Salta and Jujuy holiday in Argentina

Planet

This tour is thought to be as environmentally friendly as possible. In the first place, we stay for nine days in almost the same area, which means that we reduce a lot of CO2 emissions as we do not take planes.

During the whole trip, the travelers will be accompanied by a local guide who will explain the importance of protecting this area and its biodiversity. While visiting the different ecoregions, the visitor will learn about the differences among these landscapes and also the cultural heritage of the Andean Culture.

At Mater, we always search for alternative activities to those usually chosen by large groups of tourists so that you can have more intimate and authentic experiences, without missing out on the most emblematic places in Argentina.

On this tour, you’ll have the chance to get close and learn about the local culture while seeing the amazing landscapes the North of Argentina has to offer. You’ll be able to stay at a family house in an Andean rural community and in the Quebrada of Humahuaca. This is how you will get a close look at their traditions and share the activities in which the community members are involved daily. You’ll have a local bilingual guide, with vast knowledge of the culture and routes taken in the tour.

This tour, on the one hand, decentralizes tourism by visiting places that are not in Salta’s classic circuit, giving smaller communities that aren’t frequently visited by international groups of tourists and have a great cultural value an opportunity to work and develop independently.

We also give our travelers the chance to have direct and genuine contact with the local culture, accompanied by a local guide, promoting reciprocal cultural exchange. In this tour you’ll actively participate in several activities in the communities, such as knitting, making ceramic pieces, preparing typical meals, and more.

Not only do we manage to preserve and protect the environment, but also local cultures, traditions, and economies. Rural Community Tourism allows visitors who seek to get involved with local inhabitants to live a unique cultural exchange experience and simultaneously offers rural families an opportunity to develop independently.


Our environmental impact in our office is low, so we focus more on the value chain. Anyway, in the office, we do waste separation and always try to reduce and reuse whenever possible.

Selection of our suppliers:
In order to ensure sustainability and consistency with our work philosophy, we always look for sustainable tourism providers that meet any of the following requirements:
- Be distinguished by quality and/or sustainability programs/seals
- Be recognized locally for their good environmental and social practices.
- We prioritize local ventures and, if possible, attended by their owners.
- In the case of accommodation, we work with hotels certified for their environmental management whenever we can.
- We also encourage our allies to improve and continue implementing environmentally responsible practices, especially those related to water, energy, and waste.
- In the more traditional destinations, we seek to offer a different travel experience, with small group excursions, certified local guides, and alternative proposals that complement the most tourist sites.

Responsible practices with the environment
- Walking and public transport tours
- Visit natural areas where we work on environmental awareness and the importance of biodiversity.
- We contribute monthly with the Argentine Wildlife Foundation (a member of WFF)
- We deliver a recycled leather envelope to our customers to carry their documentation. The Vacavaliente company is a certified B company that buys the remains of leather from tanneries (preventing them from being waste) and transforms them into design products through reuse techniques.
- As part of our paperless policy, we stopped printing long-road books and change them for digital brochures for our clients.

People

This tour allows you to get immersed in the local culture, visiting places "off the beaten track" thanks to the possibility of traveling north in a private vehicle, with a local driver-guide who knows all the corners of the region.

The services are offered by rural families who are members of tourism networks or cooperatives. These families have agriculture and livestock as their main economic activity but generate extra income for the tourist services they offer, in addition to the sale of handicrafts and regional products. In this way, we contribute to the local development of these communities while offering a truly differential service, in unique environments outside traditional circuits. Families do not speak English, but we work with local guides/interpreters who live in the area.

The accommodation is in family houses (private rooms), which allows a more meaningful connection. This can be seen as an opportunity for really interesting cultural exchange, while we support the local development


On our trips, we hire local certified guides who know their environments best. We include visits to local communities and estancias. These are off-the-road places, where the tourists do not frequently go and so our support is crucial to them. We support them not only by hiring their services, but also by creating cultural exchanges, having lunch for example, or buying them provisions.

We also recommend our travelers to visit social projects, for example, some of our clients have visited a soup kitchen located in a rural area that also offers training to the children: organic farming, local food preparation, harvest, farm, etc.

Some of the accommodation is in family houses (private rooms), which allows a more meaningful cultural exchange, while we support the local development.

We collaborate with the local development of that region through tourism revenues. In addition, we raise awareness about the importance of cultural and natural heritage as different sites are visited, including some protected by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.

It is important to mention that in the rural community tourism programs, in addition to the genuine income generated for the families, there are other positive impacts such as the enhancement of their cultural and natural heritage, the revalue of their customs and identity, and something extremely important: young people do not migrate from the countryside to the city, as they find in tourism an opportunity to stay in their places and work.