Photography holiday in Picos de Europa, Spain

Planet

We only use transport where necessary, most of the time we prefer to travel on foot. Vehicles such as quad bikes and motor bikes are becoming increasingly popular in the Picos mountains, they pollute the environment with noise and fumes, destroying fragile land...we urge you to please think twice before choosing to travel in the mountains this way. We will only use local agents who do not have any involvement in providing quad biking activities, for example Alfredo Gago UIAGM guide from Guia Trek Ojedo, Cantabria who offers many exciting activities such as Canyoning, Canoeing, Rock Climbing, Mountaineering and Trekking.

All of our service suppliers are informed of our responsible travel policy which is clearly visible on our website.

Out in the field
We encourage you to travel responsibly and to consider the following guidelines:

- When out in wild places we encourage you to keep erosion to a minimum, keep to footpaths and avoid stepping on or picking native flora.
- Protect the environment – its flora, fauna and landscapes. We encourage you to use water sparingly particularly often in Spain it is a precious and expensive commodity. Additionally avoid buying plastic bottles of water and use your own metal or heavy-duty plastic bottle such as Nalgene to refil with water from a safe source, there are many Fuentes (water fountains) in the Picos.
- River water could also be drinking water, do not contaminate water supplies by washing in it. Any washing products should be phosphate free.
- Respect local customs religion and traditions. Adhere to local dress codes.
- Carry out some research about your holiday destination and being able to speak a few words of the Spanish language is always appreciated.
- Don’t take photographs of local people and places of religious significance without permission.
- Keep promises! Send copies of photos to local people if this is what you have said you will do.
- Buy local products such as food and souvenirs so that money directly benefits the community.
- Minimize pollution, and carry out all litter. We stay often in remote mountain refugios and this principle is especially important here as most provisions are carried in by horse and in rucksacks on people’s backs with maybe just one helicopter drop per season.

We recommend that you visit our links page where you will find comprehensive information on travel, health and the environmental environmental concerns, of the Picos de Europa, for example a business consortium, backed by regional government, is threatening the continued, precarious survival of the Cantabrian brown bear, already catalogued as in danger of extinction in Spain. An unsustainable project to build a ski resort in an important corridor of access for the last remaining bears in the region of the San Glorio pass in the Cordillera may still be given approval.

Wherever possible we work electronically, we are totally web based and our paper use is minimal.

People

Knowing that tourism is an important source of income for the areas that we visit, our responsible travel policy demonstrates our active commitment to sustainable and responsible tourism. Our holidays visit places that are less frequented by tourists; both our departures to the area are outside the main tourist season so our economic contribution on both counts is especially welcome.

Local providers
Our transport will be local and we always use small family run hotels, guesthouses, hostels and mountain refugios. Many of our connections with these local providers of accommodation and transport go back many years. For example Sante and Aurora own the family hotel that we use in Espinama, they grow their own vegetables which Aurora uses in her cooking for the hotel guests. A large proportion of her meat and fish is from local providers, tourism is a relatively recent development. Aurora and Sante still have deep connections with the land.

Many of our other providers are from farming families, our taxi driver’s family owns 200 cows and she knows the names of each one. The area is well known for its traditional farming methods; old meadows are scythed and livestock moved to the high pastures for summer so carrying out the age old practice of transhumance. The Picos de Europa are particularly famous in Spain for the production of many different cheeses and other dairy products, fruit trees proliferate and local shops and markets have a huge variety of local produce available. Each day we buy fresh local produce to make picnic lunches. There is always an English speaking local guide with a wealth of local knowledge leading the holiday.