Hike, Canyon and Whale Watch in the Azores

You'll stay in a twin-share room at the Terra Nostra Garden Hotel, considered one of the best hotels in the Azores. The hotel is adjacent to the Terra Nostra Botanical Park, complete with a geo-thermal lake and guests are free to wander the grounds. The hotel has a wellness spa with indoor and outdoor pools, perfect for winding down at the end of each day.

On most departures, you'll stay in a twin-share room at the Hotel do Colégio, a boutique hotel set in a 19th century manor house. The hotel has a highly regarded restaurant, an outdoor swimming pool and spacious, quiet guest rooms. It's also perfectly located in the historic centre of Ponta Delgada.

Departures starting on 22 July, 23 September and 7 October 2023 will be based at Grand Hotel Açores Atlantico, close to the historic centre and overlooking the marina. It has a heated indoor pool and is just a few minutes' walk to two bathing areas.

For solo travellers looking for their own space, an optional private room can be booked for an extra charge. Your host can also help book additional nights' accommodation before/after the tour in Furnas or Ponta Delgada. Please request these at the time of booking.

Optional extras are subject to availability and prices for both the solo room upgrade and additional nights vary significantly throughout the season (and depending on which hotel you're based at in Ponte Delgada) - the prices shown under Optional Extras are Low Season 'From' prices but High Season rates (and stays at Grand Hotel Açores Atlantico) will be much higher.

We partner with the World Land Trust to ensure this trip achieves Net-Zero emissions. We also support their Buy an Acre programme, helping local communities to buy and protect natural habitats in perpetuity.

What's the number?
It works out on average at 217kg of CO2 emissions per person, including all local transport, accommodation, food, activities, guides, staff and office operations.

The only thing it doesn’t include right now is flights and travel to the destination. We do make an overall estimate across all our customers separately, but as we don’t book flights, have customers from all corners of the world, and no way of reliably knowing their travel plans, we simply can’t include an individual number in the figure on display here. We’ve got a goal to fix that, so that when you book, there is a way to measure and mitigate the carbon emitted by your flight too.

But what does the number mean?
Yep, hard to picture eh? To give you an idea:

• Driving 1000miles/1609km would be approx. 281kg of CO2 in an average car (or 140.5kg per person if there was 2 of you in it).
• A return economy class flight London - New York would be approx. 1,619kg (1.66 tonnes) per person.
• 10 trees in a temperate forest are estimated to remove approx. 250kg of CO2 from the air in a period of 5-10 years.

What are we doing about it?
Our trips are relatively low-carbon by design, and we're working with all our hosts to develop long term carbon reduction plans. We partner with the World Land Trust to ensure this trip achieves Net-Zero emissions. We also support their Buy an Acre programme, helping local communities to buy and protect natural habitats in perpetuity, ensuring the protection of the reserve and its wildlife.

Want to know more?
Amazingly, no international travel company has ever publicly published their carbon measurements before, as far as we know. We believe that must change, quickly. So we’re openly sharing the method we used in the hope that other companies will be able to more easily follow suit and build on what we've done so far. You'll find it all here.