Cycling tour of Colombia

Planet

It is important to us that when we travel to different parts of our amazing planet that our exchange is always a mutual one and that we make a positive contribution to people and places that we visit along the way.

These days ‘responsible travel' and ‘sustainability' are hot topics. Responsible travel is not about donating large sums of money to charity (at least not without thoroughly researching the long-term intentions or effects of the charity). We believe responsible travel is about taking time to think about how our actions can benefit or how they impact the people, communities, economies, environments and eco-systems we visit, and then use this to make a difference (or sometimes more appropriately - how we can NOT make a difference). We are constantly considering our actions and how we and the people who travel with us can improve our impact on the places we visit.

Here are just some of the ways that we ‘make a difference’:

- Educate our bikers – about the effects of buying products that come from endangered species, or products that are destructive to wildlife or the environment.

- Waste/rubbish management – when we travel we should treat our surrounding as we would treat our home (or better!). We do our best to avoid ‘single use packaging’ only using reusable or recyclable packaging. We recycle what can be, and manage any rubbish in the best possible way.

- We have an environmentally conscious office – To avoid paper waste we aim to use as much computer technology as possible in our office. And when we do print we use paper from recycled sources!

People

Social integration with the local people is a central and important part of our trips. Simply travelling by bike is a great start – a great way for our bikers and local people to meet and start a conversation.

We always buy locally grown and produced food as much as possible and shop in small local markets; we support local businesses by staying in locally owned guesthouses, eating in local restaurants and taking our bikers to local operations and parks.

Where possible we also include a school visit in line with Responsible Travel's advice and policy on schools visits. Our school visit is so you can see and experience an education system which is very different from those in the developed world. The primary objective of our visits is the fantastic mutual social and cultural exchange which takes place between our bikers and the children and teachers in these schools. Some of our bikers also like to donate educational tools, books and basic stationery which always comes in handy to these schools and is gratefully received.