Las Alpujarras guided hiking vacation, Spain

Environment

We encourage our guests to have an interest in the wildlife of the area and we explain the ways the local flora and farming is used to benefit the local communities. We only walk on trodden paths and encourage our clients to do the same, be it in Spain or back home.

We encourage our guests to behave in a environmentally responsible manner. We do not allow guests to pick wild flowers and take them home with them but we encourage identification with photos and we always carry a wildflower book to help.

We put on our kit list a water bottle/camelpack to be used for the week to keep down the plastic bottles being used and only give one bottle of water at the beginning of the week and we explain the reason is not money but waste as the local springs are all drinkable.
We always take our litter home with us.

Community

We run a tourism business and we appreciate that this is a large employer in some of the villages and for us to keep running rural vacations we need to support our local communities. Encouraging the use of traditional ways of farming, building and cooking.

On all our itineraries we use local family run hotels that employ local people from the community. This not only helps the local community but shows guests a personal side you do not receive in larger chain hotels. We encourage our clients to speak in Spanish, even if only a little as this enhances the clients vacation as well giving local people the opportunity to practice their English.

We eat in the locally run restaurants/hotels which helps the local economy and we source our lunches from local fresh produce. We employ local people to help to run our vacations with transport and sometimes guides. Wherever we can also use local companies to help with advertising. We give local guides that we use first aid training to a UK standard which in turn gives them the confidence to lead groups.