Intrepid Urban Adventures is preparing to roll out a range of new tours that provide meaningful experiences for travellers who want a deeper connection with society and culture.
Named the ‘In Focus’ series, the new social enterprise tours lets holidaymakers come face-to-face with important local issues in countries such as Nepal where citizens tackle gender equality and rebuilding their lives after last year’s earthquakes.
Working with local NGOs and non-profit organisations, travellers will be exposed first-hand to social projects currently underway designed to resolve certain issues within the country.
Additionally, travellers will be able to meet people running the projects as well as the people benefiting from them.
Urban Adventures’ General Manager, Tony Carne, said the series will take travellers “far from the usual tourist route” in destinations like Nepal, India and Romania.
“The benefits of tourism don’t reach these people — and that is part of the current problem but also the opportunity.”
Tony Carne. Urban Adventures General Manager
“For the traveller to be welcomed into these places is like being at the forefront of discovery again in a world with fewer and fewer places that are truly off the beaten track.”
Initially, the series will launch with four trips including the Kolkata Solar Slum Tour – a behind the scenes look at Pollinate Energy designed to bring solar light to India’s urban poor and reduce pollution.
There’s also the Outcast Bucharest – running in partnership with Parada Foundation, which provides employment to homeless Romanians; and Sydney’s Tastes of Chinatown – where travellers can savour the neighbourhood’s colourful history through its delicious foods and real tales of migration.
Plus in Nepal travellers can take the Kathmandu cooking class which is presented in partnership with Seven Women, a social enterprise that empowers marginalised women in Nepal through literacy classes, skills training, and income generation programs.