Uzbekistan vacation, wonders of the Silk Road

Planet

CARBON REDUCTION
We use railway services where available to replace the domestic flights to lower our carbon footprint overall. The bullet train between Tashkent and Urgench is not available yet, thus we are forced to use the domestic flight, but in transfers between other cities on tour we either use our tour transport accordingly or local railways, and not flights.
Complying with local laws of Uzbekistan, all hotels including small B&Bs must have their own renewable energy sources installed and operating at all times which MUST cover at least 50% of their usage. So, all hotels are on the same level at this stage with renewable energy, all have this in place and are increasing slowly to make it 100% renewable energy sourced by 2030.
Unfortunately, we are not able to measure carbon emissions on our tours yet.
ENVIRONMENT & WILDLIFE
We walk most of the days on the tour in the cities, where either transport is not allowed to be used at all (Khiva, Bukhara), or historical sights are near one another, which leaves us just using transport such as trains, buses only for the transfers in between cities or in larger cities on the tour, such as Tashkent. Electric vehicles are not widely used in Uzbekistan, but we are monitoring that development to use it if possible.
All fruits, vegetables and etc are locally sourced in Uzbekistan, in all cities, via small farms and dehkans (local families with small farms of up to 15 acres of land per family-owned farm / garden.
The tour is city based and thus has no tangible wildlife aspects.

People

LOCAL ECONOMY
We use local guides, local small boutique hotels that are owned locally, and use local service providers such as transportation via small family-owned business which supports local business for the most part of the tour.
EMPLOYMENT, INCLUSIVITY & DIVERSITY
100% of our employees are locals to Uzbekistan with them being from different parts of the country. We do not discriminate against any group of people such as people with disabilities, people with less fortunate economic backgrounds etc. Our rates are very competitive and higher than local rates for all these services accordingly, as we value our local partners / service providers - we do not marginalize based on gender, sexual orientation, race or nationality. The trip itself is LGBTQ+ friendly. Uzbekistan has strict anti-LGBTQ+ laws in place, we always advise to be cautious when in public places, but our customers who are part of LGBTQ+ community can be sure that we as the tour company do everything in our power for our customers to have enjoyable trip.
The tour is mainly visit to historical sights of Uzbekistan, thus without any hard hiking, walking too long, climbing too steep stairs kind of activities, so people with disabilities will do fine on this tour. While in a few places such as Shkhi Zinda Necropolis in Samarkand people might decline to climb up to the top of the stairs for the views, overall, all places we visit have easy access.