Tilley’s Tourism Trap: Uncovering coastal gems

INSPECTOR Clueless with her map… as Darth Vader once said “I am back!”

So what now? Why the silence? Well, it’s called plotting and planning, which means going under the radar and into my woman cave.

As you may recall, I have done some serious travels on the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal, and fell in love. So much so that I found a fabulous nut farmer with whom I now live and share six furry children together.

Basically, none of this would have happened: a) If I hadn’t met the nut and b) if I hadn’t had fallen in love with the South Coast and making the decision to stay for more sunsets than the universe has perhaps planned on its calendar. Better check with the Mayans or Egyptians on that.

So part of this women cave thing and all the pondering… I realise that now I have fallen into a trap. It’s called the Tourism Trap. So to make that feel a bit cuter, let’s just work with the name Tilley’s Tourism Trap and move away from Inspector Clueless. After all, I would like to think that I am no longer clueless. I have learnt and discovered many gems of the South Coast.  So aka from here-on – the Gem Genius.

Yes the map is still hugely valuable and despite being the genius I now am, I do rely on the map and it’s good to bellow out that the new summer edition of the Southern Explorer was launched just a few weeks back.

It is all rather eco friendly and packed with sizzling information and photos to just make you want to take your socks off and go fleeing into the sunset on glorious soft, sandy beaches. Even if you leave the love of your life stranded behind you whilst he or she may be tackling their tackle, or shoe laces or pantyhose.

So the Southern Explorer even has a front page picture and great article on our very own Roof of Africa winner Wade Young. He is only so famous because he was born here and plays here. We breed that kind here. Farms, roads and challenging rivers, streams and waterfalls. It sure is nature’s very own playground producing South African champs.

So this tourism thing – well, it just makes sense. Kind of like putting a rubber ducky into the bath with you or you putting yourself into a rubber duck on the sea. They both work.

My getting lost and hanging out in bars and sleeping in cars and hunting dinosaurs and strolling the shores sure has paid off as I now have the pleasure of now working with a bunch of like-minded, highly motivated, travel mad people working to make things bigger and greater and bring more people to the South Coast. Shew that was a long sentence but when you have something to say, just keep talking, just keep talking. And stalking. I have my senior certificate in stalking.

One point of interest though – office etiquette or something is that they don’t let my dogs come to work with me (remember Thugosaurus Rex from our previous expeditions?). Well, not like they do in Germany, but that’s a story for another day.

So a quick hi, howzit, lekker, I am back.

Come and play with my new friends in paradise.

Signing out …

Tilley’s Tourist Trap aka The Gem Genius

So until we meet again, get your people to call my people. 0800 FINDME. Erratum: marketing@tourismsouthcoast.co.za