Honest Tourism Over Corporate Badges
At Forest Days, we believe that sustainability isn't something you buy with a yearly membership fee or a corporate green logo badge.
The few certifications that we do believe in and admire, still remain too complex to obtain for small businesses like us.
However, our ethos is rooted in the small, real, everyday actions we take to protect our patch of woodland and foster an honest travel sector.
Here you’ll find what we do, what we are still learning and why honesty matters more than another green badge.
Treading Lightly
Forest Days began with a simple idea: that it should be possible to welcome people into a wild environment without overwhelming the very space they have come to experience.
Since 2014, we have deliberately remained small. Today, Forest Days is made up of just a few camps, each tucked into its own secluded corner of the forest.
There are no rows of tents, no illuminated pathways and no desire to fit as many people as possible onto the land.
This does not make us perfectly sustainable.
No tourism business is impact-free, and sleeping in a tent does not magically make a holiday “green.”
Guests travel to reach us. We wash bedding, heat water, buy equipment, generate waste and use resources.
But what we can do is make more thoughtful choices, understand their consequences and keep looking for better ones.
Small by design
Our low capacity is not an accident or a temporary stage before expansion. It is part of how Forest Days works.
The camps are widely separated, leaving most of the woodland undisturbed and allowing wildlife to continue moving through it.
Instead of heavily landscaping the land, we work around its existing trees, paths, clearings and contours.
There are no manicured lawns and very little here needs to be persuaded to look like nature.
Remaining small means fewer arrivals, less noise and less pressure on the forest. It gives every guest more privacy—but it gives the woodland more chances to regenerate too.
Comfort, without putting a hotel in the forest
Each camp is intentionally simple and off-grid. Lighting is mainly solar-powered and there's no complex wiring networks through the land, and the private toilet huts use compostable dry toilets, rather than conventional flushing systems.
The tents are furnished for proper rest and comfort, but we do not to fill them with electrical appliances, disposable amenities or objects that serve little purpose beyond looking luxurious in a photograph.
Hot showers, drinking water, fridges, charging points and other practical facilities are shared in a central area.
Concentrating these services in one place allows us to provide the things guests genuinely need without reproducing the infrastructure of a hotel ten times over.
There is still comfort here. We have simply tried to be thoughtful about where comfort ends and excess begins.
Choosing, repairing and reusing
Canvas tents, wooden furniture and life outdoors all require maintenance.
The sun, rain, wind and enthusiastic human beings eventually leave their mark.
Wherever practical, we repair, repaint, reproof and reuse before replacing. We choose objects for usefulness, character and longevity rather than treating every season as an excuse for redecoration.
We do not always get this right. Some outdoor equipment is difficult to source without plastics, and some materials withstand the elements better than more natural alternatives.
Our aim is not some ideal of purity, but fewer unnecessary elements and a longer life for the things already here.
A landscape to experience, not consume
Forest Days is a base from which to explore the Catalan Pre-Pyrenees: its forests, rivers, reservoirs, canyons, wildlife and rural communities.
Our expeditions and recommended activities are designed to help guests engage with this landscape more closely—not simply pass through it collecting photographs.
We work closely with local people and outdoor guides who understand the area and know how to experience it responsibly.
The forest is also home to wild boar, roe deer, foxes, rabbits, birds and many less conspicuous residents. This is one of the reasons Forest Days is pet-free (a difficult choice for businesses like ours) and why we ask guests to respect the quiet, enjoy the fauna and flora respectfully and leave the woodland as they found it.
We are visitors here too.
Part of a rural community
Responsibility is not only environmental. A small tourism business also has a social and economic footprint.
Wherever realistically possible, we want the money generated by Forest Days to circulate locally—through outdoor guides, activity providers, tradespeople, food producers and other independent rural businesses.
We want to help guests discover places run by people who live here, however culturally different they might be, rather than present the surrounding landscape as an emotionally empty backdrop created exclusively for tourism.
We are also conscious that work in hospitality should be treated as real, professional work. As a very small, seasonal business, we do not have the structures or resources of a large accommodation group—but that does not excuse unclear expectations, unsafe conditions or a lack of respect for the people helping us run the camp. We strive for everybody to feel really proud to be part of Forest Days.
What we are still working on
We are wary of sustainability pages that speak only about accomplishments.
So we are continuing to examine how we can measure and reduce our use of water, energy and materials; lessen the impact of laundry and cleaning; source more things locally; reduce waste; and better understand the footprint of journeys made to reach us.
Some improvements will be small. Others will require time, investment and experimentation. We would rather describe them as work in progress than announce ambitious promises we cannot yet prove.
Our commitment is to remain curious and make changes that are meaningful.
Forest Days is not a perfect model of sustainable tourism.
It is a small place trying to make thoughtful environmental choices—and to be honest about the footprint that remains.