Responsible Travel
Good things happen when we travel
Good things happen when we travel
Our holidays are designed to make good things happen, for you and the places you visit. We believe that tourism can have a positive impact, and since our inception here at Rickshaw Travel, travelling in a meaningful way has always been what we’re all about. We strive to preserve and support local communities, wildlife, and the environment wherever we go.
Our purpose & values
We’re a fun team, but we are serious about our commitment to responsible travel, and for us, being conscious travellers is just part of our fabric; not a box-ticking exercise. By working with our local partners, locally-run accommodation, native guides, and grassroots projects, we aim to ensure that your holiday makes a real difference to the places and people you visit.
Our Make it Meaningful policy is all about making the world a better place through responsible travel, not just for our friends and partners in each destination, but for our customers and our team here too. To keep us on track, we always hold our values close in every decision we make, to ensure we make an impact as a company with a purpose beyond profit.
Environment
While long haul travel is, by its very nature, not particularly eco-friendly, we try very hard to minimise our effect on the environment.
We believe in making sure that the destinations we sell benefit from travellers visiting them. To aid this endeavour we support Earthly with their nature-based projects. Nature-based solutions protect, better manage and restore ecosystems while addressing global challenges. All of Earthly’s nature-based projects remove carbon to help us be a more carbon-balanced company, along with restoring biodiversity and improve livelihoods in various projects across the world. As well as ensuring that £5 for every traveller we send away on holiday is contributed to Earthly, we also like to carry out little in-house fundraising events ourselves. You can keep up to date with our progress on our impact dashboard or find out more about our Earthly partnership below.
Alternatively, if you’re looking to offset the carbon from your international flights, we recommend the World Land Trust. They are a conservation charity who can help you offset your carbon emissions using their carbon balanced calculator.
Glasgow Declaration of Climate Emergency
Following the Climate Summit in Glasgow in 2021, Rickshaw Travel, along with over 700 other tourism companies, signed the Glasgow Declaration and Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency. These initiatives are a global network of tourism companies that are jointly committed to halving total emissions by 2030 and to a climate-neutral sector before or at the latest by 2050. You can read our Declaration of Climate Emergency here.
Sustainable Development Goals
To help ensure our trips have a positive impact on the world, we have integrated three goals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into our policies and travels. The SDGs are seventeen goals to make the world a better place by 2030 and have been agreed upon by countries affiliated to the United Nations, including the UK.
Animal welfare
Travel offers the chance to experience wonder, learn something new, try weird and wonderful flavours, meet new cultures and – for many – get close to wildlife.
We know that tourism – if done badly – can have a harmful effect on wildlife and the welfare of animals who are often exploited for human entertainment, be it a tiger selfie or an elephant show.
That’s why we’re determined to make good things happen for animals through the experiences we offer. We support a number of projects and offer a range of trips that allow you to observe or interact with creatures, great and small in a mindful and respectful way.
Our bite-sized trips
You can choose from a whole range of bite-sized trips across each of our destinations. Our trips are designed to give your plenty of freedom and flexibility, so you can pick and choose the places you want to visit, without being stuck with a rigid itinerary.
Throughout our trips, we try to include experiences that make good things happen – it could be a train ride through the tea hills with the locals, the chance to help a local farmer or a few nights on a quiet beach, away from the crowded sun-loungers and chain hotels. Each destination has its own responsible travel page where we’ve picked out a couple of suggested bite-sized trips to get you inspired.
Making good things happen in our office
Our environmental measures begin on our own doorstep. At home in Brighton, we run a virtually paper-free office and are dedicated recyclers. We believe in putting people first, and provide lots of benefits to staff members to enhance their work and personal life, such as a ‘ride to work’ scheme, and discounts for local fitness centres and holistic therapies, and free private healthcare.
