August 26, 2025 • 15 mins
Pippa Hudson speaks to Saleha and Aliasgher, the duo behind A for Adventures — a travel and lifestyle platform where they help travellers discover hidden travel gems around South Africa.
Lunch with Pippa Hudson is CapeTalk’s mid-afternoon show.
This 2-hour respite from hard news encourages the audience to take the time to explore, taste, read, and reflect. The show - presented by former journalist, baker and water sports enthusiast Pippa Hudson - is unashamedly lifestyle driven. Popular features include a daily profile interview #OnTheCouch at 1:10 pm. Consumer issues are in the spotlight every Wednesday while the team also unpacks all things related to health, wealth & the environment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Wonder the World.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
And in today's episode, we are joined by a couple
who have made it their mission to help us all
fall in love with our own backyards as it were.
The names Seleka Suliman and aliskir Jan Muhammad. There are
the duo behind a platform called A for Adventures, which
is a travel and lifestyle platform with thousands of followers already,
and they are just as passionate about discovering South Africa
(00:24):
as the creators of the platform are. And basically, this
duo uncover hidden gems, small towns a little off the
beaten track. They also uncover great places to find the
perfect cup of coffee or croissant for breakfast, or to
try something a little different that isn't just your standard
tourist experience. So they're all about loving the local and
encouraging us to be tourists in our own country. And
(00:47):
the best part of all, of course, is that means
you never have to go through the trauma of a
visa interview ever. Again, Celera and Asco welcome, It's wonderful
to have you with us.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Thank you so much, it's really cool to be here.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Thanks thanks for having us. It's A turned to your
listeners as well.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Let's start with the name A for Adventures.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
What's the origin or are we going to see iterations
BCD and Eastill coming in future?
Speaker 4 (01:08):
No, actually, I think so. It's it's our names. Basically,
the first A on A for Adventures has got my name,
s is Salah has name, and I think it puts
together what we want to do. We want to be
adventures in all.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
We want to help people be adventurous. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:24):
So we were like, you know, let's just keep it simple,
not too complicated, Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
The adventurous spirits something that's been instilled in you by
the people came before you, or something that's been your
thing to say, I refuse to live a quiet life like.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Those who've gone before me. I'm want to do it differently,
I think the latter.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
Yeah, Like we've both grown up and not traveling way
too much, and you know, at some point we just realized,
funnily enough, it was you know, this cathartic moment on
top of table mountain very literally to say that, well,
this is such a beautiful country that we live in
and we we really need to take advantage of that
and explore it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
One hundred percent. And I think one of the things
that we realized being in South Africa is that often
we don't know what to do because we think everything
is expensive where it's for tourists or something like that.
But what we have realized that's not the case. You
can go up Timber Mountain that's free, and there is
so much more to explore that we're in a budget
friendly way and learn about our beautiful country.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
It's one of the reasons I asked you guys to
join us here today, because we have I mean, and
there is place for make no mistake, there's place for
the luxury experiences and the wonderful lodgers and the new
hotels and all those things. Absolutely not saying don't use them.
But I love the fact that you guys are all
about saying, keep it accessible, make it something that an
ordinary South African who has to worry about a budget
can still do and see and experience without necessarily having
(02:39):
to spend half their annual savings to get around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's even before you've got the visa.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I mean, what was the very first place that you
visited together when you decided you were going to do this,
What was the first thing to populate the site.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
So I think before the site, I think Stellenbosch came
to mind. So we visited Stellenbosh. I think it was
a four day trip and just being there. What we
tried to do is we wanted to do everything that
was everywhere, and we found that there was not one
space where we could find something where Muslims as well.
So halal is so important to us, and that is
something that we wanted. Accessibility and often many people said, oh,
Stellbush is a wine city, but it's not. Actually it's
(03:15):
a place that anyone can visit. And making that accessibility
part so critical is so useful, I think. And I
remember the budget being so important because we always open
up the Excel sheets of the Google sheets and for
us that budget matters and we were able to do
that and that really made a difference for us.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Funny enough, that wasn't our first post.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Oh hey, The first post was probably actually the Table
Mountain hike, because you would think that there is so
much information out there about it, but we wanted to
do the scenic one instead of just going straight up,
and it took us quite a lot of searching to
actually find even though it was such a popular thing
and that was probably our first post. And I mean
when I look back at it now, I think we've
come such a long way.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
How many years ago was that almost?
