Lithuania to Poland self guided cycling tour

Planet

This is a biking tour so the majority of time is spent either on two wheels or two feet helping to keep the emissions produced on the trip down. We also eat locally produced wherever possible to keep food miles in check.

Sourcing locally grown or produced food (with lower food miles) - this tour is organised in countries which produce a lot of local food products (Lithuania, Poland), and for dinners we always choose menus including more locally grown products and traditional dishes.

Offering vegetarian/plant-based and low dairy foods (which reduce CO2 emissions). We always offer for dinners a vegetarian menu as an option. Tourists should inform us in advance about this choice that we could inform hotels and restaurants (in order not to waste food products if informed too late);

Reducing energy use in our office which is now established in energy efficient building: heating in winter is controlled depending to weather conditions; in summer we don't use air conditioning - instead we use horizontal blinds to close windows from outside; low energy bulbs, etc

Hiring local staff and city guides to reduce international travel - For this tour we employ local city guides.

We aim to minimise water and atmospheric pollution from any specific tourism development we use.

Tourists travel by bus or minibus, while rental bikes are transported in trailer (not by separated motorised vehicle). To decrease the air pollution, we choose to work with transport companies offering newer, energy-efficient vehicles.

Our travel routes are designed in the way that a support vehicle is used in the most economical way (following tourists from the back in order there was no need to make driving back to pick up tourists who are tired) and we try to avoid using transport when it is possible, for example, during sightseeing tours in big cities like Warsaw people go walking or cycling;

Reducing waste: We aim to achieve zero litter policies everywhere. Therefore we encourage travellers to avoid disposable plastic and to recycle.

We recommend going off the beaten track, getting extraordinary travel experiences in the pristine nature and leaving it untouched afterwards.

Recycling and energy saving in the office: We run our head office in a responsible manner by using fair-trade products, monitoring, and where possible reducing, our energy usage, as well as recycling. We are strict about recycling in our office and garages. We have installed special garbage bins to sort out plastic, paper, glass/plastic bottles (deposit), metal and rubber tires. We challenge our staff old habits and encourage them to recycle printer cartridges and reduce printing (and reusing one-side used paper) and minimize all forms of waste. For example, our staff members are encouraged to drink locally collected herb teas and coffee from reusable cups instead of using plastic cups, and use water from big bottles refilled by a local company instead of buying small plastic bottles.

People

For this tour we employ local city guides in Vilnius and Warsaw - they live and know the best her/his own city and the country, also we use local drivers for transportation along the route from Vilnius to Warsaw.

On self-/half-guided tours we provide a list of recommended local museums and galleries of local handicrafts with preference to small family owned places or with strong emphasis to local production, for example, etnographic museum in Marcinkonys, Dzukija National Park, etc.
we also promore cultural attractions along the route where is a concentration of local handicrafts, for example, Trakai Insular Castle, Grutas park of Soviet Sculptures near Druskininkai Resort, Wigry Monastery in Poland, etc.

On this tour we prefer accommodating (and ordering catering) our guests at local hotels rather than in international chain hotels. For example: REGINA Hotel in Druskininkai (Lithuania), NAD WIGRAMI Hotel in Wigry National park and BARTLOWZINA in Biebrza National Park (Poland) and ect.