Looking for a community tourism experience? Read these tips from hosts around the world

The sunrise may be gilding the valley hundreds of meters below, but for Prem Maya Rai and her daughter Alina, tempting my fine hair into a braid is more interesting. They may wake up to rarefied air and cries of cockerels every day, but for me, it’s a privileged glimpse into life in Sipting, a remote Indigenous community who live surrounded by spirits and sacred forests among eastern Nepal’s glistening peaks.

Prem is one of five Aath Pahariya Rai women who earlier this year began welcoming travelers into their homes—a first both for their small hillside village and the little-visited Dhankuta region in eastern Nepal. Mostly living from the lower reaches of Dudh Koshi to the Arun River, the Aath Pahariya Rai have traditionally been farmers and continue to practice Kirat, a religion based on nature’s animism. When it comes to international tourism, their experience has been very limited – until now. “A homestay is more than a place to sleep. It is a gateway into the life, culture and spirit of a community,” says Shiva Dhakal, founder and chairperson of Community Homestay Network, the social enterprise that connects hosts with spare rooms, such as Prem, with travelers like me seeking meaningful trips.

As with any form of genuine, community-led tourism, homestays give local people the power to choose how they engage with tourists—while ensuring more money stays in the community. This is particularly pertinent in low-income countries where just USD$5 of every $100 stays in the local economy due to international hotels and operators creaming off much of the profit, a process referred to as economic leakage or tourism leakage. So how do we play our role, as visitors?

In places suffering from depopulation like Dhankuta—often linked to farming challenges caused by climate change, meaning locals are unable to make a living in their hometown—homestays can be one way to earn a living without leaving. They’re also typically female-run, and in many countries, such as Nepal, they may be the first time hosts such as Prem have had the opportunity to earn their own money.

From a traveler’s perspective, homestays can offer some of the most meaningful experiences out there. I doubt I’d have become a travel writer had I not spent several months living with a local family in the Nepalese village of Chaukot as a fresh-faced 18-year-old.

And it’s sometimes the unexpected scenarios that remain memorable. Fracturing my elbow during a power cut proved to be an unlikely boon—as my host mum washed my hair in a bucket and bandaged my arm using scraps of sari, I felt travel fulfilling its most profound potential: A co-created moment where strangers realize how much more they share than divides them.

“We do feel a bit uncomfortable if people take photos without asking, especially of older family members or children.”

- Alina Rai, Sipting Community Homestay, Nepal

Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to visit more than 70 homestays and community-led tourism projects everywhere from Albania to Brazil, collecting stories and memories that reaffirm both our shared humanity and our role as stewards of this earth.

That said, community-based travel isn’t for everyone. It’s generally less comfortable than a hotel and inherently unpredictable. The linguistic and cultural gap can feel more like a canyon. And it can be tempting to retreat behind our phones on the pretext of getting the perfect photo, but in reality to protect ourselves from the awkwardness of not knowing how to connect.

So who better to guide us than those on the other side of that exchange: Our hosts. I spoke to 20 hosts across countries as varied as Greece, Mexico and Chile, gathering their advice on how to be the best guest possible—and experience a transformative trip in return.

Take fewer, better photos

In her 1977 essay collection On Photography, the chain-smoking, straight-talking writer and critic Susan Sontag argued that the camera turns everyone into a tourist, both in other people’s reality and their own, disconnecting us from the very moment we’re trying to capture.

While it’s natural to wish to record our trips, consent is key. “We do feel a bit uncomfortable if people take photos without asking, especially of older family members or children,” says Alina Rai, Prem’s daughter, at Sipting Community Homestay. “We’re happy to be photographed when guests ask first. It feels so much more respectful and gives us the choice to say yes or no.”

Rosa Casique, who lives high up in the Villa María del Triunfo district to the south of Lima, which nestles among the Lomas del Paraíso, knows how valuable photos can be. Those staying in the community-run campsite are rewarded by sweeping views of the Peruvian capital as well as the chance to hike between amorphous land folds that reveal shocking yellow Ismene Amancaes flowers, which glow through the mist that often carpets the meadow floor. “Most visitors want to document and share their experiences, which is positive for us. I feel comfortable with it as long as it’s respectful. Ideally, there should first be a conversation,” she says.

I’ve found that sharing photos afterwards—whether directly with the family or for their community Facebook page—can be just as beneficial. For small projects without a marketing budget, those images help keep memories alive and attract future guests, which is often a challenge. A Rainforest Alliance survey found that community-based tourism projects across Latin America typically had just five percent occupancy.

Be waste-aware

From the spines of Albania’s Accursed Mountains to the deep, dripping Lacandon Jungle—which was recently announced part of the Great Mayan Forest Biocultural Corridor, Central America’s biggest conservation project to date—many community tourism projects are in areas of intense natural beauty.

Studies suggest tourists generate twice as much solid waste as locals in some destinations, which means a little foresight goes a long way. Removing packaging before you arrive, skipping gifts wrapped in plastic, and checking if hosts provide natural toiletries (as many in fragile ecosystems prefer to) are simple ways to help. Dr. Susanne Becken, professor of sustainable tourism at Australia’s Griffith University, puts it plainly: “One of many challenges at a policy level is to supply a minimum level of infrastructure, not just for access but also to deal with impacts such as waste and sewage. Thus, careful planning with carrying capacities is crucial.”