Speaker 5 (03:59):
For this?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Ok?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
For it now important to emphasize this is not your
full time job. You both have careers and income streams.
This is a passion and a passion that you love
sharing with other people. But I think that also emphasizes
what I was saying about accessibility and budget consciousness, that
they travel with budget restrictions and with having to juggle
a work life and all those things that normal people
(04:22):
face in life, and that is reflected in the kinds
of stories that are shared on their platforms. Now, you're
partly about finding entire new destinations to visit, but.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You're also sometimes about saying.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Let's find the best cup of coffee or the perfect
plate of eggs for breakfast, or whatever it may be.
When you approach a new destination, do you go with
a sort of completely blank slate and open mind, or
do you sometimes go to a place with a fixed
idea that somebody has told us you can find the
best briosh in the Western Cape in Napir and that's
where we're going this weekend to eat Briosh.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
How does it work?
Speaker 5 (04:55):
Sometimes it is the latter, but not too often. I
think we both like we've realized that, you know, everyone
has different palets, especially when it comes to food, and
so we kind of like going in with just you know,
an empty slate, no pre We won't read the reviews, especially,
I like, I won't check because I know that it
will probably color my opinion of it, and then we
will try something completely random from the menu. Sometimes we
(05:19):
might try a couple of things, and we both have
different tastes as well, so that's nice to.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Kind of can't tell you something that we don't like.
We don't like the top ten or top fifteen things.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yes, we don't believe though I think.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
I think those are very specific for a generalized group,
and as human beings, we're all different, I think, yeah,
and that that uniqueness has to come out. And even
when we review something, we often say that, you know,
this is Alaska's experience, this is sally A's experience. Try both,
actually experience both and open yourself up to that, you know.
So definitely we are planners. Planners, planners because I'm an engineer.
(05:53):
She's a public health specialist by background. But I think
for us that travel is all about getting long. It's
about trying something that nobody has recommended and then sometimes
failing that way. Because failing is such a critical part
of traveling.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I think your second guest to say today how important
traveling is in our failing is rather in our life
experience that you learned so much in the moments where
things don't go according to plan, and you might have
it sounds like you, like me, a big planner, that
half the fun is the preparation for the trip before
you even get there. But sometimes things do not go
your way. Let's talk about some of the experiences that
(06:29):
you've had because of the plans going off the beaten track.
I mean, I don't want to ask you about favorites,
because I know this isn't as you said, it's a
very personal thing. But you each want to share with
us an example of a time where things didn't go
according to the plan but you ended up discovering something
wonderful or experiencing something amazing.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Yeah, I think, oh honeymoon was a very good experience.
In here, I'm going to share something that I was
outside of South Africa, but I think it's still worth it.
We were visiting Spain in March, I think, and for
the first time in ten years, it was raining in March.
I mean, imagine that right in our honeymoon Lovely. So
I'm at the airport. I've never seen the weather, and
I look at the weather and I know it's raining,
and I become the whiny baby that I am, and
(07:06):
I start complaining and my wife is like, what.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Do you want to do?
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Now?
Speaker 1 (07:09):
The planet is right there.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
But regardless of that, what we did was we got there,
we went to the nearby spaces. I think we got
some cheap winter where and we started exploring the city.
