“The Global… What?”

The Global Entity, your brutally honest travel guide, your happy festival connoisseur, that friend whose adventures you either wish were your own or that makes you eternally grateful you stayed home – it all depends on your perspective!

Who Are You?

If you long for adventure or is curious about traveling the continent of Africa, or traveling in general(?!) love festivals, want to learn to travel more sustainably, wish to go beyond the tourism bubble, experience real connection within and outside of yourself, or is “just” an avid reader looking for a good story, you’ve come to the right spot.

What’s in it for you?

At The Global Entity we specialize in festivals as a way to travel socially sustainably and give truthful depictions of traveling in all its forms. This includes – but is not limited to – the sometimes messy, spiritual, life changing, dream chasing adventures and lessons that come with living life through a travelers lens.

Planning a festival trip—especially in a new country—can seem overwhelming. I know, because I’ve been there, struggling to find the real details: how to get around at night without a car, how cold or hot it gets when you are camping, or if it’s solo travel friendly. That’s why I started the Festival Map—to give you the full picture of what to expect and how to prepare, so that you can go and simply enjoy it for yourself!

Created by Travelers, for Travelers. Join us!

The Festival Map is an ever growing document of festival recommendations, reviews and lived festival experiences. What is your best festival adventure in Africa?

We want your experiences to shape the creation of this map! Which African festival(s) have you been to? How was it? Do you want to share your story with the world? Or write a short review to help other festival lovers find that amazing festival you attended? Write to us!

CTA: on the festival map page there should be two CTA’s available that leads to google forms(?) one for reviews and one for experiences

What If Festivals Could Do More Than Entertain?

Festivals are one of my favourite contexts to be in, a melting pot of culture, people and good vibes. Can anyone ask for more when traveling to a new context?! At the heart of the tourism industry is the culture – the very reason why most of us travel. At the heart of the culture industry is the artist. The tourism industry is a billion dollar industry and yet, most full time creatives I know, struggle financially. As a traveler who puts art and culture at the center of her journeys, this imbalance cannot be overlooked.

Regrettably, the industry of commercial tourism often exploits local environments, people, economies and cultures. Social sustainable tourism, on the other hand, focuses on empowering local communities, embracing cultures, and enabling economic resilience within the region. Festivals have the potential of being agents of social sustainable tourism by connecting travelers and tourists alike to local creators, backing community initiatives and fostering long term local economic prosperity.

Are all festivals sustainable? Definitely not. But do they have the potential to become a force of change within the culture industry as well as the international tourism industry? Most definitely yes! Through thoughtful planning, execution and collaborations, festivals spark creativity and knowledge-sharing – fostering social change, creativity and connection. It is the perfect platform for defining, shaping and implementing social sustainable tourism that can impact far beyond the individual.

The Global Entity aims to enable you to discover and connect with amazing festivals in Africa. Our goal is to enable sustainable synergies between culture and tourism in Africa by working with local festivals and by giving you the information and community you need to travel. Through this platform, we shed light on the importance of social sustainable tourism and how it can be done through festivals. Tourism done right can change not only your life, but entire industries! Be part of the change while traveling and dancing under the stars.

Origin Story

At the age of 27 my life was turning a very distinct corner: I was done with my studies and my career was just about to begin. I was supposed to feel excited about finally being able to establish a life beyond school, instead I felt increasingly claustrophobic by the thought. Was this what my life was supposed to feel like now? As soon as I realized what I was feeling, a deep knowing also dawned on me: I wanted more. I wanted a life that made me feel alive, a life that I was the creator of, a life living from the heart. But what does that even mean and what does it look like? I had no idea, but I was going to find out! The decision to travel to South Africa came easy. Within a few days I had booked my flight to leave Sweden for an indefinite amount of time. Suddenly the world felt bright again, joy was all around and I could literally feel the doors opening. It didn’t hurt either that I had somebody, an on-again-off again somebody, waiting to welcome me into their life… again. We spent hours planning out the future and dreaming of the months to come.

Three days into my incredible, dreamy journey, everything went to shit and I was left, heart in hand, with all my plans shattered at my feet. Yeah, yeah, you can say I told you so as many times as you want, I don’t regret a thing! I had told the Universe that I wanted to learn to live from the heart, evidently this wasn’t it. Trusting the Universe when everything goes out the door is not easy, but that is how my solo traveling began. And the travel blog as well! A few weeks after my initial “setback”, I found myself with a one way ticket to Cape Town, about to experience my first international dance festival in South Africa. It took me six months to get to my second festival, this time an international music festival in the Kingdom of Eswatini. There were many reasons why it had taken me so long to get there, lack of information about the festival itself, how to travel there as a solo traveler, public transport issues and even bigger border crossing issues, being a few of them.

But once I had been there, the idea was planted: a live festival map with our stories, recommendations and knowledge to guide other travelers and festival lovers alike. This was something everyone had to experience at least once in their lifetime! Being an avid traveler, I think another thing that moved me when experiencing these festivals was that I was able to enjoy an abundance of culture but on the terms of the hosting country.

So often travelers find themselves trapped in tourism bubbles that suck out the local culture without any regard for the hurt it does to the local economy, ecosystem as well as integrity and boundaries of the people, creatives and culture workers. A festival, however, has defined parameters of time, defined boundaries of how deep or personal an artist wants to let the audience and most importantly, it exists for the enjoyment of the people living there as much as it caters to travelers.

There are many more things to say about these themes of course, but this is the story it, The Global Entity, originates from: a desire to live life from the heart, traveling, exploring unbound creativity, connection and how festivals can be a tool for social sustainable tourism.

Since then, what started as a travel blog and a need to feel less alone is becoming more of a travel platform where all our voices can be heard. I still don’t have any definite answers of what living from the heart actually means, I think it might be different for all of us. But I am here, sharing every step of my way, and I am hoping you will come and share yours!