Cycling the best of Asia, Alaska and the Pacific since 1987
Traveling
Green &
Responsibly
“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion
and avoid the people, you might better stay home” James Mitchner
and avoid the people, you might better stay home” James Mitchner
Green & Responsible
Traveling in a culturally sensitive and environmentally aware manner has always been the way that members of Team Pedalers have journeyed. It is not something new we started doing because now it is politically correct, it is a travel philosophy we have always embraced because it is right thing to do.
At the start of every tour, we spend time educating our guests in the country's etiquette and culture, so you can travel politely. You will also find that this new understanding of the culture can open more doors along the way, allowing you to interact with and learn from the locals.
When planning our trips, we always look for the hotels and restaurants that provide a first hand glimpse into the country's culture and cuisine. And hotels that are owned and run locally, we very rarely use properties that belong to the big international chains. Most of our team members for a tour come from the area as well, multilingual and knowledgeable, they can open more doors for your experience then can a crew flown in from the outside.
We limit our interaction with indigenous peoples, so as not to turn a traditional village into a tourist trap. When we travel through areas with ethnic minorities, we pick random villages for stops and provide suggestions for appropriate gifts (such as school materials for younger villagers or reading glasses for the elderly) or interactions (such as teaching an impromptu English class in the school yard). We try not to visit the same villages over and over, creating a dependence on tourists. When we are in a region where the local villages have already become tourist destinations, we try to select those that have been set up as coops run by the villagers, not those run by a "big boss" in the city or the government.
While traveling by bicycle is inherently low impact environmentally, the sagwagon support of a commercial tour negates this fact. Unfortunately the average bike tour group of 15 to 20 riders, supported by two vans towing trailers burns as much gas as a large motorcoach carrying 35 to 40 people. We strive to make the impact of our support vans as minimal as possible. Our sagwagons do not drive up and down the route burning gas, rather they leapfrog the group in small increments and then wait without the engines and a/c running. We try to keep the size of the sag wagon appropriate to the group size.
Our camp kitchens also follow an appropriate environmentally sensitive philosophy. All gray water and cooking waste water is collected in special containers and disposed of through a proper sewer system or RV dump station. No paper plates or disposable plastic cups are used, all dining is done with reusable, washable utensils and tableware. Recycling containers are always available in camp for cans and bottles. And whenever possible the recyclable items are donated to community organizations who can use them for fund raising.
Our support trailers are equipped with chest freezers for food storage, powered by solar energy, these units keep our food supplies fresh without the need to constantly buy bagged ice. Reusable freezer packs allow us to transfer this system's benefits to our lunch and drink coolers as well. Less wasted water, less plastic bags to be thrown away.
Traveling in a culturally sensitive and environmentally aware manner has always been the way that members of Team Pedalers have journeyed. It is not something new we started doing because now it is politically correct, it is a travel philosophy we have always embraced because it is right thing to do.
At the start of every tour, we spend time educating our guests in the country's etiquette and culture, so you can travel politely. You will also find that this new understanding of the culture can open more doors along the way, allowing you to interact with and learn from the locals.
When planning our trips, we always look for the hotels and restaurants that provide a first hand glimpse into the country's culture and cuisine. And hotels that are owned and run locally, we very rarely use properties that belong to the big international chains. Most of our team members for a tour come from the area as well, multilingual and knowledgeable, they can open more doors for your experience then can a crew flown in from the outside.
We limit our interaction with indigenous peoples, so as not to turn a traditional village into a tourist trap. When we travel through areas with ethnic minorities, we pick random villages for stops and provide suggestions for appropriate gifts (such as school materials for younger villagers or reading glasses for the elderly) or interactions (such as teaching an impromptu English class in the school yard). We try not to visit the same villages over and over, creating a dependence on tourists. When we are in a region where the local villages have already become tourist destinations, we try to select those that have been set up as coops run by the villagers, not those run by a "big boss" in the city or the government.
While traveling by bicycle is inherently low impact environmentally, the sagwagon support of a commercial tour negates this fact. Unfortunately the average bike tour group of 15 to 20 riders, supported by two vans towing trailers burns as much gas as a large motorcoach carrying 35 to 40 people. We strive to make the impact of our support vans as minimal as possible. Our sagwagons do not drive up and down the route burning gas, rather they leapfrog the group in small increments and then wait without the engines and a/c running. We try to keep the size of the sag wagon appropriate to the group size.
Our camp kitchens also follow an appropriate environmentally sensitive philosophy. All gray water and cooking waste water is collected in special containers and disposed of through a proper sewer system or RV dump station. No paper plates or disposable plastic cups are used, all dining is done with reusable, washable utensils and tableware. Recycling containers are always available in camp for cans and bottles. And whenever possible the recyclable items are donated to community organizations who can use them for fund raising.
