Northern Portugal walking holiday

Planet

Although the water in Portugal is safe to drink for our customers, we offer the opportunity to purchase a water filter bottle, at a discounted price, that combines three different technologies to remove over 99.9% of all microbiological contaminants in water. This prevents the need for single use plastic bottles.

We operate a ‘leave no trace’ policy on all activity days to help maintain them for future generations. Our tour leader is trained to promote this message to our customers whilst on this trip. Lunches can be purchased from local shops and you are encouraged to bring a water bottle, Tupperware container and cutlery to avoid using a plastic bags and plastic knives and forks.

The focus of this trip is primarily walking, however there will be some free time to walk additional trails and we aim to leave minimal impact. This includes sticking to the trails to avoid upsetting the delicate balance for plants and animals, as well as not feeding wildlife as they become reliant on tourists, plus maintaining a safe and respectful distance from wildlife.

We are committed to offering low impact holidays that benefit the country and communities we visit. Given most of the time is spent exploring on foot, it is important that our staff, local partners and customers are aware of the delicate balance which exists in the places we visit and leave no trace. This tour operates during low tourist season, away from the main resorts, and sourcing Portuguese owned hotels, restaurants, and services.

People

This tour operates during the quieter months of the year for visitors and in areas typically away from the main tourist resorts. It helps to reduce the decline in visitor numbers outside of the summer months when tourism drops off.

It is important for us that we work with locals to ensure they benefit from tourism, and stay at Portuguese owned and operated hotels that employ local residents to work in the hotel.

We stay in a small village for our first centre on this holiday and are able to eat at a local restaurant helping to assist the local community, while at our second centre, due to its remoteness, we eat at the hotel.

Walks at both our centres are directly from the hotels, so there is no need for local transport and on the day we transfer between centres, we are able to walk from one hotel to the other. The only transport we need is to get to/from the airports and for a bag transfer on the day we change hotels. This helps us minimise our carbon impact.

We ensure that our staff are equipped with suitable footwear and clothing to cater for the environment in which they are working on.