Tel. +44 (0)1273 600030 (UK)
Environment
During this tour we try to travel without creating harm to all the beautiful natural and historical places, structures, local people and environment. We warn our guests not to break the arms of the trees when we go to the fruit gardens, not to leave garbage in the environment while they are picnicking and to put it in the bins. Our groups are minimum 4 people, maximum 20 people. All our guides are locals who are trained about the conservation of the natural environment and the local village people in the area. They inform our guests about how to protect this nature.
TEMA is the Turkish foundation for fighting erosion and afforestation and the conservation of the natural environment. We donate hundreds of seedlings for our forests. We work voluntary, we buy seedlings and we plant them with our staff every year. We trek in the local areas, use tractors and similar village vehicles. These vehicles minimise the impacts to the air pollution. Also we try not to scare the wildlife and warn our guests about this.
All the accommodations are in the local area. We inform our guests about water and energy saving and recycling. Most of accommodations have solar panels. We use local vehicles in most of the areas. We hire bikes or use horses and arrange walks to short distances. We try to do our best to minimise the carbon emissions and footprints and encourage our guests to do the same.
In our office we don't use our faxes and telephones unnecessarily. We make a point of giving the equipments that we don’t need in the office to the people who really need them. We encourage the staff to recycle and save water and electricity and not to waste papers.
Community
The local people in the villages don't know English so we go to the villages with the guides who know the area well. The guides grew up in Anatolia so they know how to serve their cultures and traditions to you. It is a big pleasure for them to introduce their hometowns to you. Though village people don’t know English, with the guides helps, they will have chance to introduce their lives and villages to you. Anatolian people love guests and do their bests to make the guests satisfied.
Anatolian people are so hospitable and have big smiles on their faces, they teach our guests how to cook local foods, show them their culture, grain fields and around the fruit and vegetable gardens. The most important thing about visiting the local people is learning about their special folklore and special local dresses. We pay the local people for their labour and always encourage travellers to buy souvenirs. Our guests generally love to buy local souvenirs to take home for a memory.
We aim to develop the economy of local places. We buy local produce such as hand made socks, gloves, carpets, scarves etc. Some regions are better for wooden products and other regions are better for farm products. We always encourage our guests to buy these kind of products from the local places and villages because these local products are cheaper and more natural than the products that are sold at the city centers. We encourage our guests to eat in small local and family restaurants and provide them with information about where to find them and also local shops.
We are supporters of the poor and orphan children foundation. This foundation helps poor children to study and provides them what they need. We support this foundation every year. Also we encourage everyone around us to support these kind of foundations.
What makes this tour special and different is; to show our guests how is local life in Western Black Sea and make our guests feel like Turkish local people for a while. We protect the environment while we are giving the best services to the guests with the aim of helping the local economy.
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!