We were soaked, drained, but the reality was we had
something that we wanted to plan and we wanted to
explore it, and we were like, the rain is not
going to get on over awhere. And I think sometimes
we often think about and I'm particularly bad at this,
(07:35):
often think about the bad things and then just realizing
that follow the plan, it'll work out.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Actually, yeah, I think what comes to mind for me
is a couple of years ago, we did a road
trip across a couple of provinces in South Africa and
we were leaving Kimberly and we were driving the speed limit,
but if you've been to Kimberly then you would know
the potholes of the size of you know, meteorite. Eventually,
we didn't realize we actually needed to drive a third
(08:02):
of you know, the speedim We got into a very
bad situation because we ended up having a puncture and
neither of us in theory, both of us know how
to change tire, but in real life we were just stumped.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
We had I never owned a car, so I didn't.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
So it was really nice though, because somebody actually stopped
and he's like he was rushing to a meeting. He
told us this and he actually stopped and helped us to.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Change the tire.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
Fantastic, and it was such a sweet like experience because
it really reminds you that, like you know, we sometimes
have these perceptions about places and things, but people are
just wonderful if you just give them a chance.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
To classic South Africans, we're just lovely, lovely people. We
were there top everyone.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Had the exact same experience I've laid on a couple
of months ago and was the same thing. Fat tire
Stranger coming out of nowhere underneath the car, lifting that
thing up, giving himself covered in Greece and left quietly
without so much as leaving us with his name. It
was just it was one of those moments you are
reminded that people are good, actually more than they are bad.
Just in case anybody who's come in midway to this conversation,
(09:03):
let me just fill you in and catch you up.
Our guests are Selaia and Aliska Silliman of All Selah Suliman,
Aliska Young Mahamad.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
You are the duo behind a platform called A four
Adventures and the S. It's a capital aid at the beginning,
a capital s at at the end, civilizing their names.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
It is a platform that.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Is all about encouraging local travel and encouraging South Africans
to explore in their own backyard and find all those wonderful,
quirky sites and experiences and people that make this country
so special. Is it primarily for South Africans or do
you find that you get international visitors interacting with you
and asking for advice.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
We do get a lot of international visitors asking for advice,
and I think because of that, more recently we have,
especially on our website, kind of geared things towards if
you are visiting, for example, Capelan for the first time,
these are the things you.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Must do, you know.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Or we have itineraries available and we have i think,
you know, organized customized itineries for international travelers as well,
but we find that the needs are usually different for
depending on where you're visiting from.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
But I think the thing that we realize with our
platform is that we want to balance up both so
South Africans want to visit their country. We've seen that
they've told us that they sometimes I have two children
and they're like, well, with two children, where cand I
go visit and there are spaces that you can visit
and still explore and the world isn't ended, right, Yeah,
And I think that especially in this budget crisis situation
(10:28):
where everyone is looking at their income very closely, I
think we want to ground ourselves to the reality of
South Africa and show people what they can do and
explore wonderful things right at their doorstep.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Right.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
One of the things I think that was one of
our popular videos was the Seras Railway and that video
I think we went to seven hundred thousand views in
just a few days. I think because nobody knew that
there is a train or working train at that time
that goes from the Foreshow to go into the Elgin Market,
and people are fascinated by it, and everyone had so
(11:00):
many queris, so many questions about it, and they were
able to visit this amazing opportunity, this amazing experience, sorry
through this video, and that is amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I believe it is amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I've had a couple of listeners who we've chatted to
and about them before, and a couple of listeners you've
messaged in to say they've done that trip.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
I haven't heard a bad word about it.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
It's something everybody says is completely unique experience. What's been
your most surprising destination or experience a place that really
wasn't what you thought it was going to be.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Mine has to be the Golden Gate National Park. So
this is this amazing place and I strongly recommend it's
in Free States. I strongly recommend going to the National
park itself and living there. It's incredibly affordable. You won't
have to break the bank for this. It's like being
in heaven. You stay there. The mountains are surrounding you.
(11:55):
It's so so beautiful. Even when you climb the mountains,
you stay there, you will switch off, you won't think
about anything for those couple of nights, a couple of
days that you're there, and I highly highly recommend it.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
I think for me a surprising destination was probably joe
Burgh because yeah, I think people and myself included, often
feel that, you know, Joeburg is a city city. You
go there for work, you you know, you kind of
don't really go there for leisure, you don't want to travel.
The first time I visited joe Burgh, I was shocked,
and since then I've wanted to go back so many
times because I still feel like there's more things to do.
(12:31):
It's so different from Cape Town, but in an amazing way.
