Laos Photography vacation, Luang Prabang

Environment

We only run a couple of photography tours each year and we have a maximum group size of 10, thus keeping the environmental impact of international flights to a minimum. We don’t include international flights in our package (other than, if required, local ones between tour locations) to allow participants all over the world to make the best and most cost and environmentally effective travel arrangements for themselves (e.g. combining with other trips planned in the same area).
Our Laos trip takes place in UNESCO-protected Luang Prabang, a town rich in local and social enterprises and craft markets. We include accommodation, shopping and sightseeing activities in our tour that actively contribute to supporting these.
As photographers of many genres including wildlife, we only work with what’s presented to us and we highly discourage any intrusive interaction with animals to provoke a reaction, which we consider an unethical and unfair practice. We guide our students to adopt the same policy.

Community

This entire trip is scheduled with the local community benefit in mind, and all attractions and events that we will visit and photograph are supporting the local community through fees or donations, which we include in the price of our trip. We have experience of these locations and we will advise our participants in relation to dos and don'ts to ensure everyone maintains respect and decorum while interacting with locals especially around religious locations and rituals.
We purchase our gifts and souvenirs from family businesses, local markets as well as organised local charities promoting welfare of local residents and we never haggle! While doing so, we are very mindful not to inadvertently encourage child labour, as we believe all children should be in schools, not selling on the streets, as hard as the realities on the ground may be. We encourage our photography tour participants to adopt the same practices. This is embedded in our tour structure where we aim to stay and eat local, visit local markets