How to have an ethical holiday?
Hands Up Holidays is committed to being the leading ethical holiday operator. By offering a taste of volunteering on all our trips, we are able to complement a luxurious vacation with an overall ethical travel experience.
A wide range of specially crafted volunteer opportunities include:
- Repairs and Renovations
- Building
- Environmental Conservation
- Teaching, or being a Reading Partner
- IT/Administration/Marketing
- Medical/Physiotherapy
- Village Based Projects
Click here for a full description of each of these.
To ensure that you will be making a positive impact, we design each individual volunteer project in consultation with the local community.
Booking with Hands Up Holidays ensures:
- A meaningful short-term volunteer project where you can make a positive difference in a community
- Fabulous accommodation
- Interaction with local people
- Incredible sights
- Superb guides who are passionate about their country
What's more, we are committed to environmental and
social sustainability - in the communities in which we operate and in the ecosystems that we encounter. Our independent travel options and small group size help us to tread lightly, minimising impact, and ideally enriching the environment.
We are a founding member of the
Ethical Tour Operator's Group - committed to running sustainable tours that benefit both local communities and the environment.
How else does Hands Up Holidays provide you with an ethical holiday?
Environmental Sustainability
One way we seek to conserve the environment is by including the cost of offsetting carbon emissions in the price of your tour. We pay for the equivalent number of trees to be planted to offset the CO2 emissions from the flights and the trip. Where practical, you can even plant the trees yourself!
Training and mentoring local guides
We are committed to using local guides. Our guides are trained in responsible, sustainable tourism and will help you to be both culturally and environmentally sensitive. Where practical, we use locally run and owned accommodation, restaurants, markets and home stays.
The Hands Up Foundation
We have established a charitable trust through which you can maintain a vital link with the Community Development project you participated in. Donations to this trust go directly towards the project. All the administration costs are borne by Hands Up.
At least 10% of Hands Up’s profits are also donated to other development work, such as an educational bursary fund, micro-finance projects, or large capital projects such as building a school.
To summarise:
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We offer “carbon neutral flying” whereby we pay for the trees to be planted to offset CO2 emissions from flights and from the trip itself
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We frequently stay in locally owned accommodation
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We offer the opportunity to really "go local" with homestays in Fiji, Vanuatu, South Africa, Turkey, Thailand and Peru
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We are committed to training and mentoring promising people as guides from the local communities
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We interact directly with communities through our volunteer projects, which are all sourced in consultation with the community
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Our group size is a maximum of 12 with average of 6
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We have environmental Community Development projects in Vietnam, Thailand, China, Tibet, Guatemala, Argentina, and Brazil
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We have set up a charitable foundation where at least 10% of our profits go into further development projects in the communities we operate
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Our guides all instruct our guests on how to minimise impact, teach local language and customs, and act respectfully.
Click
here to read our Responsible Tourism policy.
