Nepal and Bhutan small group tour, 14 days

Planet

These are some of the most beautiful countries on earth, and that beauty is precisely what brings travelers to them. Keeping it that way is the whole job. Our guides are trained to leave nowhere worse than they found it — not only in the obvious tourist spots, but everywhere we go — and to gently encourage the communities we pass through to do the same. Litter, and plastic in particular, is the battle we care about most. We won't pretend it's won: Nepal has very little recycling capacity, and discarded plastic still turns up across otherwise pristine countryside. But every bottle not bought is a small victory, and changing habits — ours and our hosts' — is how a real tradition of caring for the land takes root.
That's why we ask you to forget bottled mineral water for the duration of the trip. Water has never been scarce in the Himalayas; our guides know where to find clean spring sources to refill your bottle, and carry purification tablets for anything that needs treating. In the larger cities, where bottled water is sometimes unavoidable, your guide will show you how to dispose of the plastic responsibly rather than simply adding it to the pile.
Wildlife across the region is increasingly well looked after, and the populations of several rare species are slowly recovering. The Buddhist outlook — a belief in harmony and balance with all living things — does a great deal of quiet good here, and many of the national parks and sanctuaries you'll visit are funded almost entirely by responsible tourism. We do not run, promote, or support any activity that harms or exploits animals. We also ask you never to feed wildlife or leave food where they can reach it: it spreads sickness, makes animals dangerously reliant on people, and can turn a wild creature into a risk to the very villages we're trying to support.
Where we can, we keep our footprint light. Many of the teahouses and guesthouses along the route run entirely on solar power, and a panel makes a perfectly good way to keep your own devices charged on the go — a small reminder that, up here, the simplest solutions are often the best ones.

People

We're a local company, and that shapes everything about how we run a trip. Wherever we can, we put your money into local hands: family-run homestays that give households a welcome second income, locally owned guesthouses and teahouses rather than the international chains, and food bought from the organic smallholders who grow it. It's a small economy, and small choices move it.
We'll always nudge you towards the local kitchen, too. Order a Western dish and, more often than not, you're paying for imported ingredients and a supply chain that bypasses the people around you. Order dal bhat and you're eating what the country actually eats — and it's a revelation how much it changes from one valley to the next, one household to the next, the same name carrying a hundred different flavours, all washed down with sweet masala tea. Our gentle challenge to you is this: for twenty-one days, live as a local. Eat what we eat, sleep where we sleep, and travel humbly. You learn far more about a place by stepping into its life than by watching from the outside.
We also believe these cultures are worth protecting on their own terms, without being reshaped by the outside world. So when a festival or a ritual falls during your trip, we don't keep you at arm's length behind a camera — we invite you in. Take part, share the moment, and join the celebration respectfully, as a guest rather than a spectator.
And we keep our groups small. Small groups tread more lightly, build real connections with the people who host them, and let us tailor each journey to the travelers on it — which is better for you, and better for everyone who welcomes you along the way.