French Alps family holiday for mixed ages

Planet

The principles of our organization are founded on sustainability, personal growth and community. Our holidays seems to magnetically draw like minded people with an interest in these things so there is always a friendly and supportive eco-friendly atmosphere here.

We work with Respect the Mountain, a charity that raises awareness about keeping our mountains clean. We work with them to try to coordinate our week to fit in with a Respect the Mountain Day which involves us all collecting rubbish and then having a big bbq by the lake and going white water rafting in the afternoon.

We talk about 'no impact' travel in the outdoors. We encourage kids to take responsibility, in a fun way, for themselves, for the people around them and for nature. They take turns looking after the soft drinks (juices and water) and helping with dinner service and reading the evening 'reading'.

Our food is largely organic, local and vegetarian. Our accommodation is a well insulated renovated farm. We recycle and compost.

People

We encourage our guests to hire equipment, for example mountain bikes, from local shops, and to use local guides to try out rock climbing, parapenting or white water rafting. We also encourage everyone to experience some of the local restaurants and the village's wonderful farmers market on Wednesday. We give our chef 2 evenings off so that guests can try out some of the local restaurants. There is even a yurt restaurant and a restaurant in a working farm.

We like our guests to explore the local culture, flora and fauna. We provide maps and advice about the area. We stress no impact travel.

We try to minimise the impact of travel to the Alps. When we have families coming on trips we encourage full car travel and when we have solo guests on our yoga trips we organise group transfers and ensure we are walking distance to most of the activities.

Your host has lived in Samoens for 4 years, speaks fluent French and knows the community and culture well. She often takes the children to one of the few remaining subsistence farms to buy raw milk in the mornings.

Our trips are more than just a holiday. We would like these trips to have a really positive lasting impact on our young guests and to encourage them to be culturally and environmentally conscious.