Few & Far’s Visionary Co-Founder Sarah Dusek Is Pioneering A Female-First Sustainable Travel Movement

In the ever-evolving world of sustainable travel, few figures have been as influential as Sarah Dusek. With a career marked by innovation and a commitment to social impact tourism, Dusek has redefined what it means to travel sustainably and responsibly—and become an unassuming champion for female entrepreneurs in the process.

Dusek’s first company, Under Canvas, which she co-founded with her husband, Jacob Dusek, revolutionized the concept of glamping by offering luxurious camping experiences in some of America’s most iconic national parks. It also set a new standard for eco-friendly travel, immediately drawing the attention of celebrity clients, including Madonna, Mark Zuckerberg, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and Hilary Swank.

The company was recognized by Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America, and in 2018, Dusek and her husband sold the business for over $100 million, underscoring the value of their innovative approach to tourism.

For Dusek, this success was merely a stepping stone to her next venture: Enygma Ventures. Founded in 2019, Enygma Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on investing in women-led businesses in Africa. Dusek’s motivation for this new direction was clear.

Dusek’s approach goes beyond mere financial investment—she is deeply involved in mentoring these women, helping them navigate the challenges of scaling businesses in often difficult economic environments. Over the last three years, Enygma Ventures, has provided $10 million in critical funding and support to 14 female-led African businesses over the last three years in sectors including consumer goods, branded products, education, tech, and e-commerce. “What we’ve seen is what an extraordinary community can be born amongst the female entrepreneurs who’ve been invested in, which is so exciting to see because they’ve become their own sort of cheerleading squad for each other,” Dusek says.

Earlier this year, the company was recognized as a top impact company by Real Leaders, and Dusek was announced as one of the 2023 Meaningful Business top 100 leaders, which celebrates outstanding business leaders helping to achieve the UN Global Goals.

Dusek’s work with Enygma Ventures reflects a broader commitment to sustainable travel. This used to be more about minimizing harm through things like choosing eco-friendly accommodations or reducing your carbon footprint. Now, Dusek notes, the industry has evolved beyond—these days, it’s more and more about renewal and regeneration.

This is the concept at the heart of Dusek’s new venture with her husband, Few & Far—a travel company that aims to bring the sustainable safari experience to life with carbon-neutral immersive journeys and eco-minded accommodation in remote parts of the world, including the Peruvian Amazon, the Botswana Bush, and the Italian Dolomites—as well as some North American destinations.

While Under Canvas focused on sustainable travel, Few & Far is about ‘regenerative travel’—this means everything from low energy usage, zero-waster, solar and off-the-grid power, a limited land footprint, and working with local communities, business owners, and purveyors in rural areas and emerging countries.

Central to Few & Far’s philosophy is the concept of rewilding—an approach that aims to restore ecosystems to their natural states. Rewilding involves activities like reintroducing native species, allowing rivers to flow freely, and supporting the natural processes that sustain biodiversity. Dusek believes that travel should contribute to these efforts, not just passively observe them.

To that end, Dusek collaborates with female-led, sustainable travel companies across Africa who are pioneering rewilding projects. These initiatives allow travelers to engage directly in conservation efforts, from planting trees to assisting in the reintroduction of endangered species. Slated to open in Q1 2025, Few & Far will debut its first-ever eco-lodge, Few & Far Luvhondo, a biophilic 60-room experiential luxury lodge located atop South Africa’s Forgotten Mountains within UNESCO’s Vhembe Biosphere Reserve, one of the world’s most biologically diverse regions.

Beyond her entrepreneurial and environmental endeavors, Dusek is also an influential voice in the global dialogue on business and sustainability. Her new book, Thinking Bigger A Pitch-Deck Formula for Women Who Want to Change the World, is currently available for pre-order before officially launching on September 2 this year. As the global travel industry continues to evolve, her work serves as a blueprint for how business can be a force for good.

Read more from our conversation with Dusek below.

Sarah, you’ve had an incredible journey finding Under Canvas to now leaving for Few & Far. Can you tell us the inspiration behind Few & Far and how it builds upon your experience with Under Canvas? What lessons from your previous ventures have you applied to your new company?

Well, the way I feel about Few & Far, it is our next iteration—and next evolution—of Under Canvas. I say that because when we founded Under Canvas, we set out to do a couple of different things, including making the outdoors accessible for folks to experience in comfort and style and enabling people to get out without having to go camping. Secondly, our goal was to build a sustainable company that has a minimal footprint, using limited resources that are as green as possible. Those were the two drivers. How can we do something that’s green, environmentally friendly, leaves no trace, and at the same time, allows people to have access to the outdoors?

