Responsible travel

OutBreak Adventure aims to offer fun and challenging holidays, while minimising our impact on the local environment and culture and trying to help the local economy as we do so. Our operations are small scale and we always keep the groups small, often with a maximum size of eight guests. This minimises the environmental and social impact of our holidays on the local environment and culture.

This general policy is applicable to our European holidays. A more specific policy for our Moroccan Holidays can be found here.

Environmental policy

Our booking process is paperless and our brochures are printed on 100% recycled FSC approved material, using renewable energy and vegetable oil based inks. Our printer, Severnprint Ltd, is one of the first British printers to achieve FSC certification and ISO14001 accreditation.

We only use local source water instead of bottled water. This reduces our carbon footprint as well as waste. We discourage the purchase of bottled water. During our guest briefings, we emphasise that water is a precious resource and not to be wasted with long showers or unnecessary use.

We also strongly encourage our guests not to waste energy, by unplugging electrical equipment and by turning heaters or radiators off when not in their rooms.

We make conscious efforts to minimise waste when shopping by trying to choose products with less packaging. We recycle everything that can be recycled, and compost everything that can be composted.

We purchase local produce where possible and we corroborate this with our local suppliers, as well as making an effort to source meat products that have not been inhumanely treated. We adapt our menus during the year to favour produce that is in season. We use environmentally-friendly cleaning products.

Our holidays have a very strong focus on nature and the environment and we spend a lot of time in local nature reserves. Guests are made aware of the unique flora and fauna of each region and we talk specifically about endangered species and reintroduction efforts (including the Lammergeyer and Ibex). We focus our guests attention on local efforts to preserve flora and fauna and we like to think holidays significantly contribute to raising awareness of the mountain environment.

We advise our guests about local regulations and protected areas at each destination. We use telescopes to observe the wildlife, stick to marked paths in areas where wildlife is more sensitive and minimise operations during the main reproductive times, meaning minimal disturbances.

We do everything we can to reduce carbon emissions from transport by encouraging guests to travel by train. We minimise our pick-ups by grouping people together. We also make a concerted effort to reduce transport during activity days by offering as many local walks as possible and with at least one 'transport-free day'.

Social policy

Our holidays have a strong focus on local culture, which is unique to each area. We discuss how people lived in the past, how the Alpine and Pyrenean valleys got depopulated and we try to encourage discussion about and understanding of the local history.

Our guests are given the opportunity to visit the best preserved villages and hamlets in the areas and a strong focus is put on the now almost extinct culture of transhumance in western Europe (a semi-nomadic lifestyle where people migrate seasonally between villages at the valley floors in winter and high-mountain pastures in summer). We visit local farms and transhumance hamlets and maintain personal relationships with the families still living in this way.

We use fair-trade labelled produce whenever possible.

Economic policy

Over the years we have become a part of the local communities where we run our holidays. Depending on the destination, either our staff or guides are permanent residents of the local community. Where possible we employ local staff and make use of local service providers, such as mountain huts, chalets and guides.

We encourage our guests to visit the local markets and make use of local activity providers while on our holidays. A large proportion of the income derived from our holidays goes directly into the local community and we try to ensure that this is directed to small, local businesses.