Tel. +44 (0)1273 600030 (UK)
It is important to us that when we travel to different parts of our amazing planet that our exchange is always a mutual one and that we make a positive contribution to people and places that we visit along the way.
These days ‘responsible travel' and ‘sustainability' are hot topics. Responsible travel is not about donating large sums of money to charity (at least not without thoroughly researching the long-term intentions or effects of the charity). We believe responsible travel is about taking time to think about how our actions can benefit or how they impact the people, communities, economies, environments and eco-systems we visit, and then use this to make a difference (or sometimes more appropriately - how we can NOT make a difference). We are constantly considering our actions and how we and the people who travel with us can improve our impact on the places we visit.
Here are just some of the ways that we ‘make a difference’:
- Social integration with the local people is a central part of our trips. Simply travelling by bike is a great start – a great way for our bikers and local people to meet and start a conversation.
- We employ a local Chilean support driver.
- We always buy locally grown food and shop in small local markets; we support local businesses by staying in locally owned guesthouses, hotels and campsites and eating in local restaurants.
- Educate our bikers – about the effects of buying products that come from endangered species, or products that are destructive to wildlife or the environment (any products that are made from the destruction of the Patagonian rainforests for example).
- Waste/rubbish management – when we travel we should treat our surrounding as we would treat our home (or better!). We do our best to avoid ‘single use packaging’ only using reusable or recyclable packaging. We recycle what can be, and manage any rubbish in the best possible way. We always leave our lunch spots and campsites as we find them (or better!).
- We avoid campfires to help prevent deforestation.
- We have an environmentally conscious office – To avoid paper waste we aim to use as much computer technology as possible in our office. And when we do print we use paper from recycled sources!
- For every person who flies to join our trips we donate 10 trees to a reforestation project.
We invite every traveller who books a holiday via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the holidays they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same holiday can have different views!