Few & Far is on its own journey. It’s taking sustainable luxury travel to the next level and is very much centered on our desire to take people into the wilderness, outdoors, and extraordinary places around the world. With Few & Far, now we’re thinking globally as opposed to just domestically, and we’re also thinking about five-star experiences as opposed to four-star by elevating the hospitality experience from where we’ve been to where we would like to go.

Lastly, from an environmental sustainability standpoint, I’m no longer thinking about just building a sustainable company; I don’t want to have a company that is not doing things in terms of not using single-use plastic, creating a minimal impact or using low-flow fixtures to use less water, etc. That is how I want to remain now; that’s the baseline. That’s sort of the bare minimum that we should all be thinking about doing in terms of how we build and how we create what kind of companies we want.

I’m now thinking about how we build a regenerative company. For me, regeneration means giving back, it means investing, it means building and not taking things away. So, within Under Canvas, it was trying to do less: meaning less resources, less energy, less footprint, etc. Now, I’m thinking about how we do more. How do we invest in the planet? How do we create solutions to environmental issues? For us, that means focusing on carbon and creating a carbon-negative approach to building.

There is one really unique hotel that’s just been designated in Denver to be the first carbon-negative hotel in the United States. They’ve done that by planting a whole bunch of trees to offset the carbon footprint. We want to build projects that create hospitality experiences that are in a similar vein, restoring pristine wilderness and moving places from degraded wilderness areas to restored wilderness areas. For us means replanting and focusing on investing in carbon sequestration by rewilding and replanting an area.

With Under Canvas, we learned just how important our mission was to us from the beginning, and it helped us build a very strong, very focused team. I think the same will be true now with Few & Far. We are zeroed in on our goals, which are not just financial. Most companies are adding ESG as an add-on, but for us, our environmental and social commitment is at the heart of why we’re building a company. I am building a company because I want to invest in saving the planet, and I want to take people on magical adventures as a sideline. That’s the nature of this beast for us.

Few & Far is set to open its first eco-lodge in South Africa’s Vhembe Biosphere Reserve in 2025. Can you describe the unique aspects of this location and how the lodge will integrate sustainable and regenerative practices to protect and enhance this biodiversity hotspot?

The Soutpansberg Mountain Range, like the Biosphere Reserve, is about 100,000 acres in Limpopo in South Africa, and we are hoping to create not a very unique hospitality experience but the first of its kind in South Africa alone in that region. We are also hoping to restore and rewild the degraded areas of the mountain by replanting.

We are in the midst of a carbon project, which means we have an active registered Carbon Project with Verra—one of the registering bodies for carbon initiatives and carbon projects. We will actively measure our carbon sequestration from where we are now to what we’re hoping to achieve year after year, after year, after year. This will be a 50-year project. It’s not a five-minute wonder, but a five to seven-year implementation phase, and then 43 years of growing trees, growing the biosphere, protecting the biodiversity of this region for hopefully generations to come.

It is an environmental project with some hospitality on the side. I think one of the unique things about the location is that it’s off the beaten track. It’s an absolutely, unbelievably, incredibly diverse mountain range. It’s got more biodiversity than the whole of Europe, something like over 400 species of trees, 189 different species of insects, and a similar number of different butterflies. It is extraordinary, and it hasn’t been protected up until now. This project will be a big, concerted effort to put this whole mountain range into protection and into a management initiative that will see it restored.

To that end, we have realized there are plenty of places to go on safari in South Africa. We are doing a couple of things to put this experience on the map: one of which is to reimagine the safari experience. Obviously, the safari experience has been what it’s been for hundreds of years. We are always trying to push the envelope; we are always trying to reimagine something, reinvent something.

For us, that means a heavy reliance on solar power, and we want our guests to traverse the bush without using fossil fuels wherever possible. My husband Jacob Dusek has designed an incredible cable car experience—which we’re calling “Solfari”—that will transport our guests through the bush in a very magical cable car that will enable you to see the wildlife and the mountains and traverse in a different way.

You’re also going to be able to be very active, as on the mountain, there’ll be a lot of hiking and biking. Although we still have leopards and buffaloes, one of the benefits of not having lions is that you can physically get out of the car. Being able to put your feet on the ground and experience being out in the bush without having to be in a vehicle all the time will be really unique and magical. You will be able to get up close and personal in the bush and experience it in a much more hands-on way.

The eco-lodge promises to be a “biophilic masterpiece.” What does that mean? Can you tell us more about the design and architectural principles behind this project and how they reflect the ethos of Few & Far?

Well, biophilic means to me, sort of connecting people to nature and a direct connection with nature. The whole camp has been designed with nature in mind. All of the materials that we’re building with have been sustainably and locally produced by our own folks in our own manufacturing factory, and there’s a very connected story with the building and design of the lodge.

