Be Aware

Speciality of ecotours

Ecotourist spends most of time outdoors, mainly in remote areas with wild untouched nature and low density of population. Such a lifestyle might be outside your everyday experience. You should come prepared to cope with unusual situations and unpredictable events as and when they occur. We always do our best to follow the itinerary, but circumstances beyond our control (weather conditions mostly) may force us to make adjustments to the arrangements.

Weather and wear

Weather is the imperative factor for some regions and tours. It may force us to delays with helicopter flights or to other changes in our itinerary. From the other hand, you should prepare yourself for travelling with any weather and have proper clothes and shoes. Recommendations about wear depend on season and a kind of a trip. They are given in trip files for concrete tours.

Accommodation

In cities and settlements we usually use twin-bedded rooms in hotels or pensions. In some tours you can pay a supplement and pre-book a single room. We try to do our best, but in some places available accommodation does not match up to ‘International’ standards yet. (For example, hot water may be irregular, facilities may be shared etc.). Out of populated localities we spend nights in 2-person tents or in simple lodges and cabins. You need to have a sleeping bag for such an accommodation. All necessary camping equipment and sleeping mats are provided.

Meals

When staying in a city hotel breakfast only is included as a rule. It leaves you free to sample the local cuisine for yourself. In other cases we provide full board. We adhere European and Russian cuisine, but we also try to acquaint you with local cuisine whenever possible. In some extreme trekking or ascending meals may be rather basic in order to make your rucksack easier or to save time with cooking. We endeavour to cater vegetarians in field conditions, but please let us know beforehand about such a want.

Transport

As we deal with remote corners of our planet, we can hardly find many good highways or railways there. So our usual means of transportation are off-road expedition vehicles such as 6WD buses and 4WD jeeps. Launches, helicopters and light airplanes are also used in some cases. Such a transportation may seem not too comfortable compared to “International” standards, but it lets us reach the most beautiful and untouched areas.

Fitness

We try to offer suitable trips to tourists with any grade of fitness. Discovery trips are not linked inseparably with sufficient physical activity and are acceptable for any healthy person. Adventure trips imply some portion of physical activity such as hiking, rafting, skiing etc. But it usually takes not more than 3-4 hours daily and is well within the capability of any healthy individual leading a normal active life. Only extreme trips may demand fitness above an average level, and our advice is to study a description of a concrete extreme tour carefully and to estimate your physical and technical possibilities critically. In the whole, an open mind and curiosity for people and places seems more important than high grade of physical fitness.