Environment

Activity:
As we spend the majority of this trip trekking around Bosnian mountains, we have a relatively low impact on the environment. By hiring our equipment locally, we are also ensuring that the community benefits from our activity. Our optional activity of rafting down the Neretva River is equally eco-friendly and benefits the locals who run this excursion. We operate on a ‘leave no trace’ basis and guides are careful to enforce this with briefings on responsible tourism issues.

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.

Community

Accommodation and Meals:
We will spend 8 nights in small hotels in good locations in Sarajevo, Trebinje and Mostar and Sutjeska National Park. All accommodation is locally owned and staffed, which provides employment and income alternatives for many locals. Where meals are provided, locally sourced, traditionally used ingredients like yoghurt, meat (pork, lamb and veal) and seasonal vegetables will be provided. Guides will be able to recommend authentic restaurants to visit for dinner and these will often be family run. In Sarajevo there is a popular market called Markale, where guests can buy local produce, like seasonal fruits and vegetables grown by the vendors themselves.

Local Craft and Culture:
Although we spend a lot of time in the wilderness, this also has opportunities for culture: we can explore the many sights and museums in Sarajevo or take a trip to Mostar with its reconstructed 16th Century Ottoman bridge. However, the best way to culturally explore Bosnia and Herzegovina on this trip is to engage with local people. We arrange to have lunch with a local family in a small, mountain highland village where we can enjoy some authentic food and see that our presence benefits this remote economy. After this there is the chance to buy traditional handicrafts, like woollen gloves and sweaters or carven wooden relics, directly from the villagers.

Community:
This trip designed to allow a high degree of economic benefit to the local communities; we buy local produce, eat local food and use local services, thus ensuring that as much money as possible is retained within the local economies and the host communities. By visiting cultural sites in Mostar and Sarajevo we are contributing towards maintaining, restoring and protecting these valuable monuments and facilities.

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.