Wander & Melanin

After graduating from University, I found myself, and my sister, Meva, applying to be part of a business incubator from my University. It was a scary time to start a business as a fresh graduate. “The Lab”, as we called it, was bustling with entrepreneurs, small and big, who looked like they knew what they were doing.

On the other end, Meva and I had to learn everything from designing a logo to creating business proposals and a website. A word that was so foreign to us. Fast-forward a year later, our efforts resulted in our business, as of today: Wander and Melanin.

"Wander and Melanin."

We are, maybe, amongst the 1% who looked at random words until we found something that spoke to us. That said, we don’t remember the set-up nor the story of how we came up with the name ‘Wander & Melanin’. If we searched back through our Google history, it will probably show you websites like the Thesaurus, which isn’t exactly the most romantic way to figure out a name, is it? Nevertheless, we knew it was THE ONE. Like love at first sight, we can’t really explain why, we just knew.

• Wander for Wanderlust. For us, it rhymed with meeting people, dream, travel, adventures, discoveries, limitless horizons and opportunities.

• Melanin to pay tribute to our role as a travel evangelists (we never liked the terms travel agencies and tour operators).

‘Regular’ Evangelists spread the good news, we, on the other hand, use travel as a medium to give (you ) wings. Our belief, mission and core vision in ‘Travel gives you wings’ is what makes us pretty special. A business idea can always be copied, reshaped or recycled but a vision remains, forever and always, the property of the founder(s).

You are probably wondering how we came about ? Don’t worry, it’s the story we are about to tell you...

The reason for our existence sprouted from our ethnic origin. Before Wander and Melanin, our humble tour operator business was named Truly Mada (Truly Madagascar).

Truly Mada wanted to cater for adventure travellers from anywhere in the world and bring them to Madagascar as part of short travel packages.

Coming from a country like Madagascar, people will often tell us funny things, which made our small talk saucier and bearable. People often think that Madagascar is just another movie, produced by Universal Studios. Or that Madagascar is just the land where the only king is King Julian, ruling over his fellow lemur subordinates. No culture, civilisation or society is safe from the illusion of stereotypes .

Those common misunderstanding can seem harmless to the foreign eyes but, we knew they were not at all; misunderstanding, miscommunication and misconception about a country can play a particular role in the political, diplomatic, economic and social realms.

Particularly for Madagascar, international visibility was minor and those who had an idea of the country as a destination only thought about it as a dangerous one. Tourism is the second major source of income but also the industry that struggles the most. As people from a country with a major percentage of the population living under the poverty line, my sister and I wanted to do something. And that’s how Truly Mada was born in March 2019.

None of us knew anything about the travel industry but we just followed our guts and passion. From months to months, we put our brain to it, to learn about the industry as we created our travel packages, and discovered how complex it was and how high the barriers for entry were for small entrepreneurs.

As new entrepreneurs, we had our first failures as well as our first wins.

When we started, our main value and mission was providing adventure travel. Adventure travel accounted for 30% of the travel market in 2018 and was expected to rise from 50 million to 130 million international tourists to African destinations alone.

“What an opportunity it was for Madagascar!” we thought

But then we realised…

What makes up adventure travel is mainly the enjoyment of nature and biodiversity through activities.

“Will it help address how foreign eyes see the country and its people?” We asked ourselves.

One of our biggest wins was to find a local partner, who had a heart to help small communities in the most remote part of the country. She wanted the local community to benefit from tourism and engineer it in a way that tourists will experience the real Malagasy way of living and the culture, we have been living in for generations.

I consider Ms B. (our partner) as my travel industry mentor. Through our discussions I discovered many places in my own country where visitors could immerse themselves with the culture and be transformed personally and mentally.

Yes, immersion and transformation...

Those ideas resonated with us and we quickly replaced adventure travel for them as our main value and mission. We knew that only through real immersion and authentic travel would travellers grasp what made Madagascar what it was and leave with memories of life-changing experiences that never fade away, with a place for the country in their hearts. Immersion was truly discovering a country, its people and its culture and have a part in bettering that place too.

