|
The Nature and Archaeology Cycling Company
(NACC) is a small group eco-tourism organization dedicated
since 1999 to offer an alternative approach to cultural and
historical tourism to individuals, small groups and to our
network of travel partners around the world.
Founding Principles: Active Discovery instead of Passive
Tourism
The main founding principle behind NACC was to improve the
traveller’s experience by focusing on the “discovery”
instead of the “delivery” of cultural and nature
experiences. This principle was developed and tested with
the ultimate objective to ensure the maximization of a
traveller’s cultural and adventure experience. At NACC we
actually guarantee that you will “experience” those
far-reaching historical treasures, instead of just
“visiting” them.
Most cultural tours still consist nowadays in sitting on a
bus, getting off to a site, following the guide across the
site, then getting back in the bus, stopping at a large
dinning hall for a standard meal. Instead, the NACC offers
you to become an “active traveller”, moving around on a
bicycle, trekking, canoeing and having the privilege to
access those sites that anyway were not accessible by car.
Active Learning and Adventure
You will be sometimes leading the group cycling in dense
forest areas to the discovery of a lost city, canoeing
across a swamp in a bird reserve to observe rare species, or
taking your team to the hidden chapel of a cloister after
searching around the streets of an old city. Our guided
experts, all qualified in multi-sports adventures and all
selected according to their thorough training in history and
archaeology, will be there to help you guiding yourself
through those unknown lands and assist you with the
logistics. The NACC knowledge database also helps you to
document yourself on the site before reaching it. So once
you reach the site, you have already understood what it is
all about, what was discovered there, which intriguing
stories took place there and yet which mysteries remain
unsolved. You are truly able to understand the place and
appreciate its grandiose and cultural value. Not to the
extent as transforming our clients into Indiana Jones, NACC
emphasizes the travellers’ conquest of a site or a culture,
making them “active” discoverers instead of a “passive”
traveller.
Affordable but Comfortable
This basic principle of “active cultural
discovery” has rarely been applied in the tourism industry,
simply because of the expenses usually associated with such
adventures. Providing a personalized and active discovery
experience is indeed usually relatively expensive. The bet
that we made at NACC was to be capable to provide not only
affordable packages that would offer such experience, but to
enhance the travelling experience by guaranteeing the best
possible accommodations and meals. We have always assumed
that after a day cycling, canoeing, or running the streets
of an old town, our clients deserve a warm bath or shower in
their own bathroom, a comfortable hotel that matches the
theme experience (no concrete buildings, accommodations are
hand-picked to match the local traditional style), and to
gather and share group experiences and knowledge around a
welcoming table of local dishes and good wine.
After running tours for six years for individual groups,
corporate excursions and tour providers from various
countries in various languages, we believe that we have
managed to reach our goal and provide exactly the travelling
experience that we hoped for.
Always Expanding Horizons
Initially started with a strong focus on the Baltic area
(states bordering the Baltic Sea, such as Sweden, Finland,
Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and
Poland), one of the richest, but yet less visited parts of
Europe, NACC is now expanding its “active cultural
adventures” to other horizons such as France and Italy via
the acquisition of Alma Adventures, that groups together
geographically focused organizations that share the NACC
principles of a active travelling experience with a strong
focus on cultural adventures.
|
