Family holidays in Scotland, nature & wildlife

Like any holiday provider, we want you to have a wonderful time. Most people have busy, hectic lives and we know you need your holidays to provide something different; ranging from peace, rest and relaxation to new experiences and adventures. The first part of our vision is therefore to provide you with a fantastic holiday, tailored to your needs and flexible enough to delight every person in your family or group.

We are also aware that specialist holidays exist which offer everything from wildlife watching to outdoor activities, traditional skills, yoga and conservation. However, there are very very few that provide the opportunity to try a range of these activities all within the same holiday. We think that variety is the spice of life and also that these sorts of activities should be accessible to everyone, not just specialists. That's why we offer a wide variety of nature-based activities, delivered by experts, all of which are accessible to a wide range of ages and abilities.

Our holidays are also ecoholidays – a type of nature-based holiday which aims to have no negative impacts on the environment or local culture. This will appeal to anyone who is looking for an alternative to mainstream holiday packages that pay little, or no, heed to the environment.

However, the vision that inspires us is to offer you much more than just the opportunity to enjoy a holiday that will “do no harm”. Our commitment is to developing holidays and activities which actually have a positive impact on the planet and our local community. The way we do this is outlined in the next section. In addition, we would like our holidays to help you to do the same. We don't believe that living sustainably is all about 'giving up' things, sacrificing a comfortable lifestyle, or having less fun. It doesn't have to be about 'doing without' but rather about doing things differently. There are lots of things we can all do that not only benefit the planet but also benefit you by offering a healthier, happier quality of life.

How do we aim to do this? Certainly not by delivering 'lectures' or telling you what we think you 'should' be doing. Instead we aim to show you, by the quality of the holidays and the way we operate, what is possible. We also hope that through our holidays and specially designed activities you will deepen your connection to, and appreciation of, this beautiful and wonderful planet. If you leave us refreshed, re-energised and excited about the possibilities for a healthier, happier world, we know we have delivered our vision successfully.

Environment
You will have the opportunity to visit local environmental and social projects where you can learn more about the work of these organisations and even get involved in supporting their projects if you wish. On any trip where we work with and/or visit these projects we donate a percentage of the holiday price to the charity.

When we work with external activity providers, including for any boat trips, we ensure that these businesses take their responsibility to the environment seriously. For example, by following a code of conduct to ensure they don’t cause any harm to the natural environment or disturb the wildlife we are going out to watch. To ensure that you get the most out of your holiday whilst ensuring our activities are as environmentally and socially responsible as possible, we also provide guidance for you on how to behave in sensitive environments or around vulnerable wildlife species. Our company founder, Deborah Benham, is an expert on ecotourism and wildlife behaviour and ensures that our activities respect the natural environments they take place in and the animals we encounter.

As we are based in the UK it is possible to travel here using a lower carbon option than flying. There is an excellent sleeper train service from London to Inverness and trains and coaches from most large cities. Bringing your own car is also a good option if there is a group of you, allowing a car share. To encourage you to choose one of these lower carbon options we can help you with planning your transport and route. For those of you who do need to fly, we provide an optional offsetting scheme. Once you get here your transport is all supplied by our bio-diesel powered minibus. The bio-diesel we use is locally produced from waste cooking oil. It is much less polluting and has lower emissions than traditional diesel. As its made from waste oil this bio-diesel has no impact on food production.

Lastly, in our behind the scenes work we work hard to support our environment and local community. We have an office policy of reduce, re-use and re-cycle and use a green energy supplier for our power. Internet marketing is used as much as possible to minimise paper wastage. For any materials we do print we use an award winning environmentally friendly printing company based in the next village.

Community
All our holidays and short breaks are based in high quality accommodation provided by small, local businesses who share our commitment to the environment. For example, one of our main accommodation providers has eight wooden lodges set in woodland around a small lake. They have worked hard to create wonderful wildlife habitats throughout their woodland grounds and you can see a wide variety of birds here, plus deer and even otter if you are lucky.

Great food is an important aspect of every holiday and Scotland is famous for its produce. You will experience delicious home cooked meals, much of which comes from our own chemical free garden. We are lucky enough to be surrounded by excellent food producers, including fantastic organic fruit and vegetable farms, a local butcher whose meat is all sourced locally and to a very high welfare standard, an organic bakery, local cheese producers and many more. Its also important that our suppliers are socially responsible and employ local people. For example, many of our dried goods come from a local wholefoods shop which is run as a cooperative. Any food waste is composted in our garden to help grow next years vegetables.

Our friendly, knowledgeable guides are what make your holiday a truly rich experience. In this part of Scotland we are very lucky as there are a huge number of knowledgeable, passionate people who work with us to deliver your holiday activities. We employ local experts as guides and are always happy for them to suggest new and exciting ideas and activities for our holidays.

This part of Scotland is rich in arts, culture and tradition. We work with local artists and experts to honour this and bring this fascinating heritage into your holidays. You will have opportunities to visit the workshops of local artists and craftspeople and buy souvenirs directly from them.

Engagement with our local community is very important to us and we are involved in grassroots community organisations, like the Transition Town initiative, working on developing local solutions to climate change.