American National Parks walking vacation

Planet

UK office
It all starts at home so we have first worked at reducing our carbon footprint in our UK offices. Through energy conservation measures and recycling policies in place, we are proud to be actively reducing the waste produced and our impact on the environment. We support various projects all over the world to try and give something back to the places we visit.

Group size
We operate small group tours that have a low impact on the communities we visit and we always ensure our operations do not disrupt or lead to the displacement of local people. The maximum group size for this trip is 12. This allows us to stay in unique and characterful accommodation that would not have benefitted from tourism due to their limited size.

Activity
Few vacations have as little detrimental impact on the environment and local residents as a walking trip. It is a quiet, low impact activity requiring comparatively little resources to support. Erosion on and adjacent to popular paths is a growing problem and our trip leaders encourage clients not to stray from paths to minimise this.

People

Leaders & local suppliers
We have an excellent long-term relationship with the local operator who employ and train all leaders. We provide refresher training with a focus on Responsible Tourism, so our local leaders can educate our clients locally on helping to preserve the way of life in their area.

When hiking we stick to marked trails to reduce our impact on the local environment and we camp in the designated grounds regulated by each National Park. At campgrounds (and throughout the trip) we employ a ‘leave no trace’ policy in regard to litter - everything taken into the park is taken out to preserve the local environment. We recycle wherever possible on the trip and all leaders are trained in responsible tourism to enable them to follow best practice and enforce our ‘leave no trace’ policy. We encourage all clients to use reusable water bottles and re-fill them from taps rather than throwing away plastic bottles. Local shuttle services are used for transportation within the parks.