Around the world vacation without flying

Planet

We have put together a selection of our favourite rail journeys including some truly epic trans-continental adventures. A welcome by-product is that it also allows us to consider our impact on the environment when we travel. Maintaining a balance between looking after the planet and supporting the 10% of the global population who depend upon tourism for an income, often in poverty stricken areas where their culture is a viable asset, demands some significant soul-searching.

By choosing to travel by land, even in at least one direction, we can promote the role of responsible tourism as a way forward for the future. Our adventures are based on taking regular scheduled train services which form vital connections between countries and communities. And we avoid using so-called ‘cruise trains’ which carry far fewer people and operate for tourists only. On this unique tour around the world we also cross oceans with cargo ships, which certainly limit our impact on the environment.

We do not send a tour leader from the UK to accompany our tours. We believe that to send a foreign tour leader along to accompany the group is unnecessary and increases the carbon footprint.

People

We believe that tourism is a double edged sword that needs to be wielded very carefully. Our philosophy is to have a limited amount of group departures – usually between one and three a year - for each of our itineraries or we may offer private trips only. By limiting our presence in areas where local culture can be quite fragile, we aim to avoid so-called over tourism whereby an area changes in character due to repeated and prolonged exposure to large numbers of tourist. We want to visit an area as friends, not intruders and to ensure that what we see will also be there for others to enjoy for many years to come.

This particular tour operates on a private basis only. This has much less impact when traveling through rural areas, reducing our environmental and social affects. Finally to emphasis our commitment to Responsible Tourism all clients will receive a copy of our Travelers Code of Conduct with their travel documents.