Who and What is this?

My name is Mena, and I am the CEO and founder of Travelling Herbivore. I started the company in 2018 after being a tour leader for big travel companies for 12 years. 
I took people from Mexico City to Panama overland, did the whole of the Southern Cone in South America, worked in the Caucasus, and many other places. After such a long time in the travel industry, I decided to part ways with my employers because I disliked where tourist money was going, how we were forced to work with tour operators, hotels and providers that had no ethics towards their employees and how us, as boots on the ground, had absolutely no say in where to take our guests, because there was always the big, looming corporation forcing us to take people to completely unethical places. It angered me how, even against my will, I was coerced into contributing to unethical and unsustainable practices in the tourism industry. I also hated how vegan or vegetarian passengers always had the shittiest food, while omnivores were having a feast. These big travel companies will have you believe they are focused on sustainability and fair practices, even some of them calling themselves "B Corporations", but the truth is FAR from what you get told. After suffering episodes of sexual harassment on a tour, and my employers doing absolutely nothing to back me up, I decided to quit and form my own experiment: Travelling Herbivore.

In all honesty, you could say the company was born out of spite: I was angry, frustrated, fed up with the hypocrisy of these so-called "responsible" corporations and, in general, the way tourism extracts resources from locals while giving back very little. I found it absolutely repugnant that the people who work in tourism sectors like hotels, boats, restaurants, and archaeological sites would never be able to enjoy the tours they run because their salaries are so low that they could never afford a holiday themselves. How is this possible, and how did it get this bad? Furthermore, I was furious at the lack of effort tour operators made to accomodate vegan and vegetarian travelers. As a strict vegetarian at the time, I was livid at how easy, in reality, it was to provide authentic, vegan & vegetarian food in most destinations, but people were just lazy.

I promised myself I would never be part of such a horrible sector ever again, and I would do everything in my power to change how we experience travel. I decided to start a 100% vegan and vegetarian tour company, with a total focus on horizontal practices, community empowerment, and fair wages.
We do not, ever, ever ask for discounts from ANY of our vendors, local guides, or partners. We believe that everyone should get a fair wage, and our price structure reflects this. We do not engage in any activity with domesticated animals, and we are committed to conservation and to wildlife staying WILD. We do not harrass local fauna, tread on territories where we are not welcome, nor bargain with local shops. Tourism should be a source of empowerment and growth, not extraction, displacement, and destruction.

Travel can be a force of good if done right.