Explore Our Experiences

SEA TURTLE

If you are looking to make a tangible contribution to pioneering science and conservation, Honey Guide invites you to join marine biologist Natalie Dos Santos and her team on our Sea Turtle Tagging Expedition in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Here, your participation directly supports active research, helping us better understand how these animals move, use our coastline and, ultimately, how we can better protect them.

TAGGING

join the Mission

Honey Guide's Sea Turtle Expedition runs along the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal, giving guests a genuine, hands-on role in real turtle conservation research.

Guests join marine biologist Natalie Dos Santos and her team out on the research vessel, helping locate, capture and tag turtles. This product is exclusive to Honey Guide and isn't currently offered anywhere else in the world.

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Trips starting at $6,000 USD per person sharing. Please enquire about single-supplement fees (pricing may vary slightly depending on private lodge availability).
The base package includes 5–6 nights. Enquire for options on shorter or extended stays.
Available year-round, excluding December to February due to the rainy season — enquire directly for possibilities outside this window. Exact dates are subject to lodge availability.
Group size 6-8 pax. Enquire about smaller or larger bookings.

Loggerhead turtle hatchlings, Thonga Beach Lodge

Arrive on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast and settle into your private villa. Meet the Honey Guide team, Natalie Dos Santos and Andy Coetzee, with time to unwind before your first dinner prepared by your private chef.
Your first full day of turtle research begins with an early surf launch. Join Natalie and her team at sea to locate turtles, observe the capture process and follow each animal through its biological assessment, acoustic tagging and release.
Step away from the boat and explore the coastline on foot with a marine specialist. Learn about the intertidal ecosystem, responsibly harvest from the shore, and finish with a seafood cook-up on the beach.
Return to sea for a second full day with the research team. Help search for turtles and experience another day of active fieldwork, building on what you learned during your first tagging day and contributing to Natalie’s ongoing research.
Spend your final full day on the South Coast exploring the region beyond its marine environment. Join a local Zulu cultural experience before returning to the villa for your final evening on this stretch of the coast.
The expedition now shifts with the season. Winter guests travel to GweGwe Beach Lodge for the Wild Coast and Sardine Run chapter of the trip, while summer guests continue to Thonga Beach Lodge for the nesting and hatchling season.

THE SOUTH COAST AWAITS…

Join marine biologist Natalie Dos Santos and her research team for two full days at sea, helping locate, capture and tag wild sea turtles as part of active conservation research.
Get closer to the coastline with a marine specialist, exploring intertidal ecosystems before a self-harvest seafood cook-up on the beach.
Experience the region beyond the water through a local Zulu cultural experience and evenings shaped around exceptional food from your private chef.
In winter, continue to GweGwe Beach Lodge for two days at sea during the Sardine Run, one of the world's great marine migrations.
In summer, travel north to Thonga Beach Lodge and join turtle conservation pioneer Andy Coetzee on guided beach drives in search of nesting loggerhead and leatherback turtles and, when timing allows, emerging hatchlings.
Most importantly, know that your participation directly helps Natalie continue her research, putting more tags on turtles to help answer questions we still have about their lives beneath the surface.

INTERESTED IN TRIP EXTRA’S?

Every group is different. If there’s a passion you want to follow — fishing, diving, cooking, or something entirely unique — share it with us.

Let’s create something extraordinary together.

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GweGwe Beach Lodge: WINTER SEASON

Thonga Beach Lodge: SUMMER SEASON

What's Included?

- 9 nights’ private villa and lodge accommodation
- Two full days of sea turtle research and tagging
- All meals, beverages, premium wines, spirits and cocktails
- Private chef with personalised menus and drinks
- Airport transfers and all local transport
- Marine specialist-led intertidal walk and seafood cook-up
- Local Zulu cultural experience
- Expert marine biologists, conservationists and specialist guides
- Seasonal Sardine Run expeditions at GweGwe (winter)
- Seasonal turtle nesting and hatchling beach drives at Thonga (summer)
- Helicopter transfers to and from GweGwe (winter)

What's NOT?

All flights
Travel insurance
Visas and vaccination requirements
Personal purchases and gratuities

YOUR JOURNEY

Our nine-night Sea Turtle Expedition follows South Africa’s east coast, beginning with five nights on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast and two full days working alongside Natalie Dos Santos and her research team. From here, the journey continues for four nights into another of the coastline’s extraordinary marine environments, shaped by the season in which you travel.

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Exclusive Lodging

The journey pairs meaningful fieldwork with exceptional private accommodation. Your first five nights are spent in a private South Coast villa, with a private chef, personalised menus and everything taken care of by Honey Guide.

From there, winter expeditions continue to GweGwe Beach Lodge on the Wild Coast, while summer expeditions travel north to Thonga Beach Lodge within iSimangaliso Wetland Park. Both have been chosen to place you directly within the coastal ecosystems you have come to understand.

TURTLE RESEARCH

or decades, sea turtle research has been heavily weighted towards nesting females because they come ashore, while males and juveniles remain at sea. Natalie’s research takes science beneath the surface, using acoustic telemetry to understand how turtles of both sexes move, which habitats they rely on, and where greater protection may be needed. Honey Guide helps fund the fieldwork and tagging needed to continue building this important dataset.

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leave your mark.

This is not conservation created for tourism. You are joining Natalie and her team during real fieldwork, helping locate turtles and witnessing the research process from capture and biological assessment through to tagging and release.

It is rare access to science as it happens, and an opportunity to contribute directly to research whose value continues long after you return home.

our partners

Natalie Dos Santos

Marine scientist and PhD researcher Natalie Dos Santos specialises in the ecology of sea turtles on South Africa’s east coast. Her work takes turtle research beneath the surface, studying animals on their foraging grounds to better understand their movements, habitat use, residency and ecological roles. Guests join Natalie during active fieldwork at Aliwal Shoal, contributing directly to the research she is leading.
Andy Coetzee

Naturalist and turtle conservationist pioneer Andy Coetzee has spent decades working in wild places, with a particular depth of experience in marine and sea turtle conservation. He has tagged more than 1,000 turtles around the world and contributed to Natalie’s research along South Africa’s east coast. Andy joins Honey Guide guests in the field and, during the summer expedition, leads the turtle beach drives that reveal another side of the turtles’ life cycle.
GweGwe Beach Lodge

Our winter partner on the Wild Coast, GweGwe places guests within Mkambati Nature Reserve for the second chapter of the expedition. Its remote coastal setting provides the base for two full days experiencing the Sardine Run, alongside time exploring the reserve on land.
Thonga Beach Lodge

Our summer partner within iSimangaliso Wetland Park, Thonga places guests within one of South Africa’s most important sea turtle nesting landscapes. From here, guests join guided night drives along the coast to search for nesting loggerheads and leatherbacks and, when timing allows, emerging hatchlings.