British Columbia wildlife vacation, whales and bears

Planet

Accommodation and Meals:
We use a mixture of standard and comfortable hotels on this trip. All accommodations used on tour recycle and apply very strict waste management programs that are often derived from provincial and federal regulations. They all encourage the reusing of towels for multiple day stays and offer the option of having your sheets changed or not in an effort to preserve water. Reminders are also left to dissuade people from leaving lights running and wasting water during showers. Where meals are not provided, we either arrange a kitty to cover picnics and source these ingredients at local shops or markets, or we visit restaurants in the area.

Activity:
As the majority of our activity is wildlife watching, taking photographs, walking through the forests and sea-kayaking, we leave a considerably smaller carbon footprint than some other vacations. Wildlife sightings are a highlight of this trip and we are careful to respect the species that we encounter. A specialist guide will accompany our whale observation excursion to educate us on their behaviour and we travel in small zodiacs which is a non-intrusive way to approach wildlife. When visiting National Parks we stick to marked trails to reduce our impact on the local environment and we pay entrance fees which go towards supporting conservation efforts in the area. Throughout the trip we employ a ‘leave no trace’ policy in regard to litter - everything taken into the parks is taken out to preserve the local environment. We recycle wherever possible and all leaders are trained in responsible tourism to enable them to follow best practice.

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, 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.

People

Charity:
Our local tour operators contribute to the organisation ‘Sur la Pointe des Pieds’, whose goal is to help young people living with cancer regain confidence and well-being by going on a therapeutic adventure expedition. Extra supplies are never wasted by throwing items away. If there is uneaten food purchased by a group, this is donated to a local food bank at the end of the tour. Similarly, if there are unwanted sleeping bags left behind our operators donate them to homeless shelters or to the Salvation Army.

Group Size:
This small group tour has a maximum of 16 participants, meaning that we have a low impact on the environments and communities we visit and are able to ensure that we do not disrupt or lead to the displacement of local people. The small number also allows us to stay in unique, family-run hotels that cannot benefit from coach tours and other mass tourism due to their limited sizes.