Northern Thailand adventure vacation

Planet

Traveling responsibly underpins everything we do, on this adventure and all our other adventures.

Wildlife
By taking part in this trip you are helping support and sustain the lives of elephants 'owned' and cared for by the remote mountain community on days 5 and 6. The community have lived around elephants for generations but rightly refuse to 'put them to work' in 'camps' and 'tourist shows' in the valleys. Instead they allow their elephants to live 'wild' in the mountainous forest and a significant portion of the costs of this trip goes directly to the funding of the community to allow their elephants to retain their freedom. This of course sounds easy and logical but is unfortunately very rare in this part of the world.

Single use plastic
Any traveler to Thailand will have noticed the huge amounts of plastic waste throughout the country, from local markets to bottles of water, Thailand has been addicted to single use plastic for many years. Whilst we can't solve the problems of the country overnight we can do our bit and as such we provide all our travelers with a re-usable water container on day 1 of the adventure and then ensure there are clean water refilling stations along all routes we travel. And where there is no access to suitable water suppliers we ensure that we have large, re-usable, containers with us so you never go thirsty. This simple act alone has allowed us to take over 30,000 single-use plastic water bottles out of circulation each year!

Partners
All of our location partners (accommodation providers / communities) are allied to our goals of sourcing products locally, limiting or ceasing use of single use plastic and ensuring their and our footprint is as low as possible.

Whilst there will always be more that we and our partners can do to further help the environment, by working together and moving step-by-step (very much the way to operate in Thailand) we are making small but consistent positive progress.

People

We could not operate our adventures without the support and friendship of the communities we spend time in. We believe passionately that travel is not a one way street, it only works where both traveler and community benefit and enjoy it and that's what we aim to do throughout this adventure.

Traveling with Respect
Every community we spend time in has agreed in advance to us visiting with our small groups. We don't simply arrive and trample around a strangers village! We have worked hand in hand with the communities to encourage small scale business opportunities - from selling local snacks to laid back cooking demonstrations. Where we hike we always employ an expert from the local community to join us - not only as this brings even more specialist knowledge but of course it creates employment. Our guides are all passionate about the communities of this region, have developed strong friendships with the community and encourage and facilitate all on our adventures to 'join in' with village life - whether it's helping prepare dinner in the mountains to sitting chatting around the fire in the evening learning about each others lives. This approach, and putting the communities first. has ensured that our travelers are greeted with open arms and a sense of old school genuine Thai warmth.

A fair deal
Our team all work, live and play in Northern Thailand and this region is our passion. All our guides and support team are Thai, are qualified and licensed experts and are employed full time (the norm in travel is that guide staff are freelance) meaning that they can plan financially and support their families comfortably and therefore focus on the jobs they love. The company ensures working conditions and annual leave allowances considerably above the local norm as our intention is to allow all not only to make a good living but also to have the time to enjoy their family, friends, hobbies and life outside of work.

Friends and Neighbours
Everywhere we go, every meal, every coffee stop, every activity - we use the services of the local community. All the accommodation we stay at is locally owned and staffed bringing great jobs to the community. Every meal we have is provided by locally owned and run small restaurants / food stalls and even the local community as a whole. We have found that by operating in this way not only does it ensure that our adventurous travelers have the best possible experience (of the 'real' Thailand!) but also that we are welcomed with genuine smiles and the community understand and acknowledge that we always do all we can to ensure that they benefit to the maximum from our and our travelers presence.