. Mabuza of KaNgwane (now part of Mpumalanga), to teaching travel via the Birnam Business College and running her own business Travel Agents Training. Throughout this time, she found herself recommending places to visit in South Africa to her friends and former colleagues from Europe. You can get where this was going. By 1990 she had planned and booked her first official trip to Africa, and she knew that this is what she really enjoyed. She headed to Cape Town and bought a lovely old house called ‘Odlum Lodge’ in the vibey University area of Mowbray, at the base of Table Mountain. And there you have it – Odlum Travel and Tours was a fact. Odlum Lodge is still her home and a wonderful workspace, where her two canine companions, Socks & Sasha, rule the roost.
Get in Touch
Odlum Travel & Tours
14 Rhodes Avenue, Mowbray, Cape Town
Office: +27 21 685 1321
Mobile: +27 83 298 6901
Your Independent Africa Safari Specialist