And I think the mistake we often make is to
compare the two. Yeah, but it's like.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Comparing apples and oranges.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
A hundred percent degree.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I lived in joy Wick for ten years and I
feel like I only scratch the surface and all the
places to explore in the time that I was there,
And every time I go back, I have that feeling,
firstly of how fast it is and how much it's
grown since I was there. But secondly, how much I'm
missing that is there to be explored. So I completely
endorsed that. I mean, it's the dream to be able
to do this time wanted.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Honestly, No, I think we both love our jobs and
we love the fields that we're in. This has become
a much bigger passion project than we expected it. I
think when we started, we had no idea that we
would I mean in four years we're almost a community
of thirty five thousand people, I think.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Which is unfathomable.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
It's so humbling, but probably not full time no, No, yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
I think this is also a platform for us eventually too.
So I think something you'll see from our page is
we don't post anything we don't want to do. So
I know sometimes it can become very pressurized where you
do things that you don't want to do because that's
the demand. But very much we have stayed truth to
this aspect that we want to do the things that
we are excited about.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Like Sadah I said, I think we are so passionate
about our own careers as well, where we do so
many social impact work as well, that we want to
create both of these platforms. And I think the world
is moving towards the stage where you do multiple jobs
at the same time, and that's something we really aspire towards.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
In to add I think the fact that we don't
just share absolutely everything, I think is something that our
community does appreciate. Like we had someone come up and
tell us like we've changed the way that they traveled
in well, and someone else said that they exclusively trust
our opinion and that because we posted about this particular place,
you know, they're definitely going to go there. And it's
(14:20):
a responsibility that we don't take likely because at the
end of the day, if somebody you know, recommended something
to us and we went and spent our money, then
we wouldn't want to mislead people into you know, just yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I mean it comes down to authenticity as well, and
I think people are getting the more media save we get,
the more people recognize it when they see it and
value it when they see it, because there is so
much of the opposite kind of content out there that
has just baby based on whoever paid me to say this,
So I think hands hands off off to you for
keeping it that way. The last thing to tell our
listeners what we must say Goodbye is where they get
(14:52):
to explore your content.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Any social media platform.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
We're they're pretty much everywhere you can search. It's a
four adventures or R underscore. I don't think that's necessarily though,
A for underscore adventures, or you can check out our
website as well. That's just a fadventures dot com and.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Get get busy exploring in your own backyard.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Thank you so much for the work that you're putting
into this platform, and more importantly for joining us today
to share it having with us Celia and Alaska and
the platform you're looking for A for adventures with an
S on the end.
Welcome to Wonder the World.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
And in today's episode, we are joined by a couple
who have made it their mission to help us all
fall in love with our own backyards as it were.
The names Seleka Suliman and aliskir Jan Muhammad. There are
the duo behind a platform called A for Adventures, which
is a travel and lifestyle platform with thousands of followers already,
and they are just as passionate about discovering South Africa
(00:24):
as the creators of the platform are. And basically, this
duo uncover hidden gems, small towns a little off the
beaten track. They also uncover great places to find the
perfect cup of coffee or croissant for breakfast, or to
try something a little different that isn't just your standard
tourist experience. So they're all about loving the local and
encouraging us to be tourists in our own country. And
(00:47):
the best part of all, of course, is that means
you never have to go through the trauma of a
visa interview ever. Again, Celera and Asco welcome, It's wonderful
to have you with us.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Thank you so much, it's really cool to be here.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Thanks thanks for having us. It's A turned to your
listeners as well.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Let's start with the name A for Adventures.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
What's the origin or are we going to see iterations
BCD and Eastill coming in future?
Speaker 4 (01:08):
No, actually, I think so. It's it's our names. Basically,
the first A on A for Adventures has got my name,
s is Salah has name, and I think it puts
together what we want to do. We want to be
adventures in all.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
We want to help people be adventurous. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:24):
So we were like, you know, let's just keep it simple,
not too complicated, Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
The adventurous spirits something that's been instilled in you by
the people came before you, or something that's been your
thing to say, I refuse to live a quiet life like.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Those who've gone before me. I'm want to do it differently,
I think the latter.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
Yeah, Like we've both grown up and not traveling way
too much, and you know, at some point we just realized,
funnily enough, it was you know, this cathartic moment on
top of table mountain very literally to say that, well,
this is such a beautiful country that we live in
and we we really need to take advantage of that
and explore it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
One hundred percent. And I think one of the things
that we realized being in South Africa is that often
we don't know what to do because we think everything
is expensive where it's for tourists or something like that.
