Southern Pakistan cultural tour for over 50s

Planet

For transportation we use local transport companies and guides to minimise their travel thus avoiding unnecessary use of carbon emissions.

We also advise our guests to take short showers so that the wastage of water is minimised.

All of our guides take bin bags with them to ensure that rubbish is disposed off in an appropriate manner and no pollution is caused or left behind. In Pakistan this is particularly vital because a bin isn't always readily available for our guests to throw rubbish in.

We are promoting the ancient heritage and natural landscape of Pakistan by visiting Baltit Fort, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sites are chosen by the UNESCO committee and must "bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to civilisation", "an important interchange of human values" or be outstanding examples of major stages of Earth's history or ecological and biological processes in evolution. The entry ticket to this site enables the Agha Khani group to reinvest in the Fort and to ensure it is preserved.

We deliberately keep the group size to a maximum of 12 on this Pakistan tour, to ensure we minimise the human impact on the fragile sites and ecosystems that we visit.

Carbon Emissions: We've kept the group small so that we can use transportation that isn't as harmful to the environment as the use of a larger vehicle would be. Where possible we also try and use public transport such as rickshaws or walking on foot as we think this is the best way to enjoy a country and to get an authentic experience.

People

Community: We work with the local community to ensure that the tourism we bring in has a direct impact on the locals, with a particular focus on females and promoting entrepreneurship among them. Females who cook day in and day out have been provided with some entrepreneurial skills so that they can make a living from this, in some cases they supply to local kitchens and in other cases they have managed to get funding and supply local cafes. For the majority of the itinerary the places that we take our guests to eat at are locally run cafes and restaurants to ensure they get the most authentic flavours and to ensure that local businesses benefit.

All the suppliers that we work with are local to ensure that we are creating job opportunities amongst them, hence all our ground staff are Pakistani. They know the country best and are the best brand ambassadors for the country. We encourage our teams to particularly focus on smaller business and home chefs because they are most in need from the income that would be generated from the tours.


Charity: We support the Yasmin Lari Dosti Project by giving £25 from every transaction towards the charity. Yasmin Lari is a social architect, who is working with the villages impacted by the floods in 2022. She empowers them by teaching them how to rebuild their villages and livelihoods & helping with the set up of wells, solar panels, mobile phones to be able to trade & limestone which helps make the houses and hits more resilient to floods.

For the purpose of shopping and workshops we take you to local markets and handicraft workshops, so that these people can sell directly to you and get the bigger chunk of the profit margin.

Pakistan is in the main a meat eating country, all ingredients used in many of the eateries we take you to are sourced locally. There are some vegetarian & vegan options availble such as lentils, spinach or aubergine but these are limited.