Sustainable Travel

1. Our head office in Prince Edward Island, Canada is constructed from energy-efficient concrete forms, and we use a wood-pellet furnace for heat and hot water. We’ve built apartments above our offices for most of the family staff members, also reducing the need for daily commuting and also allowing us to (remarkably) use just one car among all family members for any transportation that can’t be managed by bicycle or on foot. Energy-saving light bulbs and LED lighting tubes also help to reduce our electric power consumption. We’ve installed the maximum allowable number of solar panels and hope local regulations one day permit us to expand to completely offset our carbon footprint with renewables.

2. We save on paper wherever possible. Our company has not published paper brochures since 2003. We use the internet for publication of all product material, allowing not only for more immediate information access for our international clients, but also greater flexibility and versatility as a company. All of our invoices are electronic, and only the most essential documents require printing by our clients.

3. The province of PEI, is Canada’s leader in recycling & composting, and we’re on board. Our company separates metal, cardboard, paper, recyclable plastic, compost and waste. Many bicycle boxes from our retail bike shop are saved for resale to travelers. Kinetic bike sculpture artist Ahmon Katz and Danny’s daughters transform some of our metal waste into art and jewelry.

4. We sell & service used equipment, as well as new. In Cuba, when we renew our fleet of rental bicycles, the old ones are often used for parts, and we also regularly make donations of old equipment to the Velodrome. We also use the tube patching service offered in Cuba. While this is not necessarily financially practical in Canada, in Cuba an inner tube can be economically repaired instead of replaced.

5. Unlike most other bicycle tour companies in Cuba, our company’s tour leaders reside in Cuba for the entire tour season. Our staff travels between Canada and Cuba just once a year, greatly reducing their carbon footprint. The other upside to this practice is that our tour leaders are also the most experienced and knowledgeable about Cuba, having thereby acquired a deep understanding of Cuban culture and structure.

6. In Cuba, our tour leaders and bicycle outfitters use their bicycles as their daily transportation.

7. As with most Cuban residences, when at home our representatives cook with propane, water is gravity-fed, and they use local farmers markets when purchasing produce, much of which is organically grown. We have a small garden project in Cuba that supplies us, our families and neighbors with a zero-km food source. In PEI Danny has a hobby garden in the Bike Shop too. Much of Cuba’s food supply is not prepackaged – recyclable bags are used on trips to the market. Whenever possible, they try to combine transportation for common tasks.

8. We thrift alot. When it comes to recycling and repurposing, Cubans are like “hold my beer” – they’ve taught us much.  It’s just another way to show your love for the planet while not totally sacrificing the consumer devils some have lurking inside. Antique, vintage, locally-made furniture and recycled art pieces can be found throughout our homes. When we don’t need something anymore but it’s still useful, we donate it or transform it.

9. In Cuba, public health advisories recommend drinking bottled or boiled water, so we can’t use tap water or public water fountains for our guests’ hydration needs. WoWCuba provides bottled water for our cycle tour participants as the accommodation installations we visit on tour can’t currently ensure a sufficient daily supply of boiled/then chilled water as a more ecological alternative to single-use plastics. Boiling water is admittedly a more practical alternative in home settings. However, we do ensure that the empty (gallon rather than single-sized) bottles are also later recycled, donated directly by our tour staff to dairy farmers for storing and transporting milk.

10. We include gratuities for many services in our group cycle tour prices and also provide information on local tipping practices as part of each cycle tour information briefing. We strongly urge our clients to be generous with tips where warranted, and to tip strictly for services provided in an attempt to discourage the development of deviant social behaviour. Besides paying living wages to our direct company employees, we also provide financial incentives to key staff in the offices of our ground handlers and service providers. We strongly believe that travel should benefit not only the visitor, but also the local population in the host destination.