Best of Nicaragua overland vacation, tailor made

Planet

In terms of sustaining the environment, we aim to reduce waste as much as possible and use sustainable sources wherever we can. A big way in which we try to achieve this goal is through using accommodations that have their own sustainable practices. Hotel Europeo use solar panels to heat their water, reducing the overall hotel energy usage. As well as this Sabalos Lodge coordinate the supply of energy for the health center in Las Maravillas with solar panels.

They also installed a well in the village and provided the plumbing for the village Boca de Sabalos. On our trips we aim to reduce the us of as much single use plastic as we can. In order to achieve this goal one of our initiatives is to provide clients with an Aluminium water bottle they can refill throughout the trip. This can be done at many different accommodations that have joined the initiative and have placed a water refill point for people to access whenever.

People

This itinerary gives you the opportunity to visit both the main destinations, such as Granada and Leon, as well as the less visited off the beaten track destinations. This is to ensure there is a balance in the customers overall experience whilst providing many benefits to the different local suppliers. The majority of the accommodation within this trip are small boutique hotels which employ local staff creating a more beneficial and unique experience for our customers.

Whilst we include a few tourist experiences most of the experiences on this trip are some of the most unique to Nicaragua. We ensure to work with local guides whenever we can to both benefit your experience and benefit them. For example the Bartola trail and San Ramon Waterfall hikes are guided by locals. Throughout your experience our guides will outline the benefits tourism brings to them and their community as well as providing knowledge that only the locals know. These experiences are all run by cooperatives; therefore all workers receive a share of the money that is earned from entrance fees etc. In addition to this when visiting the Somoto Canyon you will enjoy a traditional Nicaraguan lunch with a family that owns one of the small farms surrounding the canyon.

On the Granada city tour, you will visit Tio Antonio Social Center, which is a center that helps people with disabilities and of lower economic class. This center provides them with work opportunity’s that develop their knowledge and help them to sustain them. Here we have coffee and rum served by deaf individuals who work in the coffee shop. We also learn basic sign language to interact. We have also aimed to use accommodation that benefits the community.

Patio del Malinche aim to support all hotel workers, encouraging the early schooling of their children and paying education costs they are unable to cover. They carry out social work in collaboration with the community of Sonzapote. This community is on Zapatera Island in Lake Cocibolca and its inhabitants are mainly people displaced from the northern part of the country; they only have a primary school.

In Hotel Luna Del Rio 5% of turnover of hotel is being donated to buy school equipment for children in El Castillo.

Sabalos Lodge works hard for the health of the neighboring communities and coordinates support for four health centers for the communities of El Castillo, Boca de Sabalos, Buena Vista, and Las Maravillas. They also coordinate the supply of energy from solar panels for the health center in Las Maravillas and the installation of a well and plumbing for the village of Boca de Sabalos. They creates jobs for an economically depressed area and motivate and support the people to make handicrafts and do other activities to create other jobs that are linked to what they are doing directly at the hotel.

Hotel Europeo is part of the Dianova Nicaragua Foundation which is a non-governmental organisation that has been bringing help to Nicaragua since 1986. Its work is development oriented, with programs, projects and initiatives that help to prevent social exclusion and vulnerability in risky sectors. Through an educational and prevention program, they help children in social risks situations and those whose relatives are in financial trouble