Your company is at the forefront of redefining the sustainable safari experience. How does Few & Far distinguish itself in the realm of impact tourism, particularly in terms of low energy usage, carbon neutrality, and zero waste initiatives?

I’ve talked quite a lot about carbon neutrality, and at Few & Far, we’re effectively trying to be carbon-negative, which means we’re creating a lot more carbon than we’re using at the lodge. Zero waste was a focus we were going with at Under Canvas when I was CEO.

Zero waste, for me, is an absolute imperative, and we don’t want to create any more waste than is absolutely necessary. The whole philosophy of the lodge will be about circular usage, re-usage, and locally sustainable production. We’re growing most of our food either at our own farm kitchen garden or leveraging our local farmers around us. We want our food miles to be very minimal. The whole property will be on solar power, including the cable car.

The idea is: Can we protect this unique area while also creating jobs? Can we provide sustenance for many of the hundreds of families who live in this area? Can we create opportunities not just for employment but also for engagement with a larger community by buying from local producers and suppliers, using their products to connect them to our guests, and creating a cultural exchange?

There are so many ways that this lodge will be so critical for the whole region, especially for the Johannesburg region, in terms of impact, and I think one of the things I have realized, even over the last five years since I’ve been mostly living in South Africa, has been just how connected social impact and environmental impact is. We try to do our best to environmentally sustain an area, but, if we can do that and uplift the local community at the same time, then we’re on to a winner.

That’s the idea really behind this—can we connect local folks, can we create a whole tourism industry for this area that lifts not only our property but also dozens and dozens of other properties, people, and communities around us? Few & Far places a strong emphasis on social consciousness, economic impact, and more.

Can you elaborate on the initiatives you have implemented to support local purveyors and create job opportunities in the communities where your lodges are located?

Supporting our local communities is absolutely fundamental to us. We have to create jobs and train local people to work for us and sustain their livelihoods off the mountain. We want to support local purveyors.

Can we connect with indigenous communities to allow them to show off their cultural handicraft? Can we allow them to showcase their dances and their songs to our guests?

I was recently inspired on a trip where I took a group of women to Rwanda and we all had porters to go and trek the mountain to see the gorillas. Obviously, none of us really needed porters; we are all relatively fit. But they said if you don’t take a porter, that he or she has lost their income for the day. So actually, having someone walk alongside us to hold our hand, carry a bag, drag you up the mountain when you needed help, was actually really, really beneficial, and the social impact of that is incredible.

I would love to see us replicate something like that idea in Rwanda, which, you know, creating porter jobs and the ability to engage with guests while uplifting a whole community would be so extraordinary and so exciting to see.

Your rewilding efforts are quite impressive. Can you explain what active rewilding entails and share some examples of the projects you are currently undertaking to restore and regenerate the land?

Rewilding is simple. It basically means replanting. For our Carbon Project in Johannesburg, we have narrowed it down now to planting six or seven different types of trees, and then over particular areas, making sure that we’ve replanted in an area that’s been designated as desegregated, as it has virtually no trees or grasses.

We’re looking at tree planting, grassland planting, shrub management, invasive species removal, and brush clearing; all of these ideas are what we’re talking about when we refer to rewilding because, basically, we are trying to restore an area to what it would have looked like originally, bringing the land back to what it should look like and to restore it to its natural state.

Obviously, if you don’t manage land well, you get invasive species taking over. We often lose habitats and lose biodiversity, and key species that should be in an area.

Empowering female entrepreneurs across Africa is a significant part of your mission with Enygma Ventures. What inspired you to focus on this area, and can you share some success stories from the businesses you’ve supported?

What inspired it was being a female entrepreneur myself, having started my career in Africa over 25 years ago. I started as an AIDS worker in Zimbabwe doing health initiatives and AIDS education back in the early 2000s. What I realized as I transitioned from working in nonprofits to starting and running my own business was that, actually, business has the power to get to the root of a problem and solve a deep problem.

I became a believer that business could be a vehicle for doing good, driving change, and create a much more significant impact potentially than a nonprofit could ever do. We launched Enygma Ventures on the basis of believing that businesses are the backbone of any economy and that if you want to transform developing nations if you want to help them catch up, the best way to do that is to invest in the people and enable them to build businesses, businesses that drive impact, businesses that solve problems, businesses that will generate revenue that will build an economy.

I am a female entrepreneur, and I know just how difficult it is for female entrepreneurs to get funded and just how little funding goes to women. And I know just how much women care. When you invest in a woman, she invests in her community, she invests in her family, she invests in the world in which she lives, and everything changes around her. So is investing in women not only a good financial bet but it’s also a good community bet in terms of seeing the ripple effects that women having access to capital and creating revenue has in any community.

