Four Directions

Overview

Description

Four Directions arranges historic-cultural and natural tours in the Maya world - Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. The company was founded in 1996 to offer visitors the opportunity to learn about and experience the Maya culture, providing first-class, efficient, and sustainable tourism services that aim to include the communities and protect the environment.

Making a Difference

At Four Directions, all staff members are aware that the main environmental problem in the countries where we work is the high level of poverty. Poverty destroys forests when landless families invade protected areas to seek land for subsistence agriculture. Poverty also threatens endangered species populations when a family lives by selling a parrot or sea turtle eggs. It also causes contamination, as efficient waste management is a lower priority than the immediate need to put food on the table today.

Four Directions contributes to the protection of biodiversity by combating poverty, creating jobs, using local services that are preferably communal in nature, and more. We aim to operate under the principles of sustainability, actively promote co-existence and experience exchanges with local communities, support the conservation of our natural resources, and respect people’s cultural identity. We also aim to support the preservation of the natural, cultural, and intangible heritage of the Mesoamerican peoples.

Four Directions is a member of Tour Operators Promoting Sustainability (TOPS), a specialized global platform of tour operators dedicated to promoting and supporting sustainable tourism in their respective markets.

Four Directions participates in the Pack for a Purpose program, in which guests can bring school supplies, medical supplies, and other small items from home to donate to the local community. Guests simply drop off their donation with our staff, and we will deliver it for them.

Rates

Our prices are competitive. Our income also benefits the tour guides and the local communities we visit, as we hire their services for our tours.

Getting There

Nearest international airport: Guatemala (GUA)

Additional Information

Additional Web sites

• www.visitguatemala.com/web/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=50&Itemid=57 (available in English and Spanish). A list of tour operators in Guatemala.
• www.comiturs.com/Portal/Home.aspx?secid=1623 (available in Spanish). A directory of sustainable tourism businesses on Guatemala's Sustainable Tourism Commission Web site.
• thefrogblog.org.uk/2010/08/20/sustainable-tourism-in-the-maya-world/ (available in English). An article about Four Directions on the Rainforest Alliance's Frog Blog.

Date This Information Was Provided

November 2010.

Photos courtesy of Four Directions, Guatemala, for SustainableTrip.org.