Lycian Way hiking holiday in Turkey

Planet

Through our local office in Antalya we are supporting the maintenance of the hiking trails in the area where this walking holiday takes place. We encourage the guides and hotel owners in the area to participate in trail maintenance, as volunteers. If there are rubbish-strewn sections, we go out and clean them. When way marking, we try to only refresh the old marks and not intervene unnecessarily by installing big metal or plastic signs. We use paint on rocks and so that the effect on nature is minimal.

We are also cooperating with local non-profits and communities and have successfully stopped the construction of dams and water power plants on the rivers in the area, which include some of the last free flowing rivers in Europe.

We encourage our clients to use the info packs and maps in electronic format and not print everything; we are gradually introducing a smartphone app which will contain both the maps and route notes and will make the printed route notes obsolete.

People

For our services along the Lycian Way trail, we are hiring local people from the villages along the route. For the transfers, we use local drivers and thus share our profit with these people, as we are earning our money in their area and we use locally owned and operated, small hotels.

This cooperation gives us also the opportunity to get closer to the locals, understand their needs and if possible support them further. It’s also the best way to get a cultural exchange between our customers and the local people.

A part of our profit made from this itinerary is used for supporting poor children's university studies from beginning to the end of their study, especially supporting of girls, who have a very limited access to education in rural Turkey.

We are regularly maintaining the trails with the help of local volunteers, thus making them more engaged and as part of the maintenance we teach them about trail orientation and specifics, so in the future they can be hired as local guides on guided trips provided by other companies.