Responsible Tourism

At Park Trek our passion is guiding walkers to beautiful and interesting locations around Australia. While this gives us enormous satisfaction we are also aware that this has impacts on the places we visit. To ensure that we preserve the character and beauty of these destinations we try to minimize our environmental footprint as well as supporting local communities.

Minimal impact while walking

Most walkers are familiar with the basics of minimal impact behavior or the ‘Leave-No-Trace’ philosophy. Some the most important points are:

• Prepare: through contacts with park managers we know the regulations and special concerns of the areas we visit.
   
• Tread softly: we stay on tracks and board walks whenever possible. When walking off the beaten track we try to stay on hard surface to avoid creating new tracks
   
• Pack in-Pack out: we do not leave anything on the trail. Any rubbish generated by us is always brought back out.
   
• Small groups: while walking we are trying to limits groups sizes. Larger groups are often split into two parties.
   
• Respect wildlife: we don’t interfere with animals in anyway, and avoid feeding or touching wildlife. When we encounter wildlife we do our best to not disturb them.
   
• Consider hosts and other visitors: we respect the wishes of our hosts, be it Indigenous people, land managers or locals.  We respect other visitors we encounter on the trails.

Supporting local communities

The destinations we visit are more often than not located in remote or rural communities. As visitors we are dependent on the locals to provide us with accommodation and other services. To support the local economy we use local service providers as much as we can:

• Accommodation: when looking for places to stay we favor locally owned accommodation, particularly those committed to environmentally sustainable practices.
   
• Eat and shop local: on each tour we spend at least one night out, be it at a small cozy restaurant or at the local pub. Our guests often pick up some souvenirs or local specialties along the way.
   
• Local guides: On many tours we are joined for a day by local guides that bring something extra to the tour with their local knowledge. We also often join local tours to learn about bush tucker, indigenous culture or local wildlife.

Accredited Tour Operator for Protected Areas

Many of our tours take place in sensitive protected areas, National Parks and World Heritage listed locations. Only licensed Tour Operators with a proven record of operating according to best practice environmental standards are allowed to operate in such areas. Each state has its own stringent conditions that Tour Operators have to abide by. Park Trek is proud of the fact that we are licensed to operate tours in National Parks and protected areas all over Australia. Furthermore our guides have undertaken specialized training focused on Aboriginal culture and heritage and are certified to lead tours in iconic World Heritage sites such as Kakadu and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Parks.

Honest marketing

With Park Trek what you see is what you get. All our marketing material represents experiences and products that are offered by us. In fact all the photographs used in our website and broshure are taken by Park Trek staff on actual tours. No staged photos for marketing purposes or generic stock photos are included. Even the wildlife photos are taken on tour, representing what our guests have encountered while walking with us.

Organic food

Another specialty of Park Trek is Organic food which stems from owner Allan Fenner’s lifelong passion and involvement with healthy food. Through his network of organic food suppliers throughout Australia we are able to serve organic food on most of our tours. Apart from being good for you, organic food is also good for the environment.