Rules rather than intentions
Most sustainability pages in this industry are written in the future tense. Ours is a list of rules we already apply when we cost a trip, because that is the only place where good intentions either survive or quietly get deleted. A commitment that costs nothing to make is usually the one that costs nothing to break.
Everything below is checkable against your own itinerary. If a day on your plan contradicts one of these points, tell us and we will change the day or explain why the rule does not apply.
What we ask of ourselves
- Private parties only. Your vehicle, guide and walking group hold nobody but your own party, which keeps numbers low at a site and lets us start early enough to avoid the crowd rather than join it.
- Guides and drivers are paid an agreed day rate by us, in full, whether or not you buy anything. Nobody on your trip earns commission from a shop, a workshop or a restaurant.
- No induced shopping stops. Lacquer factories, silk workshops, gem showrooms and stone carving yards do not appear in a day unless you asked to see one.
- No elephant riding, no elephant bathing, no performing animals. If elephants matter to you, we will look for an observation-only sanctuary and say honestly what we know about it.
- No orphanage visits, no school visits staged as entertainment, no photography of children offered as an activity.
- Guides and drivers are hired in the region they come from, so the Mekong day is led by someone from the delta and the Luang Prabang morning by someone from Luang Prabang.
- Locally owned hotels and guesthouses come first in what we suggest. Where an international chain is the sensible answer, we say so rather than dress it up.
- Refillable water on every vehicle day and no single-use plastic in the welcome packs. Hotel amenity plastic is outside our control and we do not pretend otherwise.
What we ask of travellers
- Bring a refillable bottle. Every vehicle carries a large container to fill it from, and most hotels we use can do the same.
- Cover shoulders and knees at temples and pagodas. In Laos and Cambodia this matters more than visitors expect.
- Ask before photographing a person, particularly children and monks. A guide will put the question for you in two seconds.
- Do not buy ivory, tortoiseshell, coral, reptile skin or wild animal medicine. Several are illegal to carry home as well as bad to buy.
- Resist giving money, sweets or pens to children at roadsides and on trekking paths. It keeps them out of school. Ask your guide where a donation helps.
- Accept a slower day when the weather or a road says so. A driver who refuses a flooded pass is doing the job properly.
Where we still fall short
Domestic flights are the largest hole in this policy. Vietnam is long, Laos is mountainous, and a fortnight covering Hanoi, Hue, Saigon and Luang Prabang will involve three or four short flights. The overnight train and the long drive exist, we offer them, and perhaps one party in ten takes one. If your trip flies internally, the itinerary says so rather than burying it.
Air conditioning is the second. Vehicles run it for most of the year and so do the rooms. In April and May in the lowlands the alternative is not comfort with a clear conscience, it is heat that ruins a day and sometimes makes people ill. We choose hotels that shade and ventilate well, and leave it there.
Peak season is the third. December and January at Angkor, Halong Bay and Hoi An are busy, and our early starts move a few people out of the crush rather than reducing it. The real answer is the shoulder months, which we recommend often and which are refused often, understandably, because school holidays fall where they fall.
Questions
If something here matters enough to shape your trip, say so in your enquiry. We can cut internal flights, weight the route towards locally owned places to stay, or build the whole thing around the shoulder season instead.