And so it was this idea of, could we help empower female entrepreneurs? Could we empower them to be builders of their cities and their nations? And could we help build a continent by investing in our people and championing them to build big businesses? So we’ve invested in 14 companies over the last three years and have deployed about $10 million. And we have invested in all sorts of sectors from consumer goods, branded products, to education, tech, to some AI, some FinTech, some e-commerce platforms, I mean, so many different things. And what we’ve seen is what an extraordinary community can be born amongst the female entrepreneurs who’ve been invested in, which is so exciting to see because they’ve become their own sort of cheerleading squad for each other. But also some real problems are being overcome.

Even just over the last few years, I can see an enormous benefit from backing women and starting to see women have an impact on their environment and their society—the world around them is starting to change. This is making me realize that my philosophy about investing in women to build a continent is definitely not wrong. I can see it happening with my own eyes; we just need to pour more money into investing in incredibly talented, amazing female entrepreneurs to help them grow and scale their businesses. And if we can do that, we’ll change a continent within my lifetime, for sure.

I’d love to hear more from you about Few & Far’s upcoming “The Unknown Experience”—a new take on the mystery trip concept. What was the inspiration behind this, experience, and how much of a role do you personally play in designing the itinerary?

I’m still very personally involved in designing all our itineraries. All the itineraries you can see on our website have been inspired because I have done every single one of those trips.

With our mystery trips, I am very, very excited to do something that I don’t think has been done before. There’s a phrase in the hospitality-induced industry called surprise and delight; we’re always talking about how we surprise and delight our guests in terms of creating an incredible experience. We want to take that one step further with really surprising and delighting you. And I think there are very few surprises left in life.

All of our trips, for me, are about having very magical, very unique experiences in the outdoors. I want us to be wined and dined and amazed by the places and the experiences that we can have out in nature. I don’t think there are any more incredible experiences to be had other than when you’re out in the outdoors. I know being in the outdoors is incredibly inspiring.

It’s so uplifting, its energy rebooting, it’s clear-headed thinking it’s so many things to me. And we’ve wanted to just create different opportunities for people to experience that. And with the unknown experience, we want to take it to another level; we want to surprise and delight you and create extraordinary magic for you in ways you couldn’t have imagined for yourself.

Part of the unknown experiences idea is also to just take all the hard work out of you going on an extraordinary trip and trust us to take you somewhere that we believe that you will love and that we believe you will just absolutely be delighted by and surprised by and take the pressure off. We know where you should go and what you should do, and you just go blind. I’ve been doing this for my friends and family for the last five years, and now we want to do it for others and just keep raising the bar. I think what participants can expect from such an unpredictable journey is every day to feel that childlike wonder, mystery, and sense of delight that many of us rarely ever feel anymore.

How does the mystery trip concept align with your philosophy of adventure and liberation through travel? I’d also love to hear your thoughts on the psychology of a mystery trip — what is it about ceding control that we, as travelers and humans, find so tantalizing?

It connects back to what I was just saying about childlike wonder, of being able to entrust your life to someone else, to release control, to release the pressure and the burden of having to be in charge and having to make your own sign and allow someone else to curate that for you.

Most of us live with very, very high degrees of control over everything these days. Part of being a child is the wonder of not having to be in control, not having to be in charge, not having to be responsible, and allowing play and magic and delight to be your best place.

This is what that’s all about—you can take off the pressure of having to be the manufacturer of the controller of everything, after and especially for women, right? Isn’t it mostly women who make almost all of the travel decisions for their families? Can we just have a break from having to be in charge of all of that and allow someone else to take responsibility for just making magic happen for you? I know that is what I am looking for when I go on a trip.

Few & Far’s commitment to regenerative travel is a few steps beyond traditional sustainable tourism. How do you envision the future of travel and tourism, and what role do you see Few & Far playing in leading this transformation?

The only reason to create a company, for me, is to pioneer and lead and define, redefine, solve problems, and drive change. That’s the reason to be in business. For me, there is no other reason to be in business. As far as I’m concerned, making money is just a byproduct.

And so I think you can expect to see us leading a conversation, I think you can expect us to see us set a new bar, that we hope other people will rise to the challenge to meet. And I truly believe competition is always good for us in terms of, when someone else does something better, it’s up to the rest to keep up and do something else better.

I want us to be part of a journey that says being sustained by having sustainable tourism is no longer where it’s at. Now we’re trying to be regenerative. Now we’re trying to invest in the future, build the future with travel dollars, and drive the change we want to see. And for any company, I think if we were all really focused on just driving the change that we wanted, our world would be an infinitely better place. And so, my heart and soul are to use Few & Far as a platform and a vehicle that allows us to drive the change that we want to see and will focus on building a better world.

I’m hoping that will bring others on the journey with us and that will set new bars, set new expectations of what normal is. That in itself will be a bit of a revolution. That is my hope.