But what we have realized that's not the case. You
can go up Timber Mountain that's free, and there is
so much more to explore that we're in a budget
friendly way and learn about our beautiful country.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
It's one of the reasons I asked you guys to
join us here today, because we have I mean, and
there is place for make no mistake, there's place for
the luxury experiences and the wonderful lodgers and the new
hotels and all those things. Absolutely not saying don't use them.
But I love the fact that you guys are all
about saying, keep it accessible, make it something that an
ordinary South African who has to worry about a budget
can still do and see and experience without necessarily having
(02:39):
to spend half their annual savings to get around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's even before you've got the visa.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I mean, what was the very first place that you
visited together when you decided you were going to do this,
What was the first thing to populate the site.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
So I think before the site, I think Stellenbosch came
to mind. So we visited Stellenbosh. I think it was
a four day trip and just being there. What we
tried to do is we wanted to do everything that
was everywhere, and we found that there was not one
space where we could find something where Muslims as well.
So halal is so important to us, and that is
something that we wanted. Accessibility and often many people said, oh,
Stellbush is a wine city, but it's not. Actually it's
(03:15):
a place that anyone can visit. And making that accessibility
part so critical is so useful, I think. And I
remember the budget being so important because we always open
up the Excel sheets of the Google sheets and for
us that budget matters and we were able to do
that and that really made a difference for us.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Funny enough, that wasn't our first post.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Oh hey, The first post was probably actually the Table
Mountain hike, because you would think that there is so
much information out there about it, but we wanted to
do the scenic one instead of just going straight up,
and it took us quite a lot of searching to
actually find even though it was such a popular thing
and that was probably our first post. And I mean
when I look back at it now, I think we've
come such a long way.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
How many years ago was that almost?
Speaker 5 (03:59):
For this?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Ok?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
For it now important to emphasize this is not your
full time job. You both have careers and income streams.
This is a passion and a passion that you love
sharing with other people. But I think that also emphasizes
what I was saying about accessibility and budget consciousness, that
they travel with budget restrictions and with having to juggle
a work life and all those things that normal people
(04:22):
face in life, and that is reflected in the kinds
of stories that are shared on their platforms. Now, you're
partly about finding entire new destinations to visit, but.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You're also sometimes about saying.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Let's find the best cup of coffee or the perfect
plate of eggs for breakfast, or whatever it may be.
When you approach a new destination, do you go with
a sort of completely blank slate and open mind, or
do you sometimes go to a place with a fixed
idea that somebody has told us you can find the
best briosh in the Western Cape in Napir and that's
where we're going this weekend to eat Briosh.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
How does it work?
Speaker 5 (04:55):
Sometimes it is the latter, but not too often. I
think we both like we've realized that, you know, everyone
has different palets, especially when it comes to food, and
so we kind of like going in with just you know,
an empty slate, no pre We won't read the reviews, especially,
I like, I won't check because I know that it
will probably color my opinion of it, and then we
will try something completely random from the menu. Sometimes we
(05:19):
might try a couple of things, and we both have
different tastes as well, so that's nice to.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Kind of can't tell you something that we don't like.
We don't like the top ten or top fifteen things.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yes, we don't believe though I think.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
I think those are very specific for a generalized group,
and as human beings, we're all different, I think, yeah,
and that that uniqueness has to come out. And even
when we review something, we often say that, you know,
this is Alaska's experience, this is sally A's experience. Try both,
actually experience both and open yourself up to that, you know.
So definitely we are planners. Planners, planners because I'm an engineer.
(05:53):
She's a public health specialist by background. But I think
for us that travel is all about getting long. It's
about trying something that nobody has recommended and then sometimes
failing that way. Because failing is such a critical part
of traveling.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I think your second guest to say today how important
traveling is in our failing is rather in our life
experience that you learned so much in the moments where
things don't go according to plan, and you might have
it sounds like you, like me, a big planner, that
half the fun is the preparation for the trip before
you even get there. But sometimes things do not go
your way. Let's talk about some of the experiences that
(06:29):
you've had because of the plans going off the beaten track.
