Sustainable travel, as a phrase, has grown a little thin from use. It has come to mean everything and, therefore, nothing. We try not to use it. But the thinking behind it — that travel done well should take as little as possible from the places it visits — is something we care about very much, and organise our work around.
The small footprint of a luxury journey, when it is designed properly, is not accidental. It is the direct result of choices we make quietly at the briefing stage.
- Locally owned hotels. The smaller places we return to again and again are almost always owned by the families who built them. The money stays in the valley, the country, the town.
- Private guides from the region. Not flown-in specialists; locally trained, locally paid, and kept on retainer through the year. Expertise delivered by those whose lives the place is.
- Length of stay. Slower journeys are kinder journeys. Seven nights in two towns rather than ten in six. Fewer transfers, less fuel, more genuine understanding.
- Seasonality. Travelling outside the crowded weeks eases pressure on the places we love. Our calendar, on purpose, runs away from the high-season months where we can.
- Private aviation, used sparingly. A helicopter from a glacier head-wall is a tool, not a ritual. We use the private planes and helicopters that a journey actually needs, and no more.
We are not evangelists. We do not ask our travellers to refuse themselves a journey they would otherwise take. What we ask of ourselves is to draw each itinerary with an eye on the places the journey is passing through: who owns the rooms, who benefits from the dinner, who will still live in the valley long after the traveller has flown home.
Done this way, a private journey leaves less behind than most ordinary weeks of modern life. The places we love keep their character. The clients we design for return, often, to find exactly what they remembered. These two things, we think, are related.
