Costa Rica holiday, encompassed

This Costa Rica holiday utilises local transport in order to give passengers a unique cultural experience and to put profits directly back into the local community. Travelling on local transport also ensures no additional vehicles are used so no additional pollution is brought about by our group. We keep our groups small (max 18) so that the overall socio-environmental effect of our tours is kept as low as possible.

We employ local guides to organise all of our optional excursions and activities in order to give profits back to the local community.

During visits to the Monteverde Cloud Forest and several National Parks passengers can learn about the endangered species in the region and spot the native wildlife. This teaches them about the local environment and encourages them to respect their surrounds. Our tour leaders encourage passengers to behave in an eco-friendly manner at all times by ensuring no waste is deposited and advocating the ‘take only photos and leave only footprints’ philosophy at all times.

We stay at 100% locally-operated hotels (as opposed to international hotel chains) to ensure that we continue to support the local community.

We have an extensive list of pre-departure documentation which includes maps, regional advice, responsible travel practices and detailed itineraries, and we send this out to our passengers well before their departure to ensure that when they travel they are socially conscious and respectful of their surrounding environments - both during our tours and before/after.

Office policy: We recognise that it is not only on-location staff who have environmental responsibilities but also our administration staff in our offices around the world. All our offices endeavour to be environmentally sound through practising energy conservation, implementing recycling plans and being responsible for the surrounding physical environment. We believe in leading through example and operate in this manner to encourage other businesses and individuals to be considerate of the environment and conserve the natural beauty we currently share.

Carbon Offset Scheme:

Working in partnership with international conservation charity World Land Trust in our continuing quest to establish and maintain our position as a leader in responsible travel, we are offering a new way for our travellers to make a real contribution to the health of the planet - the Carbon Offset Scheme.

World Land Trust is a not-for-profit, international conservation organisation that takes direct action to save rainforest and other biologically important lands. Since it was founded in 1989, it has helped local conservation organisations to purchase and protect over 375,000 acres of threatened habitats in Asia, Europe and Central and South America. There are many organisations offering carbon offsetting services, however we believe that World Land Trust has the most scientifically sound approach and socially responsible philosophy.

When you book your tour with us you will be able to offset a portion of your share of the carbon emissions created while you are on your tour. We will calculate what clients have donated, and donate an additional 10% of the total to World Land Trust. So the more you contribute, the more we can give! We will also absorb all processing fees associated with these payments, so there’s no administration cost to World Land Trust and they can spend the money donated where it counts - protecting threatened habitats worldwide.

What Will Happen to the Contributions?

World Land Trust will fund projects on your behalf through their Carbon Balanced programme, which reduces the amount of damage carbon emissions are doing to the environment. We will not profit from your carbon offsetting donations. Your contributions will be made directly to World Land Trust and we will not receive any direct financial benefit or commission from these donations.