I mean, I don't want to ask you about favorites,
because I know this isn't as you said, it's a
very personal thing. But you each want to share with
us an example of a time where things didn't go
according to the plan but you ended up discovering something
wonderful or experiencing something amazing.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Yeah, I think, oh honeymoon was a very good experience.
In here, I'm going to share something that I was
outside of South Africa, but I think it's still worth it.
We were visiting Spain in March, I think, and for
the first time in ten years, it was raining in March.
I mean, imagine that right in our honeymoon Lovely. So
I'm at the airport. I've never seen the weather, and
I look at the weather and I know it's raining,
and I become the whiny baby that I am, and
(07:06):
I start complaining and my wife is like, what.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Do you want to do?
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Now?
Speaker 1 (07:09):
The planet is right there.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
But regardless of that, what we did was we got there,
we went to the nearby spaces. I think we got
some cheap winter where and we started exploring the city.
We were soaked, drained, but the reality was we had
something that we wanted to plan and we wanted to
explore it, and we were like, the rain is not
going to get on over awhere. And I think sometimes
we often think about and I'm particularly bad at this,
(07:35):
often think about the bad things and then just realizing
that follow the plan, it'll work out.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Actually, yeah, I think what comes to mind for me
is a couple of years ago, we did a road
trip across a couple of provinces in South Africa and
we were leaving Kimberly and we were driving the speed limit,
but if you've been to Kimberly then you would know
the potholes of the size of you know, meteorite. Eventually,
we didn't realize we actually needed to drive a third
(08:02):
of you know, the speedim We got into a very
bad situation because we ended up having a puncture and
neither of us in theory, both of us know how
to change tire, but in real life we were just stumped.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
We had I never owned a car, so I didn't.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
So it was really nice though, because somebody actually stopped
and he's like he was rushing to a meeting. He
told us this and he actually stopped and helped us to.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Change the tire.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
Fantastic, and it was such a sweet like experience because
it really reminds you that, like you know, we sometimes
have these perceptions about places and things, but people are
just wonderful if you just give them a chance.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
To classic South Africans, we're just lovely, lovely people. We
were there top everyone.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Had the exact same experience I've laid on a couple
of months ago and was the same thing. Fat tire
Stranger coming out of nowhere underneath the car, lifting that
thing up, giving himself covered in Greece and left quietly
without so much as leaving us with his name. It
was just it was one of those moments you are
reminded that people are good, actually more than they are bad.
Just in case anybody who's come in midway to this conversation,
(09:03):
let me just fill you in and catch you up.
Our guests are Selaia and Aliska Silliman of All Selah Suliman,
Aliska Young Mahamad.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
You are the duo behind a platform called A four
Adventures and the S. It's a capital aid at the beginning,
a capital s at at the end, civilizing their names.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
It is a platform that.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Is all about encouraging local travel and encouraging South Africans
to explore in their own backyard and find all those wonderful,
quirky sites and experiences and people that make this country
so special. Is it primarily for South Africans or do
you find that you get international visitors interacting with you
and asking for advice.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
We do get a lot of international visitors asking for advice,
and I think because of that, more recently we have,
especially on our website, kind of geared things towards if
you are visiting, for example, Capelan for the first time,
these are the things you.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Must do, you know.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Or we have itineraries available and we have i think,
you know, organized customized itineries for international travelers as well,
but we find that the needs are usually different for
depending on where you're visiting from.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
But I think the thing that we realize with our
platform is that we want to balance up both so
South Africans want to visit their country. We've seen that
they've told us that they sometimes I have two children
and they're like, well, with two children, where cand I
go visit and there are spaces that you can visit
and still explore and the world isn't ended, right, Yeah,
And I think that especially in this budget crisis situation
(10:28):
where everyone is looking at their income very closely, I
think we want to ground ourselves to the reality of
South Africa and show people what they can do and
explore wonderful things right at their doorstep.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Right.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
One of the things I think that was one of
our popular videos was the Seras Railway and that video
I think we went to seven hundred thousand views in
just a few days. I think because nobody knew that
there is a train or working train at that time
that goes from the Foreshow to go into the Elgin Market,
and people are fascinated by it, and everyone had so
(11:00):
many queris, so many questions about it, and they were
able to visit this amazing opportunity, this amazing experience, sorry
through this video, and that is amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I believe it is amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I've had a couple of listeners who we've chatted to
and about them before, and a couple of listeners you've
messaged in to say they've done that trip.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
I haven't heard a bad word about it.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
It's something everybody says is completely unique experience. What's been
your most surprising destination or experience a place that really
wasn't what you thought it was going to be.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Mine has to be the Golden Gate National Park. So
this is this amazing place and I strongly recommend it's
in Free States. I strongly recommend going to the National
park itself and living there. It's incredibly affordable. You won't
have to break the bank for this. It's like being
in heaven. You stay there. The mountains are surrounding you.
