Offering Sustainable Itineraries To Central and South America
#Adventure Destinations offering travel recommendations independent clients focused on sustainable nature-focused escapes to remote, yet accessible locations in #CostaRica, #Belize, #Ecuador and #Peru. Most Central and South American countries have been open to U.S. tourists without quarantine for many months.
“With record-setting heat, severe drought, massive wildfires and catastrophic flooding happening in so many parts of the world, it is clear that sustainability is one of the biggest challenges facing us today—and the travel industry can be part of the solution”.
#FriendsTravelWestHollywoodCa90069 is offering tailor-made independent travel itineraries exclusively through travel advisors directly to consumers.
#FriendsTravelAdvisors can modify basic itineraries with other destinations, additional overnights, transfers, and activities to suit client preferences and interests.
#Sustainable vacations are focused on Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Peru, although advisors can find sustainable accommodations throughout Central and South America in the tour operator’s portfolio.
In Belize, accommodation options for clients include a private island retreat, an all-inclusive resort with over-the-water bungalows and cabanas. Part of the price of each night’s stay here goes toward local charity. Cayo District Escape features an eco-resort with its own 400-acre nature reserve, organic farm, and natural history center, where 10 percent of accommodation revenue is offered to environmental and community projects.
Clients opting for the “Costa Rica Rafting Adventure” can go #whitewater rafting on Class I and II rapids on the Pacuare River. They will also be provided gourmet food and accommodations in a luxury eco-lodge. Other activities include a visit to an indigenous home, hiking to waterfalls, zip lining, birdwatching tours and “canyoning” (combining hiking, rock climbing and rappelling).
On the “Lost River” itinerary, clients can stay at an eco-resort in Bagaces, with two ecosystems—a tropical dry forest and a dwarf forest in a canyon filled with geothermal waters. Bungalows are connected by elevated pathways and food is locally sourced. Outdoor experiences include horseback riding, whitewater tubing, mountain biking, hiking and zip lining. Spa treatments and yoga classes are also available.
For our clients traveling to #Ecuador, the “Highlands Retreat” itinerary will take them to a five-star eco-lodge within its own rainforest reserve, teeming with flora and fauna. Visits to an archeological museum, hikes with university-trained naturalists, canopy tours in a cable car, and night walks are also included.
The Galápagos Islands , part of the Republic of Ecuador, are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed on either side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere. Located 906 km (563 mi) west of continental Ecuador, the islands are known for their large number of endemic species that were studied by Charles Darwin during the second voyage of HMS Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection. The Galápagos Islands and their surrounding waters form the Galápagos Province of Ecuador, the Galápagos National Park, and the Galápagos Marine Reserve. The principal language on the islands is Spanish. The islands have a population of slightly over 25,000. The first recorded visit to the islands happened by chance in 1535, when Fray Tomás de Berlanga, the Bishop of Panamá, was surprised with this undiscovered land during a voyage to Peru to arbitrate in a dispute between Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro. De Berlanga eventually returned to the Spanish Empire and described the conditions of the islands and the animals that inhabited them. The group of islands was shown and named “Insulae de los Galopegos” (Islands of the Tortoises) in Abraham Ortelius’s atlas published in 1570. The first crude map of the islands was made in 1684 by the buccaneer Ambrose Cowley, who named the individual islands after some of his fellow pirates or after British royalty and noblemen. These names were used in the authoritative navigation charts of the islands prepared during the Beagle survey under captain Robert FitzRoy, and in Darwin’s popular book The Voyage of the Beagle. The newly independent Republic of Ecuador took the islands from Spanish ownership in 1832, and subsequently gave them official Spanish names.
The “Yasuni National Park” itinerary includes accommodation in an Amazon rainforest luxury eco-lodge in the two-and-a-half-million-acre national park, a designated #UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. The Kichwa Anangu community within the park has created sustainable systems to process wastewater to keep the wetlands clean; and energy is supplied by solar panels, silent generators and industrial batteries. Activities include bird-watching, hiking, canoeing, canopy tours, visiting the indigenous community and sharing lunch with them.
“Arequipa and Colca Canyon,” an itinerary in the southern part of Peru, combines sightseeing in the “white city” of Arequipa, with its historic Spanish colonial center, a designated #UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Colca Canyon, one of the deepest canyons in the world, which is home to the endangered Andean condor. Accompanied throughout by a private driver, clients will see a volcano, pre-Inca ruins, and the Aguada Blanca National Reserve, where all four species of South American camelids can be seen—#vicunas, #alpacas, #llamas and wild #guanacos. Clients can stay overnight in Colca Canyon at a rural lodge designed to blend the surrounding natural setting with modern comforts, such as floors with radiant heat provided by geothermal energy.
Clients opting for the “Madre de Dios River Stay” will be offered accommodation in a #luxury #ecolodge next to the 680,000-acre Tambopata National Reserve. Nearly 600 bird species have been recorded there, 540 on the grounds of the lodge, designed to resemble the indigenous culture’s houses. This eco-lodge was the first Peruvian enterprise to be declared carbon neutral in 1989.
The best months for a vacation in Costa Rica and Belize are November through April, during the dry season. BUT! the “Green Season” is just as beautiful!
For Peru, it is advisable to avoid the rainy season of January and February.
Ecuador is on the equator and there is little variation in climate throughout the year, and rain lasts only a few hours a day.
#JessKalinowsky JESS@FriendsTravel.com
#FriendsTravelWestHollywoodCa90069
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