Romania ski touring holiday

Planet

Leave No Trace: we work hard to leave fewer footprints in our office and in the outdoors. We take special care of the waste management in our trips, we use as much as possible sustainable ways for transport and eat and consume local products.
Waste. During the trip - when hiking, trekking, snowshoeing, ski touring – we permanently carry with us a bag for waste. So do our tourists. Neither the guide nor the tourists leave any waste behind. Actually we leave no trace. At the end of the day the waste is left at the accomodation place where they have waste selective collection. It often happens that the guide takes down to the valley the waste he (and his group) produced during the trip.
We avoid using single use plastics. When possible we replace plastic bags with paper ones.
Our guides fill their bottles with tap water which is drinkable in all accommodation places.
Accommodation. Some of our accommodations are members of the Romanian Association for Ecotourism, such as Cabana Cetatile Ponorului, Pensiunea Turul Remetea and Traditional Casa
All the acommodations have waste selective collection. Most of them have solar panels. In some of them there are notes in the bathrooms encouraging tourists to have shorter showers and shorter use of water.
All accomodations use energy efficient light bulbs.
No food waste. All left overs are given to the animals the owners keep in their households (pigs, hens).
Transportation. The very nature of this trip it is low carbon transportation. We use our car only for transfers from/to the airport. During the trip, if car transfer is needed we use only local transport. Luggages are transferred by using local services - horse pulled chart or by horse. Only when these are not available then luggages are transferred by car (locals).
Suppliers. In what regards suppliers, we only use those who match our environmental values. All our guides follow the Leave No Trace principles. Car transportation is provided with cars Euro 4.
Food is all local from suppliers who produce it in a traditional way, with care for animals, fruit and vegetables, for water use and waste management.
Invest money and effort in conservation: we pledge between 5 to 10 % of our incomes after taxes into local projects that support nature and local culture conservation.
Apuseni Experience is a collaborator of Apuseni Nature Park and an active partner of Padurea Craiului Natura 2000 site.
In the "Padis Fest – together for responsible tourism in Apuseni Nature Park" (June, 2016) project we have volunteered in organising several activities within the project and had presentations about responsible tourism.
We constantly provide volunteering and support for Center for Protected Areas and Sustainable Development Oradea (CAPDD) which is the administrator of Padurea Craiului Natura 2000 site and is running several projects for developing this area as an Ecotouristic Destination (member of Ecotouristic Destinations' Network in Romania). Our tourist programme Romania Activity Holiday, Western Carpathians is run in this area and it is aimed at supporting local innitiaves in developing towards a responsible tourism in the area.
Periodically we have also donated various amounts of money for several projects run by CAPDD in Padurea Craiului Natura 2000 site.
Small groups. We promote travel in small groups travel: 4 to 12 people and very rarely to 15 people. That allows us to interact with tourists much easier and to keep a good quality of the entire trip. The group’s dynamic is much better and you enjoy your holiday in a small, friendly group, instead in a large one.
In the office, we use recycled paper for all of our docs and we bike or walk to our workplace. Many years ago we stopped printing brochures. All the needed information we provide it in electronic format.
We provide travelers with an updated Codes of Conduct (responsible travel guidelines) in which we suggest different ways to reduce natural resource use in their destination as well as to minimize damage to the environment, wildlife and local culture.
On arrival day, besides detailed information about the trip, the guide always provides the tourists also with information about the trip area (geography, local culture&customs, local settlements, environment) as well as about responsible tourism principles to be taken into consideration during the trip. The tourists are informed about the proper behaviour in specific environments such as forests, caves, special conservation areas, villages and local communities.
During our trips, we provide suggestions to travelers to actively support local projects which tackle issues related with local environment and/or local culture. Several ways of support local project are available: donations, voluntary work or transfer of know-how.
Project: "The first network of adventure caves in Romania", implemented by CAPDD and finalised in 2017. A network of 10 caves in Padurea Craiului massif were properly arranged for those who dare to step into the world of the underground. And, in order to protect this "world underneath our world", besides specific arrangements, special visiting rules were set up according to their conservation management plans. Now they can be accessed only with trained guides and are all included in our tourist programmes in the area. During the project implementation we have volunteered in several project activities. It is a pleasure for us to share the story of the project with our tourists and to discuss with them about follow-ups of the project.
The benefit for the local community is easy to observe: more tourists in the area implies more local people providing services. And it is not mass tourism but small groups and, generallly speaking, tourists who are specifically interested in exploring and/or learning about (adventure) caves, in a landscape that is still, up to a large extend, a traditional rural one.

People

Local guides and local services. In all of our trips we use more than 80 % local services – accommodation, meals, local transport and local guiding. Most of them are owned and operated by local people which are self-employed or they are family run businesses (in which locals are employed).
This is good for the local communities because we support them to become self sustainable and reliable and is good for tourists too, because they can have a better interaction with the locals, and experience their way of life in a direct manner.
We never combine different groups (unless we are asked to do it) together, so you’ll always have your own personal guide, taking care only of you and nothing else.
Respect for local communities and their environment. Our guides and staff will help you to understand and respect the places and people you are visiting, so you’ll be more comfortable and enriched visiting them.
Fair trade travel - we pay people with the fair wage for the services that they provide to us and we make sure that nothing we do in the mountains or in our office exploits people.
We encourage learning about local cultures- our trips have an educational component, both for the traveler and for the local people. We encourage you to learn about local culture and we design our trips according with this principle. We believe that our trips are designed in order to facilitate you not merely to see but to understand.
In the Traveler Code of Conduct as well as during our preparatory communication with the travelers we ensure that enough and accurate information is provided to them in what regards the social, environmental and economic situation in the Apuseni Mountains and Romania.
In the Traveler Code of Conduct, we provide travelers with suggestions of several ways to minimize their impact on local culture and during the trip, the tour leader or the local guide provides suggestions to support local projects (environmental and social) or initiatives which benefit the host communities and their well being.
During the trips we inform tourists about local projects and innitiatives, discuss about challenges, approaches and it's often the tourists who suggest solutions and ideas for projects and offer to share all this information forward. For instance we had a very interesting discussion, during a trip in Apuseni Nature Park about improving the waste management in one of the most popular camping pplaces in the park. The tourists even suggested solutions which we are considering in the near future.