Sumatra small group vacation

Environment

We work with local guides in Gunung Leuser National Park who are committed to the conservation of wildlife. By visiting this area our passengers are supporting their work directly and contributing to the local economy. Our guides are proud of the national park and will endeavour to make sure our groups do not pollute or damage this fragile ecosystem.

Where possible our group leaders will always try and find a water refill station. This way our guests can top up and reuse plastic bottles, rather than purchasing new ones and contributing to problem of plastic wastage. We give all our travelers cloth bags too, so they don’t feel the need to use plastic ones.

We use suppliers that mirror our environmental values. We work with hotels and encourage them to implement sustainable practices and we remind our guests of how to do this themselves whilst on their trip (i.e. turning off the AC when not in their rooms and reusing towels).
We recommend low carbon transport and use this to make the journey as stimulating and sustainable as possible. We’re a carbon neutral company and have calculated how much carbon we emit on each trip. We then work to offset this by contributing to projects tackling these issues.

Community

We know where to find all things local. We support and recommend our neighbours, spreading the tourism income to those who need it most. We use local leaders and in Berastagi we also use local Batak guides who are indigenous to the area. We offer local people good working conditions, a fair wage and empower them through training opportunities. We eat local and shop local throughout this trip and encourage our travelers to purchase from multiple different vendors to ‘share the love’.

It’s part of our philosophy to act local too and that means respecting the local traditions, such as the wearing of modest clothing during the tour. Sumatra in general has a very conservative standard of dress and our passengers can be respected by the locals when following this. We recommend both men and women cover their knees by wearing long pants or a long skirt, and shoulders should also be covered at all times.