The Silk Route, Beijing to Tashkent
Highlights
Beijing | the Great Wall of China | Forbidden City | Summer Palace | Xi’an | Terracotta Warriors | Lanzhou | Bingling Temple | Xiahe | Tibetan Monastery of Labrang | drive through the Hexi Corridor | Dunhuang | Taklamakan Desert | Turpan Basin | Tianchi | Kashgar | Tian Shan mountains | Lake Issyk-Kul | Bishkek | Tashkent | Bukhara | Samarkand
Travel Team
If you'd like to chat about this vacation or need help finding one we're very happy to help. The Travel Team.
Toll free 1-866-821-6866 Calling from outside the US? rosy@responsibletravel.com
Check dates, prices & availability
Responsible tourism
As the pioneers of responsible tourism, we screen every trip so you can travel knowing your vacation will help support conservation and local people.
The natural landscapes we explore are some of the richest, often most challenging, yet at the same time some of the most fragile environments on earth. With education, experienced leadership and appropriate equipment and techniques, it is possible to travel responsibly through these regions. For us, it is critically important that such wilderness travel experiences do not diminish the natural values of the environment. Our environmental sustainable principles: True sustainability is a guiding aspect in all aspects of our business planning and operations. Specifically our tour operations should be managed in a way where the natural and cultural values of the host region are undiminished in the long-term.
Where possible, we engage in partnerships with local environmental groups and/or land managers to actively campaign for conservation or promote environmental protection and/or rehabilitation.
Our Responsible Travel Guidebook: Our philosophy since 1975 has been to leave only footprints and take only photographs. To reiterate this, every customer who travels with us receives a copy of our award-winning Responsible Travel guidebook. This detailed book outlines our environmentally sustainable principles, and outlines how each customer can minimize their impact while traveling.
Global Warming and Carbon Balancing: The root cause of Global Warming is society's dependence on emission creating fossil fuel. Planting trees is not going to reverse this trend or cancel our carbon emissions very quickly or effectively. We believe the way to reduce these dependencies is to create clean energy production. Therefore, we support renewable energy projects like wind and solar power, and we are aligned with Climate Friendly, the gold standard setter in effective, meaningful action addressing climate change. So, while we believe that tree planting can play a small role in greenhouse gas abatement, we have gone the extra mile in promoting a longer term solution. Is this cheap? No. Is it responsible? Absolutely!
The Impacts of this Trip
On this trip we invite you to experience the essence of this amazing journey along the fabled Silk Route and immerse yourself in the vibrant and rich cultural history as you go. You will discover a plethora of different cultures and traditions from the Buddhist temples to Islamic Mosques and Christian Orthodox churches. Many of the communities that we visit maintain their traditions and hold strict religious and sacred beliefs.
Whilst most people are unlikely to rebuke you for unknowingly offending them, you will be carefully guided by our local escorts to the most appropriate behaviour and attire at these various sites. This understanding of cultural differences means that our clients are treated as welcomed guests rather than intruders and this also mean that future visitors will share and equally enjoy this warm welcome.
In the expert care of our local guides and by using local accommodation we are privileged to enjoy a special relationship and mutual understanding with our hosts and their environs.
Our responsible travel principles: Our company aims to maximise the positive benefits of tourism for host communities. This includes training and employment of local staff, using local suppliers and assisting in the development of sustainable local businesses.
We actively minimise the negative effects that tourism can have by ensuring that tourism does not divert resources away from local communities or drive up prices on local resources.
We provide opportunities for real cultural exchange, where locals and visitors alike can share and learn from each other in an environment of mutual respect.
We contribute to the welfare of the host community. This is epitomised in our Community Project Travel program where we organise for our travelers to spend time in disadvantaged villages upgrading basic facilities such as health, education and water access.
We strive to educate our travelers about the destination and its local cultures as well as providing guidelines on appropriate behaviour to minimise impact.
No local payments policy: Local cash payments are becoming increasingly popular with many operators in the adventure travel industry. This policy seems to benefit the tour operators more than the local economies or the travelers, as it avoids local taxes and transfers the costs and risks of cash handling onto the travelers. In accordance with our Responsible Travel practices, we have chosen a policy of not asking for such payments.
