Eco-adventures put you in nature with native tour guides

Forget the package tour. Eco-adventures get you up close and personal with stunning landscapes and amazing people.

Andrew Tolve | April 2009 issue

Mountain-biking down the Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador.

Photo: Russell Monk/Masterfile

I’m standing up to my knees in water on the side of an overgrown mountain in the rural north of Ecuador. My guide, an indigenous woman named Maria Theresa Oloando, carries a machete in her right hand and wears knee-high rain boots, a provision I envy as the chilly river water soaks through my tennis shoes and jeans. We’re headed to the Siete Cascadas, a convergence of seven waterfalls locked away deep in this mountain forest.

Before we forge on, Oloando points her machete at several plants and explains how locals make use of them—this one for tea, that one to treat a stomach ache or indigestion. Back on the path, she picks a berry that, when mashed, soothes a rash, and a leaf that, when tucked between the forehead and the brim of a cap, relieves a headache. Fighting back bugs, I scribble notes in my damp and muddied journal.

This is day two of my five-day eco-adventure around Ecuador. Yesterday I rafted down the Rio Taochi. In the days to come, I’ll ride a horse up a mountain pass and mountain bike down an active volcano. If all goes according to plan, I’ll get more than my fair share of adrenaline spikes and survive to tell the tale. I’ll also get an unrivaled, hands-on education, like the sort Oloando is keen on delivering with machete in hand.

Eco-adventures like mine—also called adventure holidays, adventure ecotourism or experiential travel—are novel for this very reason: Wherein typical adventure travel gets you out and physically engaged with your surroundings, eco-adventure teaches you about those surroundings and the communities that inhabit them. It’s a thrillseeker’s getaway with a twist. As Carolyn Wild, a tourism development consultant and board member of The International Ecotourism Society, puts it, “When it comes to eco-adventure, if you didn’t learn you wanted to protect the environment you got your adrenaline rush in, you didn’t score.”

There’s an eco-adventure for every level of risk tolerance. Some companies take travelers to the Great Barrier Reef to snorkel among the world’s largest living organisms, others journey to Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro for a trek through caves once populated by Chaga warriors. Outdoor Adventure River Specialists (O.A.R.S.), one of the oldest adventure ecotourism companies in the U.S., organizes whitewater rafting, sea kayaking and hiking trips in North America. Intrepid Travel, based in Australia, runs polar expeditions, treks in Africa and backpacking excursions throughout Asia to foster cultural and environmental awareness.

Rafting on the Rio Taochi.

Photo: Alexandra Hartman

O.A.R.S. was founded in 1969, Intrepid Travel two decades later. Over the past few years, however, the sector has flourished. Growing environmental concern coupled with the Internet has made adventure ecotourism a global offering. Hop online and you’ll find both large tourism agencies and small rural providers catering to the concept. Ed Rymut, founder of Eco-Adventure International, is surprised how quickly the trend has proliferated. “I think a lot of it has to do with environmental awareness, a lot of it with baby boomers getting tired of these cruises to the Caribbean. They’re looking for new, more adventurous things to do. You have to be careful about just how adventurous they mean, though. I make a habit of mentioning that on some trips, the toilet is the third bush to the left. If clients start backing off, I know how to structure their program.”

Eco-Adventure International is based in Wisconsin and works mostly on a wholesale basis; travel agents approach Rymut, who makes arrangements for their clients in one of more than 50 countries. International Student Volunteers (ISV) is another example of how eco-adventure has branched out in recent years. The non-profit organizes volunteer projects in places like New Zealand, South Africa, Thailand and Ecuador. Programs generally cost $3,100 for a month and combine a two-week volunteer project with a two-week eco-adventure.

“The idea of eco-adventure is an old school philosophy,” says Mario Molina, ISV’s program director for Ecuador. “It’s basically that you internalize that which you experience. If you’re told about a glacier in a classroom, you conceptually understand it. But if you stand on that glacier and take a look at a valley and feel ice under your feet, you’re going to internalize so much more—hopefully to the point that you’ll feel a personal loss if that glacier is gone in five years.”

The glacier of which Molina speaks is the white cap of Cotopaxi Volcano, one of two surviving equatorial glaciers in the world. On ISV’s Ecuador eco-adventure, students climb to 16,000 feet, where they learn about tropical glaciers, the impact of climate change on water resources and the rate of glacial recession. “We try to teach our students what to look at but to draw their own conclusions,” Molina says.

Robbin Yager, founder of Morocco Explored, which designs custom trips around Morocco, agrees that allowing clients to draw their own conclusions is key to an eco-adventure’s success. “To me, eco-adventure means bringing people to the experience of environment and culture with sensitivity and openness,” she says. “You can’t package it too much. You have to allow what’s actually out there to be part of a traveler’s experience without interfering with it or controlling it.”

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