China tour by bullet train, Shanghai to Hong Kong

Planet

Making a difference to planet and people underpin our itineraries and travel philosophy, across destinations. Considered an off the beaten path destination, China is popular with travellers who are keen to immerse in local culture in a meaningful and informed way, so we have gone above and beyond to ensure that we maximise the positive impact of international travel in the locations that we offer.

One of our central USPs is that we work with locally owned, boutique style special stays as opposed to international chain hotels. This works twofold, by providing the traveller with a once in a lifetime experience full of authentic, local flair and also supporting the local community through investment in locally owned ventures and the employment of local staff.

Carbon reduction policies extend beyond accommodation. As part of your tour package, you will also enjoy a range of excursions and activities that have been checked and vetted by our team. This itinerary in particular prioritises train travel over air travel, for instance when traversing into Hong Kong. All our trips can be made vegan and or vegetarian friendly on request.

As a business, we are keen to practice what we preach. As a UK team, we recycle 80% of our waste in a closed- loop system, work in a b-corp office space, and are working towards b-corp status ourselves. We also partner with Earthly, a company that chooses nature based solutions to invest in the future of the natural world. This aims to protect, better manage and restore ecosystems while addressing global challenges. All of Earthly’s projects remove carbon, restore biodiversity and improve livelihoods. A £5 donation is added to each party's itinerary as standard. Even our plant pots are made from recycled ocean plastics!

We are a proudly nature positive tour operator. This is realised through our itineraries in multiple ways.

Our travellers will pay entrance fees to all national parks and similar spaces, helping to support the upkeep of these protected areas.

Even before take off, we offer tools to our customers to encourage sustainability, carbon reduction and caring for the environment both at home and away. These include 'zero waste while travelling: our top tips', as well as our 'make it meaningful policy' that promotes animal welfare (underpinned by our relationship Animondial, an animal welfare group), 0 waste (exemplified in our almost entirely paper free office), and a slower pace of travel. We’re serious about this animal welfare stuff and want to do everything we can to improve the welfare of animals in tourism. We’ve therefore teamed up with animal welfare experts, Animondial. Their vision is to minimise tourism’s impact on animals, natural environments and the people that depend upon them. They’ve helped us to improve the welfare standards of our trips even further and create long-term plans to support animals in tourism. Best of all though, we’ve worked together to create an animal welfare in tourism starter kit for small businesses, to help other travel companies improve their animal welfare standards too. This is particularly important in this itinerary, as you have the opportunity to visit a Panda sanctuary in Chengdu. This has been checked and vetted by our experts, and meets all animal welfare standards and more.

People

As a team, we believe that protecting the environment goes hand in hand with building stronger communities, which is why we have both led and joined in with beach cleaning initiatives with surfers against sewage, and local community gardening initiatives.

Our trips aim to put positively impacting local communities at front and centre of our itineraries, as local interactions are what make our trips so fantastic.

We work with small, boutique style special stays full of authentic flare work twofold by offering you a unique experience and also supporting local business ventures and local employment, thus supporting the local economy. During your trip, there is a wealth of local shops, cafe’s, bars and restaurants to visit and enjoy, across all locations. This helps bolster the local economy further.

One of the key aspects of our itineraries is that we work with local partners who are based in country in order to provide the most authentic insight into everyday life in the destination, and divert from the usual tourist trail (which is important when considering the mitigation of environmental degradation in tourist hotspots) but also supports the country's economy even before our customer has touched down as the local partner helps to develop their itinerary.

We maximise local economic opportunities further by using only locally owned excursion companies where you will meet and learn from expert local guides throughout the trip on excursions, for instance when travelling around the Karst mountains, visiting Pandas, and all of your other exciting excursions too.