Peru tailor made vacation, highlights

Planet

This trip takes you to some of the most ecologically significant parts of the country, including the Colca Canyon, Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca. In the Colca Canyon and Lake Titicaca your host families will let you know all about their connection to the land and how their homes and lives are built around the protection and conservation of each place. By staying with these families, you are supporting a form of tourism that makes use of existing houses and communities and the food you eat at these places will all be produced locally. The farming families beneath Machu Picchu will let you know all about their unique ways to reduce the impact farming has on the land, ways that have ensured the well being of the land, since farming was introduced by the Incas. Your money will ensure these communities can continue protecting their land.

During the trip, we take care to reduce our environmental impacts wherever we can, for example by encouraging the use of public transport and using modern fuel-efficient private vehicles. Our Peruvian partner run workshops with communities to explain the importance of protecting their natural resources to bring income from tourism.

As with all our vacations, the accommodation you stay at has been chosen to meet at least our basic environmental requirements. These include actively reducing energy and water usage and providing advice on how guests can reduce their own footprint through individual actions like turning off air conditioning and reusing towels. All the places you stay at buy their food locally, cutting down transport emissions and helping local farmers.

In the UK, we work hard to ensure that our own operations are as green as possible. Our electricity supply is 100% renewable, we use energy-saving lightbulbs and recycle all our waste. Being web-based, we run a nearly paperless office, send all information by email and do not print brochures. Our Peruvian partners also share the same philosophy by using paper as efficiently as possible, working on energy-efficient laptop computers and separating their office waste for recycling. In Huaraz this is done in conjunction with a local NGO which works with disabled people to create products made from waste materials.

People

In Peru, we try to support local people in 3 ways. Firstly, all our trips are designed to include cultural activities and meet cultural conservation objectives, so that local people gain pride in their local culture through tourism. On this program you have the chance to visit and stay with the Coporaque, and Amantani communities, as well as a farming family and a day trip to the Amaru Weavers, who have organised themselves to create a village tourism center where you can take part in activities like weaving and dying typical clothes and learning about traditional medicinal plants. Where you stay in communities overnight, we have you pay the money directly to the families. This ensures they get 100% of the money they charge for their services, making our tourism an invaluable supplement to their families income. Not only this but in all three communities the home stays are rotated, ensuring every member family will get their fair share of tourists. Where you are visiting a community on a day trip, like the Amaru weavers, we have ensured that the payment transaction is directly between our trusted suppliers and the community, again making sure they get 100% of the money and that the money they are paid is fair.

Secondly, all our vacations incorporate donations to community development funds or our partner’s development fund. This money is used to assist projects in different ways across the country, from education initiatives, to sponsoring a child leukemia and deaf children project, to supporting conservation projects and community clean-ups in jungle areas. On this programme, the fees go to support El Hogar de las Estrellas but we are also able to facilitate donations to individuals and communities you will meet, in a sustainable manner.

Thirdly, we emphasise the economic benefits that tourism can bring. As well as employment, fair salaries and on the job training provided by our Peruvian partner for their own local staff, our vacations support jobs directly and indirectly in tourism, for example artisans, musicians, donkey or lama drivers and farmers. When working with local people on our trips, our central principles are that they must be given a fair price for their services, we will never force tourism on communities and we will try to ensure that their new income from tourism is used in a just and sustainable way.

On top of this, the hotels we have chosen throughout Peru have to meet our minimum standards which include providing employment and training to local people, which helps to keep money within the local economy and equips them with valuable skills for the future. We look for hotels which give something back to the community through donations or selling local handicrafts. We also buy in services from diverse preferably indigenous suppliers wherever possible, helping spread the money from tourism to more people.