About Us > Why Choose Us

WHY CHOOSE US

Exclusive and Personal

We’re not a normal tour operator; we are a network of ethnographic and nature specialists and adventurers. Our specialisation – original journeys focused on nature and culture, or active learning, mostly set in natural surroundings or pockets of intact culture – means that we are always going to remain a niche company. We’re not interested in taking you to places or leading you to partake in experiences that you can do by yourself. With us, in most cases you travel to locations and do things that are hard to organise by yourself – this is why you need us. We’ll also take you to places that we feel passionate about, not just about anywhere we can find a tour. In keeping with this vision, we operate in the region we know well, our backyard really – the places where we live and where we constantly travel. There are many tour operators who cover the same geographical area, but they simply take you to the obvious and touristy and noisy places that everyone else goes to. This is one of our main difference: we will lead you on journeys of discovery by visiting destinations that are similar in character to the famous attractions but more rewarding in every sense. We do travel to renowned places sometimes, but then we go into the back regions of these famous attractions; we explore the areas others overlook, or do activities that few others do. This is our speciality and promise. 

Web of Local Experts

Pepper Mountains tours are run by a stable of freelancers who are travel experts in their area at an individual level. At the central station we oversee this network of local partners – which include tour operators and local outdoor fiends – that share our passions and sensibilities; we choose partners carefully, the tour itineraries as well as the delivery of the service is at all times supervised by headquarters. Local partners do have an element of independence to allow their personal style to shine through, but they have to adhere to the values that define the company and sets it apart from other tour operators. This gives you the best of both worlds: we bring in the overall expertise and guidance and sophistication in travel design, and then work with local experts in each destination as part of the team. This ensures you would be travelling with people who are spiritually connected with the places you will visit, and and you will get to feel and touch the local flavours. This is different from many other tour operators who use tour leaders that hop around the world doing different tours; our tour leaders are individuals that distinguish themselves in the areas where they work – they are eminent experts about nature, culture, or activities included in the itineraries – and they also live in the places where they lead tours.

Small and Intimate

Given our specialities, and the way we work as travel consultants engaged by clients, we understand that there is only a niche market for this kind of travel yet. Most of our private groups fit in a seven-seat vehicle, including the crew, and our aim is to treat you less as clients and more as friends, and hence create an atmosphere conducive to camaraderie. We’re not interested in mass travel; we’re interested in creating travel experience that are intimate and meaningful. We also don’t sell our tours through general travel agents. That would detract from our stance of putting forth the kind of personal and special travels we do; we feel that travel agents would be unable to match the right travellers with our type of journeys. Hence we only market our services directly ourselves. 

Personalised Flexibility

As part of our focus on being at your service as specialists consultants engaged by you, tours are conducted in a spirit personalised flexibility. On a practical level this means that, for example, restaurants are not booked in advance, but chosen along the way depending on the groups’ preferences, so that we can match the clients to the kind of food they would like to try or the kind of pungency they can tolerate. The same applies for virtually everything else; if we find, for example, that a group of travellers is finding our hikes a trifle hard, we discuss altering the trekking routes to make them shorter or easier. Such spirit of flexibility and collaboration applies to everything else. We also carry sufficient delicacy local foodstuffs with us in the vehicle; this is free, something to snack on when driving from one location to the next. We work in this manner because we want to make travelling a transformative and learning experience, and let you learn at your pace. 

Reasonable Prices

For the kind of service we offer, and the kind of authentic destinations where we go, our prices are remarkably low by international standards. However, we do face the vagaries of operating in out-of-the-way places. One of the quirks of travel is that the further one travels from cities and civilisation, and the further one travels from the famous tourist sights, the larger the logistical expenses and the local expenses. In remote areas, anything imported – like fuel, food, and so on – is more expensive due to the transport cost of having things trucked in (or flown in) as well as the small economies of scales. But for the places you will get to know, the new knowledge you will gain, and the experience you will carry with you for the rest of your life, you would be paying modestly.

Environmental Conscience

We’re passionate about nature conservation, and we ensure that our tours are exemplary in environmental sensitivity. In a larger way, by organising tours to wilderness areas at the edge of tourism circuits and in places where culture survives intact, we hope to set a positive example and inspire others to emulate our type of meaningful tourism. Many of the places we visit are at the vanguard of eco-tourism, and we hope to strengthen the fledgling tourism industries so that local inhabitants – and government planners – would have an economic incentive in preserving wilderness and preserving local cultures. We are proud that local people or farmers gain an extra stream of income from our operations. It gives them some financial comfort, psychological fortitude, and pride in their culture. And we treat them with respect: we don’t want tourists to intrude into their personal space and objectify their frailty or poverty as ‘exotic subjects’ to take pictures of. 

Transparent Prices

In our signature tours – what we call Special Interest Private Tours – you get an itemised list of expenses (vehicle, accommodation, local guides, administrative fee, and so on). In other words, you pay what you get at every stage of the way – and what you pay for what is wholly transparent, because it’s all itemised and we make payments on your behalf as we travel along (you can even get receipts from hotels and other local service points in each case). If you like, you can even pay third-party services directly yourself. There is no hidden profit incorporated in our prices: you only pay us a consultancy fee, which is itemised in your bill together with all other individual expenses. To learn more about how we work in this manner, click on Special Interest Private Tours.

Larger Picture

There’s more to the places where we go than what’s apparent at first glance. We deal with local people – not simply local colour that makes good pictures – and we engage these local people not only to give us a service, but in a spirit of mutual learning and benefits. We’re also passionate about food: we believe that one of the highlights of travel in Asia – and an essential manifestation of Asian cultures – is the cuisine. The same applies to everything else: our passionate interest in the milieus where we work is infectious.