If you want to see great apes in the wild, Sumatra’s rainforest is one of the most accessible places to do just that. Seeing orangutans in the wild, along with silver Thomas leaf monkeys, pig-tailed macaques, and a diverse range of birds like hornbills, will leave you with a renewed appreciation for the beauty and ingenuity of other species.

I lead the Tiger Trail team in Luang Prabang, Laos. I always had a passion for adventure and travelling but, even more important, for other people. I also believe that the world is not fairly developed and even its most beautiful landscapes can be the stage for poverty and degradation. I aim to approach these problems by seeking a better way: Through our Fair Trek in Laos projects, I combine community work with tourism and bring people together from all over the world to work with Lao communities.

Maliau Basin is one of the world’s finest remaining wilderness areas. It encompasses over 390 square kilometres of pristine rainforest in the south-central part of Sabah, Borneo, in Malaysia. The rainforest is so dense that less than 50 percent of it has ever been explored. Today, the Maliau is awaiting UNESCO World Heritage Site status.

In Vietnam, Bloom Microventures combines tourism with microfinance in an extremely innovative manner: Bloom’s unique model of cross-subsidising microfinance operations with income generated through tourism enables the organisation to have a far greater social impact. By meeting the borrowers on a tour, we see clearly just how very successful Bloom’s program has been in lifting some of the poorest women in Vietnam out of poverty.