Easy hiking vacation in Romania

Planet

We are founder members of the Association for Ecotourism in Romania (AER). The association’s goal is to improve the quality of ecotourism services, to develop the infrastructure for ecotourism destinations all in order to contribute to nature conservation and sustainable development. It all started as a pioneering work with a handful of people, and now the association has more than 80 members all over Romania and 10 eco-destinations recognised at national level by the Romanian Tourism Authority. Maramures eco-destination is one of them and we made an annual contribution for the protected areas in the region in the first years when it was developed with WWF, as a pilot project. Now, 5 euro/person will be donated to the Conservation Fund of Eco Maramures destination.
We keep to a minimum the impact of visitors bringing small groups and individual travelers. We believe that small numbers of people will allow us the flexibility to use a variety of local transport and offer the kind of unique accommodation not available to larger groups. This also allows us to be more sensitive to the people and places visited, traveling more like a party of friends rather than a typical tour group.
Travel on this tour includes especially walking, and occasionally a horse and cart ride. The impact of using cars for transport is reduced to a minimum.

People

Our goal is to create authentic travel experiences many times in remote and unspoilt places of Romania. But in the same time to produce economic benefits to the areas visited, while being sensitive to environmental and conservation issues. One of the ways of doing this is the use of mainly local services and accommodation, so making sure that the money remains in the region visited. For this tour the accommodation is with local village families in traditional houses that respect the local architectural style of the area. We use local guides that have a deep understanding and affection of the region, that know many of the local people thus making sure that you will have countless interesting encounters. Some of these encounters are with people that have had an important input on their communities, so there will be time to learn about various projects that are going on in the areas visited.
We visit also local artisans and craftsmen, helping them to continue their craft and pass it on to the next generation.