Much Better Adventures Protects Wild Places, One Adventure at a Time
Photo: Much Better Adventures
Some of the best trips don’t just take you somewhere new, they leave you feeling a little more alive.
A long climb that ends with a view you earned. A campfire with strangers who become friends by night two. A morning so quiet the only sound is your paddle. Active outdoor adventure taps into something a lot of us are quietly craving: places, people and stillness no feed can give you.
And done right, this kind of travel doesn’t have to be a tradeoff between the experience and the places you fall in love with. The best operators leave the traveler, the local communities and the wild places themselves all a little better off.
Much Better Adventures is built around exactly that idea. They’re on a mission to build the world’s most positive impact travel company, dedicated to protecting wild places one adventure at a time. And that’s why they are a Seeing Green Solutionist of the Day.
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Trips designed to get you into the wild
Photo: Much Better Adventures
What that looks like in practice: 250-plus small-group active trips across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, all built on a “high adventure, low impact” philosophy. Think trekking ancient Bedouin trails in Egypt, kayaking among the icebergs of Greenland’s fjords, biking through remote landscapes or chasing the Northern Lights. There’s also surfing, canyoning, rock climbing, wild swimming and yes, dog sledding, often combined into multi-activity itineraries that pack a lot into a single trip.
Every adventure is led by certified local guides who know the terrain inside and out, unlocking moments most travelers wouldn’t find on their own. The trips draw a like-minded crowd too: about 75% join solo, most are in their 30s to 50s and 95% rate the group dynamic five stars.
Photo: Much Better Adventures
A model that puts more into local communities
What really sets them apart is how those trips are built. Much Better Adventures works directly with independent, locally owned operators in each destination, cutting out the middlemen and markups that traditional tourism layers on. The result is striking: for every $100 a guest spends, $76 on average goes into the local economy. According to research from the United Nations Environment Programme, that figure can be as low as $5 for typical mass tourism. So a trip that already feels meaningful is also doing real economic work in the very communities you came to see.
A commitment that goes beyond the trip
Photo: Much Better Adventures
They take climate and conservation just as seriously. Every trip carries a published carbon footprint label so you can see the impact before you book. Five percent of revenue, not profit, goes into a fund that primarily supports World Land Trust’s Buy an Acre program, helping local communities purchase and permanently protect natural habitats. Much Better Adventures also co-founded Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency in 2020 and helped shape the Glasgow Declaration at COP26, rallying global tourism leaders around a commitment to cut carbon emissions in half over the next decade.
Why it matters
Travel is one of those areas where the choice of operator quietly shapes the impact of the entire trip. Choosing one that puts more of your spend into local communities, publishes its carbon footprint and actively funds conservation isn’t a sacrifice. It’s a better trip. The places get supported, the wildlife gets protected and you come home with stories worth telling.
And that’s what makes Much Better Adventures a Seeing Green Solutionist of the Day.