Why Go Bolivia Was Created

We are experienced tourism professionals who live and work in Bolivia. We have a great love for this beautiful country and want others to experience the many amazing experiences that it has to offer. Bolivia is a unique place and with “Go Bolivia” we have set out to create a unique travel agency to enable tourists to visit the country were we live in style, comfort and safety.

From the outset, a primary concern was to ensure that the tours and services we offer adhere to the principles of sustainable tourism. Tourism, and in particular what is commonly referred to as eco tourism, is still relatively under developed in Bolivia and there is a real need for the tourism industry here to adapt a more sustainable and environmentaly conscious approach in order to develop the industry and ensure there is a bright future for tourism in Bolivia and a better future for our country. Our aim is to help develop sustainable tourism in Bolivia and support projects that will benefit the country and the local populations.

We are a professional tour agency and not a charity or non profit organization. Whilst we work and donate to charities and non profit organizations we feel it is the best policy to make it clear that we are a business.

Management, People and Partners

The director of Go Bolivia is Phil Rice who is an Englishman who has made Bolivia his home. Married to a Bolivian and having traveled extensively around the country over the years, he started the La Paz based backpackers agency Kanoo Tours in 2008 and it quickly became the number one agency for budget travelers in Bolivia. The agency web site www.kanootours.com was the first website to offer a full online booking service for tours and transport in Bolivia and continues to be the most popular by far. The experience of running this agency gave birth to the idea of Go Bolivia and taking tourism, and in particular responsible tourism,  to a new level in Bolivia. This will be a constantly evolving project and with your help we can continually improve

The tours that we offer are fulfilled by a mixture of outsourcing to partners and/or operating the tours ourselves. We work only with responsible operators and research is carried out to ensure they are the best in their particular area, do their best to follow principles of sustainable tourism and are beneficial to the local communities.

We donate part of the profits from each tour sale towards charitable projects  (each tour package states in the descriptions how much that donation is for that package) and encourage visitors to support local projects in what ever way they can.

In Bolivia there are some award winning eco tourism attractions that guarantee a great experience for visitors and there are some smaller lesser known options that can make a trip a unique and fascinating experience. We have tried to create packages that  mix these experiences to offer a truly memorable tour and use our expertise to ensure things are as comfortable, safe and smooth running as possible.We are constantly looking for new ideas and love to hear suggestions from our customers.

What Makes Us "Sustainable"?

That it not an easy question to answer as  there is not a standard definition of what "Sustainable Tourism" actually means.  We have a dedicated page discussing the issues regarding this that tries to shed some light on our interpretation of this term.  For those not wishing to read the more in depth information on this though, in brief, our sustainable tourism principles mean that we try to achieve the following:

• We try to limit any environmental damage that may be caused by ourselves and our customers - low impact on the environment and cultures we visit.
• We try to have a positive impact - employing locals, buying local produce, encouraging positive social interactions between our customers and the inhabitants of the places they visit.
• Supporting local charities and projects
• Supporting and respecting the cultural, historical and environmental heritage of Bolivia and its peoples.