Egypt and Jordan tailor made tour

Planet

JORDAN ENVIRONMENT
We are committed to making sure that our tours benefit the country you are visiting and have minimal impact on the environment as you travel.

Our ground agents work closely with a non-government organisation called RSCN – Jordan's Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature. They are devoted to the protection and care of Jordan’s flora, fauna and natural landscapes. Through their close work with local communities, RSCN creates handicraft enterprises and eco-tourism opportunities to improve the livelihoods of the communities but also to encourage their education in protecting the area they live in. The production of these job opportunities helps to limit the use of land for harmful practices like hunting and unrestricted grazing. This encourages the preservation of Jordan’s natural resources while benefitting the people who live there.

This historical tour spends several days in Wadi Rum Desert, the RSCN also operates a handicraft centre and locally produced goods as well as organically grown herbs and preserves in their local shop. In an effort to preserve its pristine wilderness, there are no hotels in Wadi Rum itself but many local Bedouins offer tourists an overnight stay in their tents in the middle of the desert. Relatively few of Jordan's Bedouin still follow the ways of their ancestors. Most have settled in cities and towns and are found in every walk of life. Yet low-slung black tents and pack camels have not vanished from the landscape, and many travellers find a shared meal or coffee with traditional desert Bedouin to be their most memorable experience. Naturalists will be drawn to the desert in springtime, when rains bring the greening of the hills and an explosion of hundreds of species of wild flowers. Red anemones, poppies and the striking Black Iris, Jordan's national flower, grow at will by the roadside and in more quiet reaches.

Your stay in a genuine camp in the desert with its traditional food, tented accommodation and entertainment affords you a glimpse of desert life, while helping to preserve this important area. You can also hire a local Bedouin guide who will offer you either a 4WD vehicle, or for the more adventurous a camel ride, to explore the area.


EGYPT
ENVIRONMENT
Our partners in Egypt have a long history of identifying and working to provide sustainable initiatives and are committed to sustainable employment.
They select programs that conform to sustainability in tourism to ensure our commitment of Travelife certification; and simultaneously support the community to elevate the standard of living. Such programs aim to help marginalized underprivileged people, like the garbage collectors, to become an important productive unit in their community by showcasing their self-made products in specially arranged outlets for sale. We invite customers to visit these places and buy some products as part of their tour. They appreciate the efforts and the high quality outcomes and usually like to help with donation
We are a leader in environmental stewardship by adopting sustainable practices with our clients, such as: • Encouraging walking tours and felucca rides. • Offering hotels and resorts that follow sustainability programs. • Omitting places and souvenir shops who commit animal cruelty acts from our tours. • Promoting authentic places, like the Nubian Village and Hiessa, that consider the green environment by preventing pollution and reducing waste. • Donate leftover food, after groups’ dinner parties, to donors’ organizations like the Foodbank. • Encourage Incentive groups to donate used garments and old kids’ toys to charity
We use the Kempinski group who are committed to play their part in leaving the planet and society better than they found them, becoming a leader that inspires greater action through consistency, transparency and innovation.
They use modern technology to track all energy use, partnering with specialists who can guide them to be more energy efficient to help mitigate climate risk, to benefit our guests, team members and the local communities.
We support the Makhad trust whose focus has been on assisting the Bedouin people of Sinai with access to water. Due to drought, changing climate, and increased use of water from the underground aquifers, the water table has dropped throughout the region, and wells have gone dry. This is the most serious problem for any population to deal with. Every well has a ‘guardian’ family or community, but the deteriorating economic situation amongst the Bedouin people made it impossible for them to buy the resources to deepen their wells. Since 2007 The Makhad Trust has been raising funds to assist well guardians in the restoration of their wells.
Since then, 540 wells have been restored giving over 43,000 people access to water for drinking and water to grow food and crops.
As the Bedouin say ” Water is Life – Without Water We are Nothing”

People

JORDAN COMMUNITY
COMMUNITY
Our ground agent is also part of the Discovery Foundation, this pioneer of Responsible and Sustainable Tourism in Jordan strives to protect the environment and work for the benefit of local Jordanians.

Your Historical Jordan trip includes a visit to Wadi Rum. By staying in a traditional Bedouin camp in the desert, with accommodation in tents with locally produced handicrafts and materials, fresh and locally sourced food, and a fascinating glimpse into life in the desert you are contributing to the way of life here and ensuring that there are jobs in this inhospitable area. You can also hire a local Bedouin guide who can take you into the desert on foot or by camel.

All of our expert guides have been chosen carefully. Native Jordanians and for specific historical site, local experts will guide you around. Each of the eight lunches included in this tour and eaten in specifically chosen restaurants where locals choose to eat. This not only allows you to contribute to small, family run businesses it also gives you a flavour of day-to-day life in Jordan, providing valuable employment to the region and keeping the money you spend in the country which helps to maintain and develop the infrastructure.

EGYPT COMMUNITY
“Leaving no One Behind”, Egypt was successful in cutting poverty which has been rising for almost 20 years with the help of better targeted social protection programs
Our agents participate I in a fund raising project to design manufacturing machines and operational materials including manpower training to support the Recycling Machine Production Unit. The objectives of this project are to provide training and employment for marginalized youth from the garbage collecting community, and to manage the manufacturing of solid waste through environmental friendly recycling process. They are able to produce many domestic products as well as some construction materials such as sheeting, bricks and manhole covers
The Makhad Trust works to sustain the environment, lifestyle and heritage of the Bedouin tribes in the mountains and deserts of Sinai, Egypt, a region of the world where there is a powerful relationship between the environment and the spirit. In Arabic, the word ‘makhad’ means a meeting place.
They funded the construction of a Bedouin Centre for women and children in St. Katherine. The building was set up with a craft centre selling Selema’s bags, a training room providing education for the woman and an office. The success of Selema’s business has inspired other Bedouin entrepreneurs to follow her footsteps and establish similar businesses where Bedouin women make beaded bags at home.

The trust has also instigated other projects to support the Bedouin and to help them to help themselves. These include a Library for women and children to improve literacy, a Beekeeping Training Programme, a Carpentry School, a support Class for orphaned children teaching them to grow indigenous herbs, a Seed Bank, a program of Solar Pump replacements for wells, and the Provision of Drying Racks for orchard fruit.