Romania hiking vacation in Apuseni National Park

Planet

Romania is a country with many lakes and rivers and we are among the few countries in the world where tap water is healthy to drink. Even if so we like to think globally, and we offer many tips for local guesthouse owners and tourists on how to save water. Manufacture hiking equipment companies use a lot of water, therefore we do not ask tourists to buy equipment for the trip, but rather we offer or we rent our equipment in order to reduce water and energy. We limit the use of plastic bottles and we encourage eradicating single-use plastics. In case the tourists forgot their water bottles or if they have plastic bottle we offer a reusable one as a gift made of Tritan. Tritan doesn’t contain BPA, BPS or any other bisphenols. Products made with Tritan plastic are clear, durable and safe.

If we offer sandwiches, we are not using plastic wraps, but we prefer paper bags. If we are camping, we are not using plastic plates or cutleries. We do believe that the self-example and the discussions about the damage that plastics are causing to nature are helpful in the fight against the single-use of plastic.

The way we travel inside the Natural Park protected areas, using bikes and hiking boots instead of cars, rowboats and canoes instead of motorboats are also to respect nature and protect the environment and avoid pollution.

In this trip we only hike on the marked paths. For us, safety comes first in our activities either if we talk about people, either about plants and animals. We emphasize the importance of limiting the impact that the tourists/tourism can have on the environment and explain to them that even a small path can destroy the habitat of certain species, by interrupting their access from one way to another. The way we travel inside the Natural Park protected areas, using bikes and hiking boots instead of cars, rowboats and canoes instead of motorboats are also to respect nature and protect the environment and avoid pollution.

We do not encourage tourists to take pictures with the flash on, or with the camera very close toanimals or plants so as not to disturb them by our presence.

In the office, we use recycled paper for all of our docs, and use only electronic brochures.

People

Romania, one of the EU countries, is considered to be a safe zone and no prerequisite preparation is needed. The basic rules that have to be respected in any other country from the world are to be followed. Before the trip, we are informing tourists about the safe political situation and the most important aspects connected to our program by sending them a brief.

Travelers are informed during the trips about particular customs and traditions that Romanian people have or about things that can be considered disrespectful in some places. We are informing them even about some language aspects that can cause conflicts (very offensive words in English that in Romanian language are common words or opposite). Generally, we are trying to predict the aspects that can have a negative impact and we are addressing them before the damage can be caused:)

In this trip, we use only local services and family-run businesses, in which locals are self-employed. We believe that locals are always able to show tourists how they live.

The accommodations that we are choosing are people run guesthouses. We always try to buy local food and in Romania people grow their own vegetables and have their own animals. Moreover by involving them we contribute to the local wealth of people.

For the moment we are volunteering in a local NGO that fights for the social inclusion of disadvantaged children. By our involvement, some of the disadvantaged children from around Cluj Napoca are having a chance to better education. Another way that we are supporting local projects and people is by using their products.