USA self drive family holiday

Planet

This itinerary focuses predominantly on travelling through the National Parks of the western USA. Park fees are paid directly to the park and contribute to the maintenance and protection of these outstanding natural areas. Wherever possible, we use hand-picked eco-friendly accommodation that have their own environmentally-friendly policies and encourage their guests to behave in an environmentally-friendly manner to limit energy usage.

Visiting the National Parks is a great way to ensure that the wildlife you encounter on this trip is truly wild, but we encourage our travellers to report anything which doesn’t seem right during their trip so that we can act upon it. Where travellers will be interacting with animals, during their horseback ride in Monument Valley, we have checked that this meets our Animal Welfare guidelines – formed in partnership with Animondial and World Animal Protection.

Before departing on this trip, our customers will always receive an informative document called 'Be a responsible traveller', which provides useful advice on how they are able to travel in an environmentally-friendly way such as using reusable water bottles and limiting the amount of energy that they use.

We are very passionate about recycling, beginning in our Brighton office where we use a local company to ensure we all know where our waste is going, we encourage a no wastage policy, by asking staff to take leftover food home. We also have a largely ‘paperless’ office, refraining from publishing brochures and other marketing collateral, and instead of producing electronic documentation to ensure we use as little paper as possible.

People

We share very similar values to our local partners, ensuring our clients are taken to the ‘real’ USA in an authentic and meaningful way. Our partners have 40 years of experience in the travel industry of the USA and demonstrate a focus on showcasing the tremendous diversity across this vast country, beginning in their 3 offices where one of their primary values is to value the diversity of ideas, experiences and backgrounds of their employees.

Wherever possible, we work with independently owned accommodation so that more of our travellers’ money stays in the local communities they are visiting. In Zion, we work with a hotel which employs people from the local area providing them with employment.

In our documentation that we send out prior to their departure, we inform all of our travellers on the appropriate customs and etiquette when travelling in the USA, including the cultural sensitivities around the native Indian population. This is particularly relevant to this itinerary, in which you will explore the spectacular Monument Valley on horseback, accompanied by a local Navajo Indian guide, learning more about the traditional way of life and culture as you traverse this unique landscape.