Victory! Urge Rustic Pathways to Stop Supporting Elephant Abuse

Update (September 26, 2025): Great news! After hearing from PETA and more than 35,000 supporters like you, leading student travel company Rustic Pathways confirmed that it has removed cruel elephant bathing from its tour offerings! Rustic Pathways’ compassionate decision is a major win for elephants exploited for tourist attractions and appeals to the growing number of young people seeking ethical travel experiences that let elephants, and all animals, live in peace.

Elephants are wild animals who are perfectly capable of bathing themselves, but student travel company Rustic Pathways is selling a cruel and dangerous elephant bathing experience. Like elephants used for rides, many have been forcibly separated from their mothers, immobilized with ropes, and gouged with sharp objects. Rustic Pathways must stop profiting from this abuse.

In their natural habitat, elephants spend their days socializing, swimming, browsing, and playing, but at sham elephant “sanctuaries” and other tourism facilities, they’re often chained, abused, and forced into stressful interactions with the public. These encounters place immense psychological and physical strain on these sensitive, intelligent animals and can quickly become dangerous. Tourists and handlers have been gored, injured, trampled, or even killed, including recently when a tourist was killed after an elephant panicked during a bathing encounter in Thailand.

More than 50 major companies, including Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean, Airbnb, Expedia, Tripadvisor, and Booking.com, have stopped selling experiences that exploit elephants.