What types of holidays can I book on Responsible Travel?
Responsible Travel lists around 6,000 holidays, and the range is deliberately broad: the site's own holiday-type menu covers everything from accessible and adventure trips to wildlife and winter breaks, with formats including small group tours, tailor made itineraries, accommodation-only stays, self drive and fly drive, small ship cruising, rail and overland travel. If you want a single answer to "is my kind of trip here?", the practical test is whether it fits one of the types below and can be filtered by destination and date.
Holiday types listed on the site
The navigation menu on responsibletravel.com groups trips under these labels:
- Accessible
- Accommodation only
- Adventure
- Art
- Beach
- Budget
- Cultural
- Cycling
- Family
- Flight free
- Honeymoon ideas
- Last minute
- Locally run
- Luxury
- Multi activity
- Overland
- Rail
- Safaris
- Sailing
- Self drive & fly drive
- Short break
- Small group
- Small ship cruising
- Solo
- Special interest
- Special offer
- Tailor made
- Unusual
- Vegan & vegetarian
- Volunteer travel
- Walking
- Wellness
- Wildlife
- Winter
Several of these describe who the trip suits or how it is run (family, solo, accessible, locally run, vegan & vegetarian), while others describe the activity or transport (cycling, walking, sailing, rail, overland, self drive). That means the same destination can appear under more than one type, so it is worth checking a couple of categories before deciding a trip does not exist.
Trip formats, not just themes
Beyond the theme labels, the site distinguishes how a holiday is structured:
- Small group tours – for example the featured Borneo small group tour, described as two weeks immersed in the wildlife and culture of Sabah and Sarawak.
- Tailor made – for example a two-week tailor made Spain holiday covering Gaudí to flamenco.
- Self drive – for example self drive South Africa, exploring Cape Town, the Winelands and the Garden Route at your own pace.
- Small ship cruising – for example a Maldives conservation cruise searching for whale sharks by snorkel alongside local conservation experts.
- Accommodation only – listed as its own type, for travellers who want a base rather than a packaged itinerary.
- Flight free and rail – separate categories for travellers avoiding or reducing flights.
So if you prefer independent travel over group departures, the tailor made, self drive and accommodation-only options are the ones to start with.
Wildlife and special interest depth
Wildlife is one of the largest categories: the site states it has over a thousand wildlife holidays across more than 120 destinations. Examples in the featured section include the Borneo small group tour and the Southern Madagascar tour (lemurs, baobabs and beaches, with time off the beaten track). Special interest sits alongside it as a catch-all for trips built around a particular pursuit, such as the featured Cycle the Douro Valley itinerary combining cycling, wine tasting and village exploration in a UNESCO wine region.
How to narrow the list
The search tools on the site let you combine three filters:
- Destination – browse by country or region, or use the "Popular destinations" and "See all our destinations" entry points.
- Holiday type – pick from the optional list above; you can leave it blank to see everything.
- Dates – choose a month (the calendar runs from Sep 2026 through Dec 2028) or set flexibility of +/-7, +/-14 or +/-21 days, or an exact day.
There is also a Last minute section for trips departing soon, and a Special offer type if price is the deciding factor. If nothing matches your dates, widening the flexibility window is the quickest way to surface more options rather than changing destination.
Who this range suits
The breadth works in your favour if you already know roughly what you want — a walking week, a family beach stay, a solo rail journey, a wildlife safari — and want it delivered by operators the site describes as locally run and community-supporting. It suits less well if you want a single packaged brand with uniform standards across every trip, since the listings span many different operators and formats. The site was founded in 2000 and describes itself as the world's first and largest responsible holiday company, with 200,000 customers to date; reviews are published on the site if you want to check a specific trip before booking.
To start, pick your destination, tick one or two holiday types, set your dates and flexibility, then compare the resulting trips on format (group vs tailor made vs self drive) rather than theme alone.