Highlights of Italy vacation in winter

Planet

Our greatest contribution to minimising our transport’s impact on the environment is traveling by train. This reduces carbon emissions and allows travelers to become truly immersed in local life. As part of this philosophy, when we do use motor vehicles, we will use local buses and ferries wherever it is safe and possible to do so.

All our leaders are passionate about responsible travel, so our messaging around the importance of environmental issues is always consistent. Our leaders make the effort to teach our passengers about recycling opportunities and Italy has good recycling schemes in place. We have a group meeting on the first evening of each tour, during which we encourage everyone to refill bottles and recycle if feasible. We hope some of our travelers will take these ideas home with them to help improve the environment where they live.

We promote small group travel; therefore, our maximum group size is 12. This enables us to have a much lesser impact when exploring rural areas, reducing our environmental and social affects. In addition, this trip travels in the quieter winter months, meaning it’s not contributing to over tourism.
On this trip we use our own local Europe-based supplier who shares our commitment to responsible business, from waste and water management to ensuring we are leaving as minimal a foot print as possible. Where we use a third party to assist in the running of the trip we ensure they are educated on all aspects of responsible business and supported in making any changes they need to improve in this regard.

People

This trip takes in the highlights of Italy during the off-season. By choosing to travel at this time we’re able to support the local economy during a period that traditionally sees almost no business from the tourism industry.

An important part of traveling is mixing with the locals and experiencing “real life” in a destination. On this trip, along with staying in locally-owned hotels and guesthouses, we visit small cafes and restaurants and buy locally produced crafts and food. This gives locals the opportunity to earn money directly and our travelers the chance to interact with the Italian people in their everyday environment.

We support local businesses and use local suppliers for all our included activities and optional services. This means that our travelers experience local culture and that money stays in the area to benefit the local community.

The leaders on this trip are Italian nationals or individuals who live or have lived in Italy.

The accommodation is sourced specially by choosing local family owned properties. As on all our trips, the leader gives recommendations on local restaurants and Italy is also perfect for market visits. On day five of this trip, the group will also join a pasta making class with a local chef, which will be followed by dinner.

Often the leader encourages travelers to take part in a short Italian language lesson 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 also 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, it has distributed over AU $6 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 leaders will always talk through our responsible travel guidelines and encourage clients to look at other projects running at the moment.