FIVE STAR GUIDE
David Bristow
a day out with the "Story Teller" will be one you’ll remember
WHO IS David Bristow ?
David was schooled in Johannesburg, studied Journalism at Rhodes University in Grahamstown and Environmental Sciences at Cape Town University. He is one of South Africa’s most widely-published nature and travel writers.
He is also one of the country’s foremost guides. Colleagues at Getaway travel magazine – where he was editor for 13 years – dubbed him “the walking enviro-pedia”. It was his passion for story telling that led David to becoming a specialist tour guide.
Growing up on the African veld he developed a deep love of Africa from an early age. This led to a lifetime of travel, at first for fun but later in a career as a natural history and travel photo-journalist. He has written and, or, photographed more than 20 books about South Africa and the continent beyond. He has also travelled from the Antarctic to Alaska, and Hillbrow to the Himalayas.
A few years ago he began a project he’d been hoarding for decades: to write stories about the place he knows best. To date he has published two books in his series titled “Stories from the Veld”. Several more are in the works.
His personal fondness for mountaineering, mountain biking and scuba diving has taken him around the globe several times. He counts among the highlights of his life having climbed the 10 highest peaks in Africa. In his man cave are two surfboards, two kayaks and three mountain bikes.
GUIDE SPECIALISMS
Whether your interests are the natural environment Cape-Dutch architecture, history, geography or indeed just about any subject – even learning how to surf or go mountain biking – a day out with the Story Teller will be one you’ll remember.
It’s hard to sell your specialisations when they include just about everything short of astrophysics or Gregorian chanting.
David’s deep knowledge includes geography, history, ecology – in fact most “ologies”, and he has made extensive studies of these as they pertain to the Cape. He also has an exhaustive knowledge of local history, culture and politics. He is a specialist public speaker and quips that if anyone asks a question he cannot answer he’ll buy lunch.
But knowledge is only part of the specialist guide’s arsenal: they also need to be able to host, to entertain and to converse knowledgeably with people from all walks of life, and from just about anywhere in the world. Very few guides combine all these qualities.
That’s why some people call him Superguide; all we know is that he seems to know something about just about everything, and that he always wears a hat.