Responsible travel

We do not arrange elephant rides, photo stops with chained or captive animals, turtle handling, or any attraction where a wild animal is restrained for a photograph. If you ask us to, we will explain why we will not, and we will lose the booking rather than change our minds.

In the parks our jeeps keep to the tracks, keep their distance, and leave a sighting when the animal shows signs of stress — even when other vehicles do not. Our guides have standing instructions to say no to a driver who crowds a leopard, and we have withdrawn work from operators who did.

Our driver-guides are employees on our own payroll, not freelancers booked by the day. They are paid whether or not you tip, they have their own room and meals on every trip, and they are insured.

We do not take commission from the shops guides are traditionally pressured into stopping at. That is why your route has no gem showroom, no batik factory and no spice garden on it unless you ask for one.

We contract directly with Sri Lankan-owned properties wherever there is a good one, and we say so in the itinerary when a property is foreign-owned so you can decide.

Experiences that involve a village, a family kitchen or a fishing crew are paid at a rate agreed with them, in full, on the day.

Every vehicle carries a filtered water cooler and refillable bottles, which removes roughly forty single-use bottles from a two-week trip for two people.

We ask hotels not to change linen daily unless you ask, and we do not put a printed itinerary in your hand when the same thing works on a phone.

We are not carbon neutral and we are not going to tell you a long-haul flight is. Aviation is by far the largest part of the footprint of any trip here, and no offset we could buy would honestly cancel it.

What we can say is that once you land, the trip is run by a local company, staffed by local people, spending in the local economy — and that we would rather be straight about the rest than sell you a badge.