Specialist guide training for lodges and guides
Guide training that helps differentiate your lodge through building capacity, adapability, motivation and professionalism in your team, and by highlighting unique features of the landscape you share with guests.
Your guides will gain specialist knowledge, new skills, personal growth and improved employability, adding new techniques to their guiding toolbox.
Take a professional step forward to help your guides grow and lodge stand out.
Some of ways we enhance the guides skill set:
Looking more closely at the smaller things like spiders and beetles
How to evoke guest interest in something that looks “ordinary”
Giving guests the feeling of wonder and curiosity
Plants and their adaptions
How to conduct a theraputic nature experience for guests
A better understanding of your park geology and the formations of rocks and mountains
Body posture when interpreting something for guests
These courses are ideal for:
Nature & Adventure Guides
Environmental Educators
Teachers & Trainers
Lodge
Teams
Nature Enthusiasts
Our Courses
Geology for guides
This course helps guides understand and confidently interpret the rock formations and landscapes of their area.
- Understand the geological sites of your area.
- Link rock formations to landscape, soils, wildlife and people.
- Learn guest-appropriated geology building techniques.
- Offered over 2 or 3 days on-site at lodges. Please book early.
Post-course option: Geology Manual
Further enhance and deepen geological knowledge and guiding at your site.
Advanced Nature
Interpretation Course
This course helps nature guides use advanced interpretation to create deeply inspiring and immersive experiences for guests.
- Learn and apply international interpretation principles.
- Design interpretive experiences.
- Develop your own interpretive style.
- Interpret nature using varied media.
- Offered over 2 or 3 days at lodges and selected venues. Please book early.
Nature Therapy Course
This course helps guides confidently include the therapeutic power of nature in guided experiences.
- What is Nature Therapy?
- Step-by-step facilitated Nature Therapy experience training.
- Techniques for including Nature Therapy in guiding.
- Offered over 1 or 2 days at lodges and selected locations. Please book early.
Nature Therapy is a scientifically supported set of practices based on the global recognition that meaningful nature connection is essential for healthy human life.
Storytelling for Guides Course
This course helps guides use the power of story to connect and move guests.
- Learn how and why storytelling works?
- Understand the difference between stories and information.
- Turn information into relatable stories.
- Apply a range of storytelling methods.
- Offered over 2 or 3 days at lodges and selected locations. Please book early.
Insect Guiding Course
This course helps guides enrich guest experience through interpreting insects and other invertebrates.
- Identify basic insect groups.
- Learn how to improve guided experiences by including invertebrates.
- Find insects in the landscape.
- Offered over 1 day at lodges and selected locations. Please book early.
Ecology in Guiding Course
This course helps guides use ecology as a framework for boosting understanding and nature connection for guests.
- Learn key ecological principles to apply in any ecosystem.
- Find guest-relevant ecological links in any guiding area.
- Broaden guest experience using ecology focused techniques.
- Offered over 1 or 2 days at lodges and selected locations. Please book early.
The responses we get…
The guide training and the time we spent with John were unlike anything I’ve experienced before. He carried an aura of calm yet enthusiastic energy that was truly contagious. He listened intently and had a unique way of translating the wonders of nature that resonated on a deeper level—personally reigniting a spark I felt had been fading.
Monika Malewski
Field Guide, Singita Lebombo
It felt like I was a tourist in my own place of work… I learnt a lot more than I thought I could in 3 days and have not stopped talking about your course since.
Every day I use the knowledge you have passed on to me in my practical guiding. It is incredible to see how using all the knowledge about the small things gets guests engaged and wanting to know more.
Matt Lailvaux
Head Guide. Feedback received 2 months after an Advanced Guiding course for Marataba Conservation camps.
In this wilderness with John we learned to listen, to read the land, and to guide others through nature’s wisdom with heart and purpose.
Garry Bruce
Head Guide, Singita Lebombo
John allows the Silence to speak and teach
Steve Baytopp
Head, Kamoka Bush School
John’s style of both guiding and guide training is empathetic, clear and easy to follow, well thought-out, yet easily adapted to the discussion and audience at the time. John doesn’t overwhelm one with information but uses his wealth of knowledge to tell the story of what’s being discussed, highlighting what is relevant, interesting and special about it, while placing it in context and helping one understand the bigger picture. Good to rub shoulders with a fellow guide trainer of such high standard!
Bryan Olver
Manager, &Beyond Inkwazi Ranger Training School
Our guiding team at Marataba conservation camps had a three day course with John Roff with a focus on plants, geology and all the small species one easily overlooks on a game drive. I personally learnt so much.
I was “re-inspired” to grow myself as a guide and that everyone can master their unique guiding style. The course was a real motivator for all the guides as it also opened our eyes and reminded us of why we do what we do.
Nienke Du Preez
Senior Guide, Marataba Conservation Camps
John’s love and understanding of Ecology is deeply embodied in his teachings. Through his carefully designed Principles, RE-Connecting with the Earth and Self becomes a whole new experience, one that encompasses curiosity, awareness, and the utmost Respect for our environment.
Kerry Baytopp
Deputy Head, Kamoka Bush School
Upskilling your guides is just 3 steps away
1
Contact John
2
We design the guide training plan you need
3
Greatly increase the value your reserve offers guests
Contact us using the details below to book or find out more