River Spey canoeing holiday in Scotland

Planet

We are firmly committed to responsible tourism and all of our tours reflect that commitment. Our holidays are purposefully designed to provide a visitor experience that maximises the positive benefits of tourism while minimising any negative impacts.

Leave No Trace & Our Guides

We are staunch advocates of the Leave No Trace principles, in which our guides are fully trained. On all of our activities, our guides will ensure that the impact on the environment, wildlife and local community is minimised. Along the way, our guides will teach you how to do this so that the knowledge is spread on your travels in Scotland and further afield. Our guides are ambassadors for Scotland's wild places and are passionate about sharing their knowledge. Your guide will not only lead your activities but tell you all about Scotland's flora, fauna, geology, history and culture along the way.

Transport

Our trips focus on enjoying the landscapes through human power, so by walking, biking or paddling through them. We minimise motorised transports as much as possible.

This canoeing holiday down the River Spey starts and finishes at a mainline train station to encourage the use of public transport. You will spend your days’ canoeing from Aviemore in the Cairngorms to Spey Bay on the east coast. This way you get to really immerse yourself in the beautiful and wild scenery of the Scottish Highlands.

Accommodation & Meals

This is an expedition-style trip so you’ll be wild camping underneath the stars. Our guides will ensure that we treat each campsite with respect and leave no trace of our presence, managing our waste and packing in and out all of our supplies.

Scotland is known for its fantastic natural larder so we try to source all food and drink provided on the trip as much as possible locally, and endeavour to serve camp food that celebrates seasonal Scottish produce, meat and dairy.

In the Office

It's not just on trips that we promote sustainable processes! We operate our holidays out of a carbon-neutral headquarters which is powered by renewable energy. We reduce, reuse and recycle, using environmentally friendly products from local suppliers where possible. In addition, our office car park hosts two public EV charging stations, and we subsidise staff usage. We encourage car-sharing and compete monthly for the most environmentally friendly commute!

Additional

In preparation for our trips, we strongly encourage our travellers to bring a reusable water bottle and lunchbox on their holiday to discourage the use of single-use plastics.

Lastly, we are committed to contributing annually to a nature-based charity that promotes conservation in Scotland.

People

Local Team

Although our office staff isn’t 100% Scottish, all members of our team live and work in the Scottish Highlands. Because of this, our passionate personnel are able to give expert insider advice on their own favourite playground and ensure the best experience for our visitors.

Over-Tourism

Some of the areas we visit suffer from over-tourism and we do what we can to manage this consequence. The crowding caused by over-tourism not only negatively impacts the natural environment but also the quality of life of the communities who live and work in the beautiful destinations that we visit. To mediate this we take our clients to the lesser-known spots in any given area, extend our tour departures into the less busy shoulder months to spread the flow of visitors and when we do visit ‘hotspots’ we aim to go outside of peak hours.

Group Sizes

We deliberately keep our groups small for several reasons. Having smaller groups means less disturbance to the environment and the local community. It also means that we can stay at smaller accommodation providers who are not eligible to benefit from mass tourism providers and have a better guide to traveller ratio.