Jolinaiko Eco Tours - Experience West Africa!

The Jolinaiko Eco Village

During our tours, we try to give our visitors an African experience they will never forget, while contributing as much as we can to the local communities we visit. For some time now Apollo Panou, proud founder of Jolinaiko Eco Tours, has been dreaming of making a bigger impact with his travel business.

Apollo’s dream

Apollo’s dream is to create a place where tourists and volunteers can experience real rural African village life by staying in the village itself and by taking part in its daily activities and traditions. This would allow the villagers to directly benefit and generate an income by offering you, their visitor, extraordinary community experiences. An eco village where visitor and villager could meet, exchange, learn from and inspire each other in a respectful and friendly way.

Apollo wants to help average African villagers feel special, and contribute to their quality of life while generating a feeling of pride in its inhabitants.

Dream village

Part of Apollo’s dream is to build a guest lodge directly within the village. The “Jolinaiko Eco Lodge” will be a place where visitors can stay for a longer period of time, which will generate work and income for the village. At this moment, Apollo’s dream is taking shape in Atsiekpoe, ‘Home of the Cashew Tree’. This visitor-friendly and very special village is located on the beautiful green banks of the Volta River in the Volta Region.

Experience the Jolinaiko Eco Village yourself

Experience real African rural village life yourself by booking a trip with Jolinaiko Eco Tours. You can read all about the Atsiekpoe experience here.

If you are interested in volunteering in the primary and junior secondary school of Atsiekpoe, please see our volunteering section.

“ We received a warm welcome. People carried our luggage on their head to our house, everybody greeted us with 'Woez' and people were smiling. Children were running after us screaming 'yevu, yevu!'.

It is a lovely place to live. Living with the sun. The villages are not really developed and isolated from the 'civilized world' (no electricity, mud houses, cooking on a fire etc.). Still the villages are rich in what they have. You don't need electricity, because there is a breeze from the river and water is close by. We thought it was wonderful to walk outside and see the goats and chickens walking freely. The people live from the natural resources like fish and cassava. They make baskets out of plants and eat mangoes when it is the mango season. On Sundays you see everybody in their beautiful traditional clothes going to church. Although the villages are little, they have five churches! God plays an important role in these communities.

We hope that you will enjoy the people and the nature as much as we did. Yevu, woez! ”

Annemarie van Alphen & Irene Poortinga ,
The Netherlands. sankofa

Annemarie and Irene lived in Atsiekpoe-Vume for 3 months and taught at the local primary school.

Teaching in Atsiekpoe-Vume is a unique experience. If you have a teaching background and are interested in spending some time doing voluntary work, please see our volunteering pages.