Meghan Markle Made Secret Trip to Ibiza With Prince Harry and Archie for Her Birthday

Rachel McRady‍
Updated
Meghan Markle's first official post-baby engagement is fashion related and for a cause that's clearly important to her.

Meghan Markle rang in her 38th birthday in style!

A source tells ET that the Duchess of Sussex spent her birthday in London before leaving with Prince Harry and their 3-month-old son, Archie, for a family vacation in Ibiza, Spain. The family spent six days on the island in a private villa.

This isn’t the first time the Sussexes have escaped on private vacations. Earlier this week, the couple’s official Instagram account shared never-before-seen photos from the duke and duchess’ secret trip to Botswana, which they took two years ago, prior to their engagement in honor of World Elephant Day.

🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘 Today is #WorldElephantDay and we are pleased to announce that since we followed our friends at @ElephantswithoutBorders (EWB) on Instagram in July, when we were celebrating the environment, you and our friend @TheEllenFund (@TheEllenShow) have spread the word and EWB have been able to help protect 25 elephants by fitting them with satellite navigation collars! These collars allow the team at EWB to track the elephants, as well as to learn their essential migratory patterns to keep their corridors safe and open so future generations of elephants can roam freely. In honour of this amazing support, EWB have named their most recently collared Elephant...ELLEN! We can’t wait to see where she will go! 🐘 Two years ago on World Elephant Day, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex joined Dr Chase to help in this conservation effort. Below, a few words from Mike and his partner Kelly at EWB: • ‘Today is a day to honor and celebrate the majestic elephant and to make a strong stand for conserving and protecting one of the world’s most beloved animals. elephants are intelligent, sentient beings capable of emotions from joy to grief. They are ‘environmental engineers,’ a key-stone umbrella species, and the fight to save them is in effect, a fight to save entire ecosystems and all wildlife. Today elephants are facing many challenges; habitat loss and competition for resources creates conflict with humans, climate change and fires destroy much needed resources and poaching for the demand of ivory makes elephants bigger targets than ever. African elephants are especially prone to human-wildlife conflict because of their large home ranges. Finding, preserving and creating elephant corridors is therefore of great importance in helping to maintain habitats suitable for movement and minimising human-elephant conflict. Corridors are a mitigation technique to better the livelihoods of local communities and the elephants themselves, by providing environment and ample space for wildlife to navigate from one habitat patch to another, without affecting the livelihoods of communities.’ • EWB - Dr Mike Chase, Ms Kelly Landen . 📸 by DOS © SussexRoyal Additional photos: EWB

A post shared by The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (@sussexroyal) on Aug 12, 2019 at 6:00am PDT

The entire family is planning to return to Africa on an official Royal Tour of South Africa this fall.

A source previously told ET that Meghan has been very involved in planning every step of the tour. Prince Harry will be visiting Angola, Malawi and Botswana in addition to the family’s stops.

Our source noted that Meghan’s philanthropic work is immensely important to her and that both “the duke and duchess want to make a real impact” during their trip.

The couple famously shared their pregnancy news last fall during the Royal Tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga.

For more from the royals, watch the clip below:

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