The natural landscapes we explore are some of the richest, often most challenging, yet at the same time some of the most fragile environments on earth. With education, experienced leadership and appropriate equipment and techniques, it is possible to travel responsibly through these regions. For us, it is critically important that such wilderness travel experiences do not diminish the natural values of the environment. Our environmental sustainable principles: True sustainability is a guiding aspect in all aspects of our business planning and operations. Specifically our tour operations should be managed in a way where the natural and cultural values of the host region are undiminished in the long-term.
Where possible, we engage in partnerships with local environmental groups and/or land managers to actively campaign for conservation or promote environmental protection and/or rehabilitation.
Our Responsible Travel Guidebook: Our philosophy since 1975 has been to leave only footprints and take only photographs. To reiterate this, every customer who travels with us receives a copy of our award-winning Responsible Travel guidebook. This detailed book outlines our environmentally sustainable principles, and outlines how each customer can minimize their impact while traveling.
Global Warming and Carbon Balancing: The root cause of Global Warming is society's dependence on emission creating fossil fuel. Planting trees is not going to reverse this trend or cancel our carbon emissions very quickly or effectively. We believe the way to reduce these dependencies is to create clean energy production. Therefore, we support renewable energy projects like wind and solar power, and we are aligned with Climate Friendly, the gold standard setter in effective, meaningful action addressing climate change. So, while we believe that tree planting can play a small role in greenhouse gas abatement, we have gone the extra mile in promoting a longer term solution. Is this cheap? No. Is it responsible? Absolutely!
The Impacts of this Trip
On this trip we invite you to experience the essence of this amazing journey along the fabled Silk Route and immerse yourself in the vibrant and rich cultural history as you go. You will discover a plethora of different cultures and traditions from the Buddhist temples to Islamic Mosques and Christian Orthodox churches. Many of the communities that we visit maintain their traditions and hold strict religious and sacred beliefs.
Whilst most people are unlikely to rebuke you for unknowingly offending them, you will be carefully guided by our local escorts to the most appropriate behaviour and attire at these various sites. This understanding of cultural differences means that our clients are treated as welcomed guests rather than intruders and this also mean that future visitors will share and equally enjoy this warm welcome.
In the expert care of our local guides and by using local accommodation we are privileged to enjoy a special relationship and mutual understanding with our hosts and their environs.
Our responsible travel principles: Our company aims to maximise the positive benefits of tourism for host communities. This includes training and employment of local staff, using local suppliers and assisting in the development of sustainable local businesses.
We actively minimise the negative effects that tourism can have by ensuring that tourism does not divert resources away from local communities or drive up prices on local resources.
We provide opportunities for real cultural exchange, where locals and visitors alike can share and learn from each other in an environment of mutual respect.
We contribute to the welfare of the host community. This is epitomised in our Community Project Travel program where we organise for our travelers to spend time in disadvantaged villages upgrading basic facilities such as health, education and water access.
We strive to educate our travelers about the destination and its local cultures as well as providing guidelines on appropriate behaviour to minimise impact.
No local payments policy: Local cash payments are becoming increasingly popular with many operators in the adventure travel industry. This policy seems to benefit the tour operators more than the local economies or the travelers, as it avoids local taxes and transfers the costs and risks of cash handling onto the travelers. In accordance with our Responsible Travel practices, we have chosen a policy of not asking for such payments.
4 Reviews of The Silk Route, Beijing to Tashkent
Reviewed on 18 May 2018 by Becky MacLeod
We enjoyed the whole trip, but Kyrgyzstan was a highlight. Also the Labrang Monastery was lovely. Very good. It adjusted the way I think about the world. Read full reviewReviewed on 12 Jun 2016 by Ljiljana Padjen-Pajovic
Do not hesitate!! It is very interesting trip and very well organised. Read full reviewReviewed on 12 Jun 2014 by Gunilla Westerlund
Absolutely wonderful, a once in a life time experience and all the guides were extremely knowledgable, funny and helpful. The sights and experience was truly magnificient Read full review
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