Pirin Mountains hiking short break, Bulgaria

Planet

CARBON REDUCTION

This walking vacation in Bulgaria’s Pirin Mountains National Park, which protects the country’s precious mountain range of the same name is, by its very nature, slow and sustainable, with guests walking on average 14km per day.

With all of our tours, we offer a facility for our guests to travel to or within Bulgaria using bus and train. When possible, we recommend public transport transfers on our hiking and cycling vacations but, as this is not viable on this particular tour, we use our local driver to transfer customers from place to place. However, we do ask guests to use public transport on the first day and last day to travel between Sofia and Bansko.

ENVIRONMENT AND WILDLIFE

The Pirin Mountains are considered of great importance for biodiversity and conservation and are, consequently, also protected by UNESCO, except for the ski resorts.

Responsible travelers can, therefore, explore a very highly protected area, where important flora includes coniferous forests of Macedonian Pine and Bosnian Pine and many species of ferns, and fauna includes brown bears, wolves and pine marten.

Many of the routes used in this tour have been either developed (or existing trails selected) in collaboration with local authorities and local communities. A number of the trails have also been way-marked and are regularly maintained; an important measure taken in order to prevent people from straying from the intended routes, therefore reducing any damage to the immediate surroundings of the trails.

We have an in-house responsible tourism expert, who shares tips and advice with our guests in trip notes, blogs and newsletters. For example, on how to practise responsible hiking with regards to the environment and wildlife, giving tips on environmental charities they can support, practising responsible wildlife watching and taking care to protect the marine environment when hiking or swimming. Before departure, guests are also encouraged to bring their own water bottles and to avoid single-use plastic during their trip.

We remind guests to always practise Leave No Trace throughout their vacation, especially as we are aware that waste management has been a point of contention for Bulgaria since joining the EU. We remind guests not to add to the problem by bringing lots of packaging with them or buying single-use plastic while they are there.

People

LOCAL ECONOMY

The accommodation on this vacation is a small locally owned guest house where breakfast is included. We encourage our guests to buy lunches and snacks in local shops and to have dinner either in local restaurants or back at their family-run hotel. As this vacation takes guests into some rural areas, this directs tourist spend directly into local Bulgarian’s family coffers, a world away from the mass tourism of Bulgaria’s all inclusive coastline resorts. All of our host accommodations provide picnic lunches too, paid for locally, and we work closely with them to avoid single use plastics when packaging them. We always advise our guests to bring their own reusable sealable lunch box, and refillable water bottles of course.

Directing guests to local food in the Pirin and Rila Mountains is important to us, not only so that they have an enjoyable cultural experience, but because they are also supporting the local gastro-economy. Katya, our tour manager, knows all the best places to find local specialities such as Katino meze, an appetiser made of pork or veal and vegetables cooked in a clay dish, Banski Starets the regional pork salami, or Banksa kapama, a spicy hearty mountain stew.

EMPLOYMENT, INCLUSIVITY AND DIVERSITY

All of our partners in Bulgaria are locally employed and play an essential role in contributing to the local economy. At home, we have a strict policy to pay all our own employees and team members a living wage and fair wage, with vacation entitlement. In the hiring process, we prioritise experience, qualifications and passion, emphasising that race, gender, sexual orientation, or nationality are not factors of consideration. We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace based on skills and expertise. We also endeavour to support any guests with visible and non-visible disabilities or any special requirements, when possible.