Sustainable tourism
Tourism should leave a valley better than it found it
Running responsible trips is only half the job. The other half is speaking up — with guides, villages, other operators and travellers — for the kind of tourism Nepal's hills can live with.
Why a tour company takes a position
Every season we see what careless tourism costs: plastic on the trail, porters carrying too much for too little, and villages that see the visitors but not the money.
Our own trips cannot fix that alone. So we talk about it openly, share how we work with other small operators, and ask the people who travel with us to hold us — and everyone else — to the same standard.
Quiet agreement changes nothing.
What we speak up for
Four issues we raise wherever we have a voice.
Porter rights
Fair wages, load limits, insurance and proper clothing for every porter on every trek — not only on ours.
Plastic-free trails
Refill points instead of bottled water, and waste carried out of the mountains rather than burned or buried.
Community-owned homestays
Homestays that villages run and price themselves, rather than lodges owned from the city.
Respect for culture
Honest briefings on dress, photography and sacred places, so visitors are welcomed back rather than tolerated.
What we ask of our travellers
Small habits, repeated by thousands of visitors, are what a trail remembers.
- Carry a refillable bottle and use the filtered water we provide.
- Ask before you photograph people, homes or ceremonies.
- Buy tea, crafts and coffee directly from the village.
- Carry out everything you bring in, including batteries.
- Dress modestly in villages, temples and monasteries.
- Tell us if anything on your trip seems unfair to the people working on it.
Want to get involved?
Tell us what you care about and we will tell you how to help — on your trip, or from home.