Responsibility to Community
Our Approach to Social & Environmental Responsibility
Uniquely Different. Entirely Local First.
From the very onset, sustainable and responsible travel has been at the crux of what we do and why we do it. Our Co-founder, Katalina Mayorga, took her BA in International Studies and Human Rights, MA in Global Environmental Policy, and her personal passion for travel and big ideas to create El Camino Travel. Today, it’s our mission to craft high-quality and highly immersive travel experiences that add, not detract, from the local environment, communities, culture, and innovation shaping the places we visit.
This is How the Magic Happens
At El Camino Travel, we’re big fans of a win-win-win for all involved. Besides focusing all of our trips and experiences around emerging destinations where your tourism dollars can have a greater impact, we design every single one of our itineraries around these three core principles.
Preserving Culture Heritage
If you’ve read our Trip Philosophy, you'll know that our brand of travel is living in the destination right now. Without changing a thing, we aim to experience life as it is lived in the destination, through the people, the ongoing local traditions, and the authentic way that life unfolds day by day. In other words, we don't just visit and observe a place, we help travelers immerse themselves in it from multiple angles and through diverse lenses. We explore with respect and reverence for age-old tradition and contribute to local efforts to preserve traditional heritage. On every trip, we go out of our way to visit a different community or a different artisan so as to consciously spread the tourism wealth and to avoid contributing to any over-tourism or dilution of the cultural landscape in any one spot.
Protecting the Planet
As a brand and as human beings, protecting the planet is never not on our mind. All of our trips undergo frequent re-assessments to ensure they stand up to GSTC Criteria for sustainable tourism. We’ve built in the infrastructure on every trip to make it easy for travelers to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and we go the extra mile to ensure that all of our suppliers and guides are as environmentally conscious as we are. Currently, El Camino Travel has our nose to the grindstone in search of an effective and fully transparent carbon offset solution, one that goes far beyond simply buying or planting trees. Stay tuned!
Supporting Local Communities
Curating unique and immersive local experiences has always been our forte and we directly attribute it to our strong relationships and collaborative approach with local social leaders, creatives, and budding entrepreneurs in every destination we explore. It makes the trip designing process easy as we pick and choose the perfect blend of experiences that both match your interests as a traveler and simultaneously support and spotlight some amazing and impactful community initiatives. It’s these relationships that elevate your trip from just an experience to a fun and meaningful contribution to local and under-the-radar talent in the destination.
Who We Champion
Take a peek at a few of the hand-picked local creatives and projects we champion in several of the destinations we offer.
1. Breaking Borders (Bogotá, Colombia)
Breaking Borders is a tourism initiative that gives travelers the unique experience of visiting Barrio Egipto, formerly one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Bogotá. Visitors are given tours through the neighborhood by locals who were born and raised there, many of whom are former gang members.
2. Environmental Research Institute Charlotteville (Tobago)
Our Trinidad & Tobago trips typically include a visit to the Environmental Research Institute Charlotteville Tobago (ERIC) to learn firsthand about their initiatives in safeguarding the ecosystems and communities in Tobago and how they’re actively protecting the island’s coral reef system.
3. La Sierra Artist Residency (Santa Marta, Colombia)
La Sierra Artist Residency is a foundation located in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Working in the region’s rural communities, they focus their impact around environmental education for kids through art. Many of our travelers have helped work on several projects with them, including painting eco-murals, participating in beach clean-ups, teaching yoga, art, and recycling workshops, and donating school supplies.