Azores swimming vacation

Planet

CARBON REDUCTION
We have designed our trip operations carefully to minimize our impact on our environment. By its very nature, exploring the world via swimming – “human powered”, means our guests are not using unnecessary motorized vehicles to enjoy their vacation destination. We try to keep our transfer times as short as possible, ensuring guests spend less time traveling and more time swimming on their swim vacation. All our trips are sold without flights so travelers have the option to use more environmentally friendly means of travel if they wish.
Our partner hotels have energy saving measures in place including solar panels for heating water and flow limiters on showers.
Vegetarian & Vegan food is available at all meals and all food is homemade and based on the finest local ingredients. The chefs are passionate about exploring nature and source ingredients locally where possible including a daily catch of fish which minimises food miles!

ENVIRONMENT & WILDLIFE
As swimmers, we are passionate about the environment and taking measures to protect both the oceans and lands including all local wildlife.
Our partner hotels are chosen based on their sustainability credentials and dedication to minimising impacts on the environment such as no plastic straws, minimised food waste, waste separation.
We have partnered with a local company who hold World Cetacean Alliance (WCA) certification for whale watching to ensure we minimise our impact on the wildlife.
We continue to be reminded of the problem of plastic in our oceans. As such, we are committed to helping reduce to amount of plastic we use on our trips. We do this by:
• Encouraging guests to bring their own reusable water bottle on tour
• Running regular guide plastic clean up sessions in our locations
• Encouraging good washing of wetsuits/swim kit between swim locations to avoid the threat of invasive species

People

LOCAL ECONOMY
Our local partners provide an invaluable wealth of local knowledge, not only on the safety front, but also by enhancing our guest’s cultural experiences – from food, to customs and hidden-away local gems. Through years of building happy, positive relationships with our local partners, we are confident in the knowledge that our guests will receive a wonderful warm welcome.
As most of our locations are small and remote, we make sure that our itineraries ‘spread the happiness’ meaning we take the guests to visit different businesses within the community. Our partner hotels pledge that 80% of the food is locally sourced.

EMPLOYMENT, INCLUSIVITY AND DIVERSITY
Our partner hotels provide employment for local people in the Azores and invest a percentage of revenue in local communities and sustainability projects and our whale watching partners pride themselves on providing excellent employment opportunities for Azoreans.
All our trips are inclusive and everyone is welcome to join us as long as we can make suitable arrangements for any individual needs. The trip is LGBTQ+ friendly and we are happy to discuss individual needs relating to mobility, vision, hearing or cognitive issues and as long as we can put in place measures to ensure the trip remains safe for all guest we welcome everyone.