Traveling on local public bus, by foot and by train, this Inca highlights adventure tour allows you to meet the people of Peru and Bolivia in a small group, while minimising our carbon emissions impact on the local environment.
We encourage you to learn at least a few phrases of Spanish and interact with the locals as much as possible to enhance your experience. Language sheets are available on our website and our tour leaders are able to teach you useful phrases on the road. If you’re courageous enough to test out your language skills on public transport and start a friendly conversation you’ll learn more about the culture than you could from any travel book!
Your tour leader will introduce you to many local restaurants and bars throughout the tour, helping you discover the authentic local cuisine and offering you the opportunity to support local businesses.
Local guides will also lend their expertise to the journey, including the ecological, historical background and cultural significance of the places we visit. Our Inca Trail Porters policy protects the rights and conditions of porters and is strictly enforced. For other activities we choose only the best trained guides, who will help you to appreciate the importance of respecting the environment of these heritage sites and understand the conservation efforts being undertaken in various areas. Your entrance fees will help to conserve and preserve heritage sites, such as ancient ruins, while entrance fees at national parks support the conservation efforts of forest and native animal and bird species.
The Inca Trail is strictly protected and a limited number of permits are issued each day. This is a necessary conservation regulation, but please be advised that this can make it difficult to obtain Inca Trail permits. We offer an alternative off-the-beaten-track trek to the Lares Valley, which is a beautiful alternative to the more famous, well-trodden trail. Your tour leader and local guides will give you a briefing on how to preserve the environment before your trek.
We will visit many local shopping districts and markets along the way, giving you plenty of opportunity to support local merchants. We would encourage you to purchase traditional handicrafts from local artisans rather than mass produced goods from chain stores, as you will learn more about the skill involved in the production, while also supporting the craft itself.
We have a full Responsible Travel policy available on our website, which our reservations team will send you a link to when you book. It’s full of practical tips for responsible travelers and details our company’s commitment to minimising our impact on the people and the places that we visit.
Carbon Offset Scheme:
Working in partnership with international conservation charity World Land Trust in our continuing quest to establish and maintain our position as a leader in responsible travel, we are offering a new way for our travelers to make a real contribution to the health of the planet - the Carbon Offset Scheme.
World Land Trust is a not-for-profit, international conservation organisation that takes direct action to save rainforest and other biologically important lands. Since it was founded in 1989, it has helped local conservation organisations to purchase and protect over 375,000 acres of threatened habitats in Asia, Europe and Central and South America. There are many organisations offering carbon offsetting services, however we believe that World Land Trust has the most scientifically sound approach and socially responsible philosophy.
When you book your tour with us you will be able to offset a portion of your share of the carbon emissions created while you are on your tour. We will calculate what clients have donated, and donate an additional 10% of the total to World Land Trust. So the more you contribute, the more we can give! We will also absorb all processing fees associated with these payments, so there’s no administration cost to World Land Trust and they can spend the money donated where it counts - protecting threatened habitats worldwide.
What Will Happen to the Contributions?
World Land Trust will fund projects on your behalf through their Carbon Balanced programme, which reduces the amount of damage carbon emissions are doing to the environment. We will not profit from your carbon offsetting donations. Your contributions will be made directly to World Land Trust and we will not receive any direct financial benefit or commission from these donations.
We invite every traveler who books a vacation via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the vacations they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same vacation can have different views!
