Chile highlights tour, 10 days

Planet

We work hard to protect the environment and minimise our ecological footprint, and we use overland travel using local transportation as opposed to domestic flights wherever this is possible. Chile is a very long, thin country, however, and so some internal flights are included in this itinerary. To put things into perspective, the bus journey from Santiago to San Pedro takes nearly 2 days. For this reason this vacation focuses on spending more time in just two areas of Chile, rather than many internal flights and short stops in numerous destinations.

We work with locally-owned and run hotels within the Torres del Paine National Park which have a focus on sustainability, such as the Las Torres hotel, which has its own vegetable garden to cut down on imported produce. In all of our trips we include national park entrance fees in all of our vacations. This money goes directly towards protecting and sustaining the relevant parks for future generations.

In our UK office we have an active recycling policy and also use recycled ink cartridges and paper. We also minimise our waste by limiting the number of vacation brochures we print. Instead, we refer potential customers to our online resources and send most of our vacation information via email.

People

In order to ensure we have a positive impact on local economies and provide socially responsible vacations we always recommend locally-owned restaurants and hotels where possible, aiming to support local communities and give customers the opportunity to ‘travel like a local’. On this trip we particularly recommend El Cormoran de las Rocas in Puerto Natales, which serves fantastic fresh seafood, straight from the town's harbour that morning.

We only use local suppliers and guides within Patagonia, Santiago and Atacama for all transfers and tours, which helps keep the money generated through tourism within local communities through employment of local guides, drivers and reps.

We also choose to work with hotels who run local community projects and support local cultures, for example, Las Torres is located on an old Gaucho ranch, and traditional customs are at the heart of the hotel’s ethos. In Atacama, we only do small group tours to villages in the Atacama Desert in order to avoid causing disruption to local communities whilst still supporting their tourist industry.

We are a member of Sustainable Travel International, a leading not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting awareness, appreciation and respect for local people and the environment through education and outreach programmes.