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Environment
Roads can be poor in these parts of Africa and distances long but, conscious of our environmental impacts, we have reduced the number of domestic flights on this tour. This also enables us to get more of a feel for the country as we travel by road through small towns and villages to get Togo via Mali- Burkina - Benin.
We aim to support development first and foremost by doing business well but there are many people in these parts of West Africa who are unable to benefit from tourism. For this reason we also support a project of one of our clients who want to give Cow, chicken to ten villages in Mali, Burkina and Senegal to provide breeding livestock and agricultural training to rural communities and give them better protection against food insecurity in January 2010.
Before your trip you will receive advice from our Responsible Travel Policy. To understand our environmentally sustainable principles, and outline how each customer can minimize their impact while travelling, this makes for a great source of information. We minimize paper use in our operations, do not produce brochures and all our messages are through email. We encourage our clients to help local project to plant trees.
As we know the danger that nature faces to day we seldom use domestic flights in our trip, most of our travel is done on ground. During our trip we do lot of camping and staying in guesthouses in village, as they have no big hotels that waste water, and some of them use solar energy for their light. This trip minimizes waste by advising clients to follow the African example and recycle everything.
Community
Life for the majority of West African people is difficult but if we try to develop responsible tourism that can be a great means of development. You will have an opportunity to shop for local sculptures and the unique masks that are made in these areas surrounding the bustling market Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo. The time we spend these regions will directly benefit the local community. The tourist taxes and the use of local people will bring a lot to local community through Mali, Burkina, Benin and Togo. The time we spend on these four regions will directly benefit the local community.
We purchase everything we need en route, buying from local traders and markets in sufficient quantities to ensure we do not exploit, but equally so that we have enough for ourselves! In many cases, the routes we take are varied thus ensuring our visits do not impact negatively on the local communities and the income we bring is distributed fairly. All of the accommodation we use is locally owned, much of the time we will be camping, but in towns and cities we stay in guesthouses or hotels. We support a charity project from a customer who wants to give school supplies, cow and chicken to ten villages in January 2010. Carbon offsets for all flights booked with us are included in the tour cost.
We employ local guides, drivers and cooks during all our tours, and we source supplies where possible from the local communities and aim to use local businesses wherever possible. We encourage our guests to purchase goods and souvenirs locally.
We use local accommodation hotels and guesthouses owned by local people.
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!
