Local Sustainable Travel Initiatives Supported by VBT Guests

Published on December 20, 2023

By Molly Waldstein, Travel Writer

At VBT, we’re passionate about sustainable travel—supporting a healthy planet as well as the local communities where our friends, guests, and colleagues live, work, and play.

At VBT | Country Walkers, we’re passionate about sustainable travel: supporting a healthy planet as well as the local communities where our friends, guests, and colleagues live, work, and play. That’s why we set aside funds on behalf of every guest who travels with us to support our Travelers Fund. This money goes to organizations that support the regions where we travel. A bee researcher in the Western Cape. A volunteer mountain rescue team in County Kerry. A weaving foundation outside Otranto that has been running since the early 1900s.

The Fund supports more than forty organizations at any given time, and the list shifts as routes change and local partnerships develop. What follows is a sampling of these groups: fourteen organizations that rainge from marine conservation to trail maintenance to the preservation of a craft. The Fund sits alongside broader company-wide work including carbon offsets.

Which VBT | Country Walkers tours support local sustainability initiatives?

More than forty organizations currently receive Travelers Fund support across biking, walking, and Discovery tours on six continents. They range from a killer whale research center that has tracked the same Salish Sea population since 1976, to a Sicilian anti-extortion movement that provides free legal defense, to the volunteers who maintain Vermont’s Long Trail. Each is local to the route it is attached to, and the contribution is made on behalf of every guest who travels it.

Wilderness and Marine Conservation

Banff Bike Tour in the Canadian Rockies, Banff & the Canadian Rockies Walking Tour and Montana’s Glacier National Park Walking Tour, all supporting Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative: Y2Y works at a scale most conservation groups don’t attempt, connecting and conserving landscapes across the whole corridor between Yellowstone and the Yukon. The reasoning is that habitat loss and habitat fragmentation are the same problem seen from different distances. Give wildlife continuous ground to cross and they can relocate for shelter, food, and breeding as the climate shifts. Three of our routes sit inside that corridor, on both sides of the border.
Washington Olympic Peninsula Walking Tour, supporting Center for Whale Research: The Center has studied the Southern Resident killer whales in the Salish Sea since 1976. The work is cumulative rather than dramatic: health assessments on individual animals, briefings for elected officials on what the ecosystem needs, and telling the population’s story to anyone who will listen.
Mallorca Bike Tour in the Balearic Islands and Mallorca Walking Tour, all supporting Arrels Marines: Arrels Marines is staffed by Balearic islanders, which shows in what it chooses to take on. Its work runs on three pillars: marine conservation, environmental education, and eco-social transition. The object is the Balearic Sea and the islands in it.
South Africa Bike Tour, supporting Ujubee: Ujubee studies the Cape honeybee along with South Africa’s other wild bee species, working in wilderness areas that remain largely unaltered. The team documents how wild bees behave and how they interact with the plants and animals around them. Knowing which threats pollinators actually face is what makes protecting them possible.

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Community Culture, and Heritage

Sicily Bike Tour in Noto Valley & Syracuse and Sicily Walking Tour, all supporting Addiopizzo: Addiopizzo began as a grassroots Sicilian movement and describes its own project as a cultural revolution against institutionalized corruption. It supports victims of extortion and usury with free legal help before, during, and after trial, and its lawyers bring civil actions alongside the people they represent.
Puglia Walking Tour, supporting Le Costantine: Le Costantine is a women-owned enterprise outside Otranto that traces back to the early 1900s. It preserves the region’s artisan traditions, weaving above all, while giving women in a small community a route to economic independence. The foundation now pairs fine weaving done by traditional methods with biodynamic agriculture, and provides instruction and social care for young people.
Vietnam Bike Tour, a Complete Journey, supporting Duc Son Orphanage: Duc Son, near Hue, is home to roughly 200 orphaned children and is widely regarded as one of the best-run orphanages in Vietnam. It does not place children for adoption. What it aims to build instead is self-reliance, confidence, and a future in Vietnam.
Charleston to Savannah Bike Tour, supporting Penn Center National Historic Landmark District: Penn School opened in 1862, one of the first academic schools in the South to formally educate people who had been enslaved. The district has been central to African American education, historic preservation, and social justice for the Gullah Geechee community of the Sea Islands ever since.
Holland in Springtime Bike & Barge Tour and Netherlands Spring Bike & Barge Tour, all supporting Museum Windmill Schermerhorn: The Museummolen preserves the Schermer’s windmill heritage and keeps the Museum Mill at Schermerhorn working. Inside you can see how a drainage mill actually operates and how the Schermerpolder was formed, which is another way of saying how this stretch of the Netherlands came to be dry land at all.

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Trails, Landscapes, and Mountain Rescue

County Clare, Killarney & Dingle Walking Tour, supporting Kerry Mountain Rescue: Fifteen of Ireland’s highest peaks sit in the southwest, and the volunteers of Kerry Mountain Rescue are who come for you if something goes wrong on one of them. They train year-round in casualty care, technical ropework, helicopter winching, search management, navigation, radio communication, and off-road driving.
Vermont Fall Foliage Walking Tour, supporting Green Mountain Club: The Club formed in 1910 with a single objective: build a footpath running the length of Vermont’s mountains. That path became the Long Trail. Today the Club maintains the Long Trail System and runs the education programs that teach people how to use Vermont’s trails and summits without wearing them out. Fitting work for a company that started in Vermont and never left.
Acadia National Park Bike Tour, Acadia Self-Guided Bike Tour and Maine’s Acadia National Park Walking Tour, all supporting Friends of Acadia: Friends of Acadia works on the park’s natural beauty, its ecological health, and its cultural resources, plus the surrounding communities. Preservation and public enjoyment at once, which is harder than it sounds in a park as heavily visited as Acadia. Three of our Maine routes contribute, guided and self-guided alike.
Cotswolds Bike Tour & Bath and Cotswolds Walking Tour, all supporting Cotswolds National Landscape: The Cotswolds was designated in 1966 and covers close to 800 square miles, the largest designation of its kind in England. The remit is to conserve and enhance the landscape and keep the countryside quietly enjoyable, done in a way that works for the people who live and farm there.
Colorado Bike Tour from Aspen to Vail, supporting Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers: RFOV gets local people onto public land to do the actual work of restoration and conservation, and runs the education that goes with it. Its program areas are sustainable recreation, healthy landscapes, and fire adaptation.

Traveling on one of these routes

You don’t need to opt in or check a box. The contribution is made on your behalf when you travel.

These fourteen are a sample. Most of our routes carry an initiative of some kind, and the pairings change as itineraries evolve. To see which organization a particular route supports, start with the tour page, or call a Tour Consultant at 1.800.245.3868.