Bogotá, Colombia (23 April 2012)
The local-travel innovators at LARGE minority (LM) (www.largeminority.com) are introducing their unique brand of adventure travel to Colombia. The team has spent over a year researching itineraries that disregard the guidebook "must dos" and bring travellers into Colombian local life.
Under the More Local (www.morelocal.co) banner, the half-Colombian team has launched a menu of trips that get inside the country's high plane (altiplano), coffee region, and Amazon jungle. The trips are designed to be highly experiential, beneficial to local communities, and just plain fun.
Itineraries are filled with details from Colombian daily life. A highlight of the altiplano experience is a hands-on wool workshop where travellers can try sheep shearing and wool spinning alongside local craftsmen. They can join in on a game of tejo, the beer-friendly Colombian equivalent of horseshoes.
On the Quindio coffee tours, travellers sample rural life. They can stay on a sustainable, family farm, try harvesting coffee, and explore the countryside on horseback and classic Willy's jeep.
The Amazon trip takes them across borders and into the heart of the Tikuna indigenous community. Other highlights cycling into Brazil for a cachaça sun downer, taking canoes into Peru, spotting pink river dolphins and catching piranhas to grill.
For LARGE minority's Chief Travel Aficionado, Juan Goicochea: "After more than a decade of learning the ins and outs of the travel trade, it's really exciting to share this knowledge on home turf."
The organized chaos of LM's auto-rickshaw rallies through Sri Lanka and Cambodia has proved a winning combination. "LM managed to strike the perfect balance between organisational rigour and genuine personal adventure," said Chris Orrell after the Lanka Challenge (www.lankachallenge.com).
Driven by the desire to have a positive impact on their locations, LM raise money and support schemes to help the local people and environment wherever they operate. In Colombia, in addition to carbon offsetting, they are setting up a project to provide reliable drinking water for an Amazonian community.
Cynthia Ord does freelance media and communications work for LARGE Minority and a number of other small-scale local travel businesses around the world. She can be reached at
For more information and interviews, please email press[at]largeminority.com or call +57 320 243 3480.
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