Our support trailers are equipped with chest freezers for food storage, powered by solar energy, these units keep our food supplies fresh without the need to constantly buy bagged ice. Reusable freezer packs allow us to transfer this system's benefits to our lunch and drink coolers as well. Less wasted water, less plastic bags to be thrown away.
Carbon Offsets for your Flights
One aspect over which we have little control is the carbon footprint of your flights to our destinations. We recommend our guests look into carbon offsets when purchasing their airline tickets. A couple of programs we suggest are Go Zero organized by the Conservation Fund, which supports reforestation projects and TerraPass, which supports clean energy and reduced greenhouse gas emission projects. Both the TerraPass website and the GoZero website have carbon footprint calculators that you can use to accurately determine the offset for your travels. Or if you prefer a quick estimate, we have provided suggested figures (in tons of CO2) for our destinations from regions where we get the majority of our tour guests. These were calculated using round trip air travel plus automobile gas for the commute to and from an airport 50 miles away.
Purchase your Carbon Offset from Go Zero or from TerraPass.
Minimizing our Carbon Footprint
Pedalers approaches the carbon footprint situation from a reduce our impact point of view rather than the buy forgiveness approach of many of our competitors. You won't find any gold badges signifying that we have bought a 110% offset from some non-profit organization.
We minimize our impact in many ways. As mentioned on this page, we limit the amount of miles our support vans travel, while still maximizing the availability of their services to our guests. Our guide teams live in the region in which they lead trips, so we aren't constantly flying staff to far away destinations. We don't maintain a big, bricks and mortar office, rather we operate out of small regional bases in the USA and Asia, leveraging the power of the internet to connect our management team together in a virtual office.
Of course we can't eliminate all of our impact, so we give back to the planet through local reforestation initiatives in some of the regions in which we travel. We prefer low-key local initiatives, projects developed and over seen by the local villagers, donating young trees and other plants to be used for their work. Pedalers doesn't get any gold stars to put on our website, just a thanks from the folks, which is all we need.
Also our web hosting provider has invested in wind powered energy credits to offset 130% of the power consumption used for running AND cooling the web server on which this website resides.
One aspect over which we have little control is the carbon footprint of your flights to our destinations. We recommend our guests look into carbon offsets when purchasing their airline tickets. A couple of programs we suggest are Go Zero organized by the Conservation Fund, which supports reforestation projects and TerraPass, which supports clean energy and reduced greenhouse gas emission projects. Both the TerraPass website and the GoZero website have carbon footprint calculators that you can use to accurately determine the offset for your travels. Or if you prefer a quick estimate, we have provided suggested figures (in tons of CO2) for our destinations from regions where we get the majority of our tour guests. These were calculated using round trip air travel plus automobile gas for the commute to and from an airport 50 miles away.
|
Purchase your Carbon Offset from Go Zero or from TerraPass.
Minimizing our Carbon Footprint
Pedalers approaches the carbon footprint situation from a reduce our impact point of view rather than the buy forgiveness approach of many of our competitors. You won't find any gold badges signifying that we have bought a 110% offset from some non-profit organization.
We minimize our impact in many ways. As mentioned on this page, we limit the amount of miles our support vans travel, while still maximizing the availability of their services to our guests. Our guide teams live in the region in which they lead trips, so we aren't constantly flying staff to far away destinations. We don't maintain a big, bricks and mortar office, rather we operate out of small regional bases in the USA and Asia, leveraging the power of the internet to connect our management team together in a virtual office.
Of course we can't eliminate all of our impact, so we give back to the planet through local reforestation initiatives in some of the regions in which we travel. We prefer low-key local initiatives, projects developed and over seen by the local villagers, donating young trees and other plants to be used for their work. Pedalers doesn't get any gold stars to put on our website, just a thanks from the folks, which is all we need.
Also our web hosting provider has invested in wind powered energy credits to offset 130% of the power consumption used for running AND cooling the web server on which this website resides.
 |
Catch up with us on:   |
Sign up for our eNewsletter: Pedalers Prattle |
Some folks think we're pretty cool:  |
Mt Everest seen from Pang La Pass during the Road to Everest Tour Sept 09
© 2010 Pedalers Pub & Grille | Site Map | this page updated: 11Dec11
Pedalers Pub & Grille is a small boutique bike tour operator offering extraordinary cycling holidays in Asia, Alaska and the Pacific. We provide outstanding value with luxurious comfort on our meticulously planned road bike tours. Select from our exclusive collection of bicycle tours, cycling holidays and multisport adventures in Thailand, Laos, Bhutan, New Zealand, Bali, Japan, Hawaii, Alaska, China, Nepal, Cambodia and Tibet. Our company has always traveled with cultural and environmental sensitivity and employed sustainable travel concepts.