Calabria and Sicily vacation, Italy

Environment

Calabria is a seldom visited part of Italy, at least for international travelers. By traveling there we support the local economy of one of the poorer regions of Italy, with a weaker infrastructure. On this trip our main way of traveling is by train, reducing carbon emissions and allowing our clients to get immersed into the local way of traveling.

We educate our passengers on environmental issues on all of our trips. We have a group meeting in the beginning of each tour, during which we encourage everyone to refill bottles and recycle if possible. Additionally, we advise our clients of the water shortage in this part of Italy, and ask them to reduce usage if possible (e.g. taking shorter showers, turning off tap water when brushing your teeth etc.).

We promote small group traveling, therefore maximum group size is 12. This has much less impact when traveling through rural areas, reducing our environmental and social affects.

Community

We support local businesses and use local suppliers for all our included activities and optional services. This means that people experience local culture, your money stays in the area to benefit the local community and any of the activities done on this trip are helping the local economic development.

The leaders on this trip will be Italian nationals or individuals who live or have lived in Italy. Working conditions are not dictated by us as a company. Rather, we use local services who in turn employ local people. Generally, working conditions are fair in Italy but we will be taking action if we become aware of any issues.

The accommodation is sourced especially by choosing local family owned properties. As on all of our trips, the leader gives recommendations on local restaurants and Italy is also perfect for market visits. To give insight into local life, on day 14 we will join an Anti-Mafia Movement tour. During the tour we will be introduced to the ethical consumer campaign “Pago chi non paga”, a campaign promoted by Addiopizzo to support those that rebel against the Mafia.

Often the leader encourages the clients to partake in a short language lesson in Italian (local leaders are perfect for this) and then sends them off to practice their new language skills in the market. As mentioned above, on this trip we use mainly local trains as means of transport, so local interaction opportunities are aplenty.

We have a Foundation which was set up to empower travelers to have a positive impact on the communities they visit. Our Foundation now supports over 50 local, grassroots projects around the world. Over the past 15 years, The Foundation has distributed over AU $5 million to projects tackling areas such as sustainable development, human rights, child protection, environmental conservation, wildlife protection, education and healthcare. While we do not visit a project during this trip, tour leader will always talk through our Responsible Travel guidelines and will encourage clients to look at other projects running at the moment.