Responsible travel
What we do, and what we have not done yet.
Sustainability pages are usually the least honest page on a travel website. This one includes the gaps.
The certifications we hold
- MINTUR ESNNA certification — Ecuador's Ministry of Tourism certification on the prevention of commercial sexual exploitation of children and adolescents in tourism, held by Roberto Cabrera since 2013. In a country where community tourism routinely involves children, this governs who we work with and how.
- IOM / United Nations training in human trafficking from a human-rights approach, 24 hours, delivered with Ecuador's Ministry of the Interior, 2012.
- TourCert international certification in sustainable tourism, through the Ministry of Tourism, 2017.
Galápagos: the rules are the product
Ninety-seven per cent of the Galápagos land area is national park, most visitor sites may only be entered with a National Park–licensed naturalist, and guided groups are capped at 16 people per guide. Every one of those rules costs operators money, and every one of them is the reason the islands still work after roughly 330,000 visitors a year.
We follow them because they are the law, and we mention them because the operators who quote you a suspiciously low Galápagos price are usually economising on exactly this.
Community visits that are actually community-run
In the Amazon we work with communities that own and run their own visitor programmes rather than with intermediaries who bring a bus. The test we apply is simple: does the community decide what happens, and is the money paid to the community rather than to a broker?
What we have not done yet
We are not B Corp certified. We do not currently publish a measured carbon figure per traveller, and we are not going to publish an estimate dressed up as a measurement. We do not run our own conservation fund.
Those are real gaps. We would rather list them than pad this page, and we will update it when they change — with dates, so you can hold us to it.
What you can do that actually matters
- Take the biosecurity inspection seriously. An invasive seed in a suitcase is a genuine threat to an ecosystem that exists nowhere else.
- Stay two metres from wildlife. Galápagos animals will close that distance themselves. That is allowed. You closing it is not.
- Buy locally, in cash, in small towns. Puerto Villamil and Otavalo feel the difference in a way that a hotel chain does not.
- Reef-safe sunscreen, and less of it. A rash guard does the job better and does not end up in the water.
- Stay longer in fewer places. The single highest-impact choice on this list, and it also makes for a better trip.
Straight answers
Responsible travel, checked
Are the community lodges actually community-owned?
The three Ecuadorian Amazon lodges we sell are owned outright by the Kichwa communities that run them — Añangu and Sani Isla. Not a concession with a community name on it. That is checkable and we would rather you checked.
What certifications do you actually hold?
Ministry of Tourism registration since 2013 — that one is a company registration you can check. TourCert international certification in sustainable tourism, held since 2017 through the Ministry of Tourism. We also hold membership of ACTUAL, and MINTUR certification on the prevention of the commercial sexual exploitation of children and adolescents in travel and tourism.
Does tourism harm the Galápagos?
It can, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Around 330,000 people visited in 2024, a record. The park fee that visitors sometimes resent is the mechanism that funds conservation, and the biosecurity inspection that delays your luggage is the one keeping introduced species out.
What have you not done yet?
We do not measure or offset our carbon footprint, and we are not going to claim we do. We are a small operator and that is on the list rather than in the brochure.