(11:55):
It's so so beautiful. Even when you climb the mountains,
you stay there, you will switch off, you won't think
about anything for those couple of nights, a couple of
days that you're there, and I highly highly recommend it.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
I think for me a surprising destination was probably joe
Burgh because yeah, I think people and myself included, often
feel that, you know, Joeburg is a city city. You
go there for work, you you know, you kind of
don't really go there for leisure, you don't want to travel.
The first time I visited joe Burgh, I was shocked,
and since then I've wanted to go back so many
times because I still feel like there's more things to do.
(12:31):
It's so different from Cape Town, but in an amazing way.
And I think the mistake we often make is to
compare the two. Yeah, but it's like.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Comparing apples and oranges.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
A hundred percent degree.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I lived in joy Wick for ten years and I
feel like I only scratch the surface and all the
places to explore in the time that I was there,
And every time I go back, I have that feeling,
firstly of how fast it is and how much it's
grown since I was there. But secondly, how much I'm
missing that is there to be explored. So I completely
endorsed that. I mean, it's the dream to be able
to do this time wanted.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Honestly, No, I think we both love our jobs and
we love the fields that we're in. This has become
a much bigger passion project than we expected it. I
think when we started, we had no idea that we
would I mean in four years we're almost a community
of thirty five thousand people, I think.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Which is unfathomable.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
It's so humbling, but probably not full time no, No, yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
I think this is also a platform for us eventually too.
So I think something you'll see from our page is
we don't post anything we don't want to do. So
I know sometimes it can become very pressurized where you
do things that you don't want to do because that's
the demand. But very much we have stayed truth to
this aspect that we want to do the things that
we are excited about.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Like Sadah I said, I think we are so passionate
about our own careers as well, where we do so
many social impact work as well, that we want to
create both of these platforms. And I think the world
is moving towards the stage where you do multiple jobs
at the same time, and that's something we really aspire towards.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
In to add I think the fact that we don't
just share absolutely everything, I think is something that our
community does appreciate. Like we had someone come up and
tell us like we've changed the way that they traveled
in well, and someone else said that they exclusively trust
our opinion and that because we posted about this particular place,
you know, they're definitely going to go there. And it's
(14:20):
a responsibility that we don't take likely because at the
end of the day, if somebody you know, recommended something
to us and we went and spent our money, then
we wouldn't want to mislead people into you know, just yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I mean it comes down to authenticity as well, and
I think people are getting the more media save we get,
the more people recognize it when they see it and
value it when they see it, because there is so
much of the opposite kind of content out there that
has just baby based on whoever paid me to say this,
So I think hands hands off off to you for
keeping it that way. The last thing to tell our
listeners what we must say Goodbye is where they get
(14:52):
to explore your content.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Any social media platform.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
We're they're pretty much everywhere you can search. It's a
four adventures or R underscore. I don't think that's necessarily though,
A for underscore adventures, or you can check out our
website as well. That's just a fadventures dot com and.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Get get busy exploring in your own backyard.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Thank you so much for the work that you're putting
into this platform, and more importantly for joining us today
to share it having with us Celia and Alaska and
the platform you're looking for A for adventures with an
S on the end.
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