Quick tips for creating guided walks and wildlife experiences

Guided walks and wildlife experiences invite visitors to slow down and reconnect with nature.

Guided walks and wildlife experiences offer visitors a meaningful connection to the natural environment. Whether it’s exploring coastal trails, forest paths or spotting native animals in their natural habitat, these experiences provide visitors with expert insights and stories from local guides and opportunities to slow down and engage with the environment.

From 2014 to 2023 bushwalking and rainforest walks grew significantly in popularity by 81 per cent and visiting national or state parks grew by 73 per cent, highlighting the importance of these protected areas.

Source: Tourism Research Australia

Getting started

Creating a nature-based experience involves careful planning and consideration of various factors for a successful and memorable visitor experience. Explore key factors before getting started by visiting our guide to Considerations when creating a nature-based experience.

Quick tips

Opportunities for guided walks and wildlife experiences can be a unique and rewarding addition for your business. Here are several ways to develop or enhance your experience for visitors.

Tours, activities and attractions

Develop a suite of guided experiences: create half-, full-, or multi-day tours highlighting natural assets such as coastlines, geological features aligned with geotourism or wildlife habitats. Tailor experiences to suit a range of fitness levels and interests, adapt seasonally for a range of experience offerings and provide expert commentary on flora, fauna and local stories.
Streamline multi-day walks: create backpack-free itineraries that include walking gear, accommodation, meals, and transfers. Enable visitors to walk with daypacks while their main luggage is transported between locations.
Offer wildlife-viewing opportunities: deliver respectful, guided encounters, remembering that no touching, feeding or close interaction is allowed. Designate quiet viewing areas and utilise red light for nocturnal tours to minimise disturbance.
Offer birdwatching tours: focus on accessible locations like wetlands or forests. Provide binoculars and integrate tools like the eBird app or bird-identification guides. Collaborate with local experts for deeper insights.
Incorporate enhancements: add value with extras like a wildlife-spotting checklist, locally sourced morning or afternoon tea, return accommodation transfers or photography tips to attract a wider audience.
Collaborate: partner with accommodation, attractions, cafes, restaurants and visitor centres to bundle your services or cross-promote the experience.

Accommodation

Promote the location: highlight your proximity to walking trails, national parks, state forests, scenic routes or wildlife spots. Provide maps, a wildlife-spotting checklist, tips for nearby trails on your website and via in-room guides to help visitors plan their outdoor adventures.
Leverage seasons: promote seasonal highlights such as wildflower season, whale watching season or autumn colours, and align your offerings accordingly.
Offer essential amenities: provide storage for gear, boot-cleaning stations, drying areas and laundry facilities. Supply basic equipment like walking poles, rain ponchos, binoculars or reusable water bottles.
Add a wellness angle: post-walk experiences like foot spas, massage services or yoga sessions are a nice touch. You could also create quiet garden space or add bird hides and outdoor seating for wildlife viewing. Learn more at the NSW First Creating wellness experiences.
Tell your story: highlight the magic of the location by pointing out local wildlife, conservation efforts, trails and historical features within the area.
Collaborate: partner with local tour operators to bundle guided walking tours or wildlife experiences with your accommodation, creating an opportunity to cross promote the experience.

Food and drink

Tailor meals and snacks to experiences: partner with cafes, galleries, and attractions to include lunch breaks, snacks, morning or afternoon tea to deliver an enriched visitor experience.
Streamline pre-orders: enable visitors to order meals in advance and be delivered efficiently by implementing a pre-order system for options such as breakfast or dinner. Orders can be fulfilled by a local producer, catering company or café.
Serve nutritious meals: provide meals and snacks using seasonal, fresh ingredients. Offer protein-rich dishes, hydrating drinks and energy-boosting options.
Offer grab-and-go options: sandwiches, wraps, fruit, trail snacks and refillable water bottles are easy to take before activities.
Tell your story: share the origins of your ingredients, whether it’s native ingredients, regional produce or sustainable sourcing.

For dining venues:

Be flexible with open hours: cater to early risers and late returners by adjusting opening hours. A pre-order system helps streamline service.
Promote the location: highlight your venue’s proximity to trails, share maps, directions and suggested stopovers.
Incorporate recharge zones: offer areas for resting, recharging devices, hydrating and shade. Provide footrests, outdoor seating or a towel service.
Collaborate: partner with accommodation and walking/wildlife tour operators to become part of itineraries. Sponsor walking events or contribute to local trail initiatives to boost visibility.

Promoting your experience

Once you’ve created or adapted guided walks and wildlife elements into your experience, showcase your new offering with visitors, media, staff and distributors with these tips for promoting your nature-based experience.

Resources

Creating nature-based experiences is a NSW First webinar focused on the growing interest in nature-based travel and incorporating nature elements into your experience.
Safety | NSW National Parks: Discover essential tips on bushfire safety, bushwalking safety, camping safety, water safety, horse riding safety, alpine safety, wildlife encounters, outback safety and adventure sports safety to deliver a safe and enjoyable experience when visiting NSW national parks.
Forestry Corporation of NSW important information when visiting state forests is a helpful guide on visitor safety.
Outdoors NSW & ACT, Australian Adventurous Activity Standard (AAAS) and Good Practice Guides share a good-practice framework for safe and responsible planning and delivery of outdoor adventure activities with dependent participants.
The Nature Matters Guide is a comprehensive resource helping Australian businesses integrate nature into business strategy, covering awareness, alignment, action and leadership stages.
The Nature Positive Travel and Tourism report from the World Travel & Tourism Council shares global best practices and operational guides for running biodiversity-friendly tourism businesses.
Birdlife Australia is a bird-conservation organisation that shares ethical birdwatching guidelines and national bird monitoring information via Birdata.
Birdwatching hotspots across NSW is a helpful guide to birdlife across the state.
Australian Geoscience Council (AGC) is the peak council of geoscientists in Australia and showcases Australia’s geology, landscapes, and cultural heritage, supporting regional development and the visitor economy. Explore NSW geotrails though the NSW GeoTours app.