“In my view, hosting is a wonderful opportunity to share our culture and lifestyle. Not only does the whole family learn new ideas and hospitality skills, but it also affects the whole community positively. When we receive foreign guests, we learn a different way of thinking about life.”

- Yerkyebulan Khairym, Khusvegi English & Nomadic Culture Camp

Some of my most transformative trips have been when Indigenous communities have shared windows into their animist beliefs, allowing me to glimpse the landscape anew, a place populated by rivers, boulders and trees that have agency—and souls.

In the Pueblos Mancomunados, a group of eight Zapotec villages in the mountains of Oaxaca, southern Mexico, I hiked through a fragrant pine forest looking for messages from snake and jaguar gods contained in natural markings on boulders before being whipped with healing plants—whose permission we asked before picking them—in a temezcal (a sweat lodge which was significantly more enjoyable than it sounds). In this context, where the flora, fauna, geographic and spirit realms are interwoven in a complex, communicative web, treating the environment with anything other than reverence feels obscene.

When I asked them, the committee from the Llano Grande village (one of the Zapotec villages), stated that their favorite guests are those who “respect their sustainable philosophy”, while representatives from Cuajimoloyas village, another village in the Pueblos Mancomunados, said that “the only thing that had ever made them uncomfortable was seeing guests drop litter and contaminate water.”

Co-create connection

Connection is a two way street—we shouldn’t underestimate the power of giving hosts our full attention. “In my view, hosting is a wonderful opportunity to share our culture and lifestyle,” says Yerkyebulan Khairym, a homestay host and assistant camp manager at Khusvegi English & Nomadic Culture Camp in Western Mongolia.

This award-winning slow tourism initiative connects nomadic Kazakh and Mongolian families with international teachers to promote language equity through English education, empowering nomadic youth and communities, while preserving and celebrating nomadic traditions through a 30-day cultural exchange. “Not only does the whole family learn new ideas and hospitality skills, but it also affects the whole community positively,” says Khairym. “When we receive foreign guests, we learn a different way of thinking about life.”

As Romana Tomić, senior expert associate at Deša, a shop in Dubrovnik where visitors can buy handicrafts and hear stories from survivors of Croatia’s homeland war, says: “I’m truly grateful that people are interested in what we’ve lived through. I see these conversations as a form of personal therapy, a way of healing through sharing.”

Being an active listener shows people that their work matters. “My favorite guests are those who ask questions, truly listen, and are moved to help our cause or wildlife in general,” says Sophia Lykouropoulou who leads educational talks for travelers at Naxos Wildlife Protection, an animal rescue station treating everything from loggerhead turtles to migratory birds on the Greek island of Naxos, one of the Cyclades isles in the Aegean Sea.

For those living in isolated areas who don’t have the privilege of traveling themselves, hosting can be a way to feel connected to the wider world. “It’s always interesting to learn how people live in different countries, their customs, food, celebrations and even small daily routines,” Prem from Sipting Community Homestay tells me. “It also makes us appreciate our own culture even more.”

In order to share about your own life, it’s worth investing in an English-speaking guide or translator but if that isn’t possible, flicking through your camera reel to show pictures of your family, house and pets is usually appreciated.

While a visitor merely passes through, a guest is ‘someone who is visiting you because you have invited them’—or so says Collins Dictionary. According to Community Homestay Network founder Dhakal, this exchange goes far beyond that: “Community homestays transform tourism from being a transaction into a relationship, where guests don’t just visit a destination, they connect with the people who give it meaning.”

I reflect on how strange it is that sometimes we need to travel to the furthest corners of the earth to be reminded of the value of home.

So, how can we cultivate a guest mindset? For Olga Karagianni, the founder of Andros Routes, a volunteer organisation responsible for restoring abandoned mule tracks and turning them into hiking trails that wind through the depopulated villages in the island’s largely forgotten interior, the key is researching the context to a community before you visit so you can make more informed choices. “How visitors interact with locals and what behavior and preferences they demonstrate can cumulatively influence the course of the small communities they visit,” she says.

In practical terms, this could look like expressing a clear preference for local products, being excited about traditional dress and foods, and even bringing key supplies, which can be organized through travel charities such as Pack for a Purpose. And as Dhakal says, “When places and people are no longer treated as passive agents but recognized as active, leading voices in shaping tourism, we begin to create a future that’s more genuinely inclusive.”

Back in Sipting, Alina and I chat in Prem’s courtyard garden as the sun sears down on us. From the stories she tells, of spirits whispering in her ear as she watched over her father’s goats and plants with the power of protection, it’s easy to imagine that the mountains crowding around us have heartbeats. Although she longs to travel to Australia, Paris and London, her reason stops me short.

“Yes, I want to see the world, but mostly I want to leave so I can come home and look after my parents with the money I’ve earned,” she says. I reflect on how strange it is that sometimes we need to travel to the furthest corners of the earth to be reminded of the value of home.

For me, my time with Prem and Alina has feels like yet another example of travel’s power to transform the way we see this world—and our own place within it.

****

Adventure.com strives to be a low-emissions travel publication. We are powered by, but editorially independent of, Intrepid Travel, the world’s largest travel B Corp, who help ensure Adventure.com maintains high standards of sustainability in our work and activities. You can visit our sustainability page or read our Contributor Impact Guidelines for more information.