This is Range

Exploring the outdoors when we travel is a form of consumption. If we care about shopping for organic food and Fair Trade goods, we can also do better when we adventure outside. This time, however, I’m not talking about environmental or “eco” tourism. I’m talking about people, in terms of direct impact on local communities due to how we explore, where we stay and which guides we hire.

Sapa O’Chau, a social enterprise and guiding company in northwestern Vietnam’s Sapa region, is trailblazing the future of indigenous-owned, “conscientious tourism” in the outdoors. Surrounded by rice terraces and mountain villages, Sapa is a popular base for trekking in Vietnam. But as tourism in Sapa rises, the region’s ethnic minorities are being left behind. That’s why a local woman named Shu Tan built Sapa O’Chau. She wanted Sapa’s indigenous communities to learn English, lead treks and take control of their economy. Shu is a member of Sapa’s Black Hmong minority and grew up in poverty, working from childhood as a handicraft street vendor. She founded Sapa O’Chau as a community-based tourism initiative, combining outdoor adventures for travelers with education and cultural preservation for locals. The company operates as a nonprofit, boasting 30 guides, 15 homestays, and 80-plus students per session at its fully-funded schools. Today, Sapa O’Chau is still the only tour company in Sapa that is fully owned and operated by local ethnic groups.

Overall, Shu just wants us to be discerning when we travel for outdoor adventure. Guiding companies who use words like “sustainable” and “local” to represent themselves are often as meaningful as an “all natural” label on a bag of chips. The conscientious traveler takes time to find outdoor experiences that benefit the communities in which they are based. And while you could explore alone in these environments, Shu maintains that solely experiencing adrenaline or natural beauty is half the story. There are cultures alive in these wild places, and part of enjoying and preserving the outdoors means learning from locals who are the stewards of the areas we love to trek, climb, kayak and ski. As Shu puts it, “When you travel you must ask yourself, ‛Do I want to trek the mountains, but see locals like a zoo? Or do I want to learn from the inside?’”

For Shu, the future of outdoor exploration is finding an indigenous social enterprise to support while you travel. Her advice? “Trust the local people. We are always there.”