Thailand beach tour, West Coast

The very ethos of our style of travel is responsible; small groups on fully escorted tours, experiencing the very best of a region, a culture and a landscape, with a friendly local hand guiding the way. Our itineraries are designed to give our travellers real life experiences without compromising the part of the world we are exploring; to travel responsibly is at the heart of our commitment as a global tour operator.

This trip is primarily designed for travellers who want a trip based around beach time and relaxation with some cultural riches thrown in for good measure. Explore Thailand with us and you can be confident that you will be on a holiday designed to cause minimal impact to the country visited whilst still working with the concept of low impact and hopefully positive impact tourism. This Thailand beach holiday will support local businesses; directing money spent back into regional economies rather than towards bigger organisations and will tread carefully from an environmental perspective.

You’ll travel on a combination of public and local transport, journeying from Bangkok to Surat Thani by overnight train, a combination of bus and songthaew to Ao Nang and longtail boat to the island of Ko Yao Noi. Travelling like a local is part of the experience that our travellers love in Thailand and public transport has the added benefit of being environmentally friendly. We are very aware of the negative effect carbon emissions have on our environment and as such operate a carbon neutral policy on all our trips. We offset the ground emissions of all our passengers on all our trips, equating to 227kgs of carbon offset per passenger, per departure on this particular Thailand holiday.

There is a lot of time on this trip to do your own thing, you may choose to take an island tour on Koa Yao Noi, go snorkelling, visit a small fishing village to experience day to day life in the region, or just relax on the beach. Whatever you chose, your tour leader will be on hand to assist should you need advice or help with any arrangements. Our leaders are all recruited from within Thailand and professionally trained in their role, creating stable jobs and contributing towards the regional economies. Their local knowledge is invaluable and they are often the difference been a good holiday and a great one, recommending everything from the best instructors for those wishing to try diving to the quietest spots on the beach, to the best places to eat where the locals do.

Throughout this trip we do everything we can to ensure that the financial benefits from our travels find their way to local businesses and community initiatives. We stay in smaller, often locally owned properties and tend to favour traditional, often family run restaurants when dining together; great for sampling traditional local specialities!

In Phuket you’ll visit the Gibbon Rehabilitation Centre, dedicated to the conservation of the animals in the region. The visit is included in the trip cost and our entrance fee will go directly towards the work being done by the centre. Throughout your trip you will be encouraged to take steps to ensure that your journey is environmentally responsible as possible. Your group leader will be on hand to assist with the appropriate disposal of rubbish en route, recycling wherever possible. We also encourage all our travellers to use refillable water bottles alongside purification products rather than purchasing regular supplies of bottled water.

The sale of bottled water contributes to an enormous environmental problem around the world. In addition to the water in the bottles, the production of a 1 litre plastic bottle takes 2 litres of water and 200ml of oil. Once discarded a large proportion of these end up in limited landfill or discarded in waterways and natural environments and we believe that their use should be discouraged.