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A ‘Green Circuit’ Is Appearing In India
The true size of India can be deceiving, the number of destinantions confusing, but a handful of companies and people are working hard in Responsible Tourism to develop and promote their offerings on the world stage.
Google map of India
Raj Gyawali has long been an advocate for how tourism can contribute to sustainable development, and has written numerous articles for Make Travel Fair. Today Raj is at ITB Berlin – a popular annual travel trade show - where he’s launching a new initiative that he hopes will continue to attract support and connect some of the best travel tour products that India currently has to offer.
The ‘Green Circuit’ as it’s been coined, currently has support from four great projects around India and aims to show travellers some of the great independent tour packages available across the region, and how the areas featured are all connected by various means of ground transportation. Raj hopes to feature more ‘responsible’ tour operators from the sub-continent over time (India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, and even including Tibet). The companies who have currently agreed to support the project are:
socialtours.com
A 17 day trip of culture and easy trekking along the The Tamang Heritage Trail. Raj Gyawali is Founder of socialtours.com and has written numerous articles for MTF from his Nepal perspective.
HELP Tourism
A 22 day trip of culture, wildlife and tea gardens in one of the top Biodiversity hotspots in the world.
Grass Routes Journeys
- Grass Routes Journeys: Allowing The Soul To Breathe
- Interview: Claire Prest In Orissa, India
- MTF Writer Claire Prest – Female Internet Hero
- Grass Routes: 5 Commitments To Social Enterprise
- Lessons in Turmeric From India
- Context Is Everything
- Kandhamal: Tourism’s Response To Communal Clashes
A 15 Day epic adventure through timeless India from Kolkata to Visakhapatnam. Claire Prest is co-Founder of Grass Routes Journeys and we’ve published a good selection of Claire’s writing here on MTF.
The Blue Yonder
A 14 day trip of culture, spice tours, beaches, and homestays through Malabar – once a British Principality of India.
Raj is taking a very open-source approach to getting this off the ground, incorporating the opinions and suggestions of anyone who’s willing to contribute. It looks like a great example of how the internet and the co-operative will of others combined can add value and prominence to progressive and noteworthy projects around the world.
All of these trips are relatively long in duration and if you’re after shorter experiences it would still be worth checking to see what else these companies offer. Even if you don’t end up travelling with one of them this initiative is a great way to discover what’s available and the sort of timescales involved for trips in this part of the world.
Further information:
- Raj first introduced the concept on his Blog in a post about ‘The Grand Green Circuit.
Stephen Chapman
Founder of Make Travel Fair and editor of Make Travel Fair UK. Recently returned from an around-the-world trip taking in the Cook Islands, New Zealand and Indonesia amongst others. He is always planning his next escape but in the mean time is learning to appreciate the surroundings he grew up in.