One day, I stumbled upon an article online written by a New York hairdresser who came to volunteer in Madagascar for a few weeks. I could read his emotions through his writing as he described how his trip changed his perception (or lack of perception thereof) of the country. He discovered Madagascar through a small village and in a few weeks, he became attached to the culture, so much so that he was hurt when he had to leave. In my mind I was thinking: “yes, that’s what I want for each traveller”. Not that they would be hurt and sad as they leave the country, but that they would truly develop an attachment and affection for a foreign culture and people they may never see again.

Why is it important?

Because we believe that’s where the unity of the world lies.

Some say, travel leaves an unforgettable imprint of open-mindedness and empowerment. We couldn’t agree more. Through Wander & Melanin, we wanted to share our belief that "not all those who wander are lost"(J.R.R.Tolkien). We believe that we travel with the purpose to meet other souls, culture and lives, we crave to stretch our mind with foreign and inconceivable moments, our brains couldn’t fathom. In the process of discovering a fraction of the world, we also hope to discover our inner self.

With the world shutting down its borders and facing the raging consequences of the pandemic, we have come to realise that we are not only locking our bodily self, we are also restraining our inner wanderers. We have come to realise that travel is one of the things we are greatly missing. We are left with no choice but confining our minds with the safe bubble that is our home and land. Shall we never take travelling for granted ?

And it was from this belief and conviction of immersive travel that we decided to expand our reach and go beyond Madagascar.

In November 2019, Meva and I attended the biggest travel fair in Europe, the London World Travel Market, full of excitement and anticipation. We set out ourselves on a journey to transform Truly Mada into Wander and Melanin. Diversifying our destinations and finding like-minded partners were our prime goal. We met exceptional people with deep knowledge and love for their respective countries and built relationships with cohort tour operators. More than that, they were equally excited to create genuine immersive holidays for travellers.

Today, Wander and Melanin is an online travel (operator) evangelist curating travel packages for groups and families, led and only composed by two sisterly directors who have a special vision for what travel could really mean and do.

Being a vehicle for cultural immersion and emphasising on cultural understanding is one of the traits our first company, Truly Mada, gave us the opportunity to develop.

We exist to shed light on the peculiarities of each country we offer travel packages to. A travel immersion, or even better, a cultural immersion is "fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness" (Mark Twain).

We work with local operators and businesses to curate experiences that we hope would change the life of the travellers, as well of the local communities. By doing so, we hoped to create an inclusive tourism that will benefit all actors, especially the locals.

Wander & Melanin was born with a resilient and defiant spirit and a grand goal - to offer exclusive travel packages at a lower price, while focusing on building a close-knit community of travellers and creating an immersive experience.

Today, at Wander and Melanin, we exist so that the traveller will satisfy his longing for human interactions and absorption of foreign culture and not only checking a box from their bucket list.

We exist to create a positive synergy between Humanity & World – through travel.

We exist so that the human part of travel will exist along with the glamorous part of it.

We exist so that people from different races, different tongues, different religions, different ethnicity and physical features, grow to appreciate the differences that make each and everyone unique.

We exist so that buildings and horizons will never be the centre of travel discoveries, but that soul and culture discoveries will.

We exist so that the bustling of capital cities will not overshadow the countryside, where ethnic communities live and where experiences and authenticity can be likewise found.

We exist to conquer travel dreams, together.

We exist to give wings to those who travel and those who welcome the visitors.

We exist to give wings to fly towards progress.

Our mission as travel evangelists and the impact of this mission for communities is why we believe, deserve your support in this time of pandemic.

As we wait for many stories to be told, you can support us and be part of the community by sharing our mission through the boundless boundaries of social media. Your support will help us grow our reach and lay down a foundation to pursue our mission.

Like every business, we have goal. You, me, them, us - WE are in business for the wanderers at heart.

Please follow, Like, Share and don't hesitate to ask us any questions for your next travelling plans:

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