Evo Trak is an active adventure tour operator based in Qwa Qwa, 45 minutes south of Harrismith in the Free State. It offers quad biking (township tours and in-tracks), paintballing, and archery for team-building activities.

Neo Mokoena, Owner and Founder of Evo Trak, was raised by a single mother who is a domestic worker and says he was always drawn to tourism. “My friends chose science studies but I didn’t want that so I took tourism in matric. I decided to start this company to be able to support myself and take care of mom, and also to bring change to the area I live in, the Free State, and South Africa in general.”

Mokoena noticed that no one in the area offered quad bike tours or rides. “I spent a month offering just quad bike rides to figure out if people would come, and when I saw that they would come in numbers, I decided to start Evolution Trakkers, or Evo Trak.” And so Evo Trak was started in December 2016.

As his family were not supportive of quad biking, there was no financial support. However Mokoena’s friend owned four quad bikes and, seeing an opportunity, Mokeona borrowed them.

A subsequent fall-out with the friend resulted in the bikes being returned. “I have a lot of bookings but it is rather hard with only one borrowed quadbike.” As such, Evo Trak mainly focuses on track tours and once he has acquired more quad bikes, Mokoena will reinstate the flatland, overland, mountain and township quad bike tours.

Evo Trak offers trips to camps throughout the Free State where clients can abseil, take part in archery and paintballing amongst others, as well as trail hikes. Clients can also take part in eco-tourism lessons to learn more about the environment and conservation.

Mokoena does not yet have a website for his company and is currently running his business via Facebook. “Hopefully, from December I will have my website up and running.”

This article is part of a series where Tourism Update highlights small, medium- and micro-sized enterprises in the tourism sector. This series is brought to you courtesy of South African Tourism.