Southern
Crossings
Tours and
Travel
Consultants and
participants in the
TV Series
Are
We There Yet?
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We had a great trip and hope all is well with each of you. Thanks again for your help in planning an incredible trip to Peru that we will never forget! We enjoyed meeting you and spending time with you while on our vacation. Take care!
-Cindy Simonian and friends, USA, Highlands Express June 2006
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travelers wrote...
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Rio Carnival!
Our Travel
Philosophy
There are many ways to travel. Some people pile on to a big, air-conditioned bus with forty other tourists; others throw their rucksack over their shoulders and set off into the sunset all by themselves. We've been in the business of traveling for a while now and feel like we do it just right. There are four cornerstones to our travel philosophy: avoiding large-group travel, traveling safely, having a positive impact on the environment and the cultures we visit, and making a constant and concerted effort to give back to the local communities.
On a Southern Crossings trip, you will not feel like an anonymous tourist being piled onto the bus and herded relentlessly from destination to destination. Our tours are for individuals, friends, families and small groups, and we take pride in providing a personal and unique experience. This means we make a point of having dinner with all of our clients, helping you out with any particular interests or shopping items while you're here, and having a 24-hour local phone number for any questions you might have.
There are several ways we try to make your trip as safe as possible. On all of our tours, our guides are completely bilingual and have all lived and traveled extensively in the regions in which they work. And we utilize the most experienced and reputable crews for all of our adventure activities. Our adventure sport teams have a combined 30 years of experience and excellent safety records. Finally, we avoid using bus companies and airlines that have poor safety records or that we consider to be less reliable, even when their fares are considerably cheaper.
What's positive-impact tourism? A lot of things, both big and small, like using a trekking staff that packs out all of its garbage, or encouraging our passengers not to hand out money or candy to the kids we encounter along the way (we encourage postcards from home, school supplies or Polaroid pictures instead). We recognize that any form of tourism has an impact on its destination, but we try to make ours as positive as possible.
Finally, we truly believe in giving back to the communities we visit, and we do it in a unique way that we think you'll really like. Many tour companies pledge to give a certain amount of sales to certain organizations, but you as customers never actually see this happening. On a Southern Crossings trip, you do! As a matter of fact, you give it yourself. One percent of our trip price goes to a children's charity which you can visit on your trip. (If you don't have time to stop by, we still give the money...) So if your trip costs $2000, we'll give $20 of that to the charity when we visit. This way, you're not just passing through, you're actually making a difference!