Thailand tour, mountains & rainforests

Planet

Respect for the environment underpins all our tours. We and individual Tour Leaders have fostered healthy, respectful working relationship with the Karen villagers who lead us through the jungle trek in Thung Yai. This provides us with very knowledgeable friends on the trip who are excellent oral witnesses to the life of the Karens and are thus able to give those who travel with us a genuine understanding of this important ethnic minority in Thailand.

Our regular visits provide long term and sustainable extra income for these people. The benefits of our patronage are extended to local businesses not immediately connected to the guides. We eat in small food shops and restaurants, encourage those who travel with us to make souvenir purchases at the local crafts market and make small purchases in the Karen villages such as water and locally make snacks.

We have also made financial contributions to the local orphanage and to Karen and Mon refugee camps housing people fleeing the oppression they have historically encountered in neighbouring Burma.

Wherever practical we use public transport although not to the detriment of local people for whom it can be a lifeline. This is not only contributing to the local economy, but results in fewer carbon emissions per head than does smaller forms of transport. Where minibuses are used, we use privately owned local buses.

Khao Lak village in Southern Thailand. A relatively poor farming community was inspired, partly through our interest, to organise a co-operative home-stay and trekking scheme and has since received grants, training and advice to that extent from the Tourism Authority of Thailand. We are also pleased to state that several local village lads are now keener to lead bird watching and nature tours than their traditional pastimes of shooting or trapping. We provided the co-operative scheme with textbooks on local bird and animal life.

During tours, our tour leaders (including our Silver medal winner in the World Guide of the Year Awards for 2016) discuss relevant information for our customers in order to help them to gain a wider understanding of our style of tourism. Our focus is on genuine interaction with the local communities, reciprocity and cultural exchange processes and the need to be aware of the potential impact of tourism on the local society, culture and environment. They suggest appropriate ways to behave and dress with a respect and appreciation for local customs, mores and traditions and a respect for the ecology of areas visited. Our guides and leaders thus facilitate communication of our values to both travelers and local communities, educating them in sustainable tourism practices

Destinations: We combine the well known tourist sites with many off-the-beaten-track, rarely visited destinations thus diverting tourist revenue and contact with responsible tourism into areas not usually benefiting as well as providing a more authentic view of the region visited.

We recognise that efforts towards sustainable tourism work two ways. By explaining our methods and the reasons behind them to local agents, guides and hotels, they are encouraged by us to adopt further responsible tourism practices themselves and guides and drivers are provided with additional training in this respect.

People

The tour operator is winner of the 2012 Tourism Authority of Thailand Green Excellence Award for Nature, Marine and Heritage Tourism, the 2010 Tourism Authority of Thailand Green Excellence Award for Best tour operator for Local Communities and the 2008 Tourism Authority of Thailand Green Excellence Award for Best Specialist Tour Operator.

Small groups are core to our way of travel. By limiting groups to less than 12 and usually under 10, we aim to reduce the impact on both local communities and the environment whilst allowing for greater genuine interaction with said communities. It also results in a higher guide/customer ratio thus greater facility for individual assistance. We are able to use smaller hotels and restaurants and employ the services of more genuinely ‘local’ operators perhaps not otherwise well equipped for larger tourist groups.