Founded by Dr. Nicolas Hetzer in 1956, and officially incorporated in the State of California in 1965, we wanted to make travelling more fun, more educational, and more environmentally aware. Since then we have developed more than 1200 tantalizing, top-quality, but affordable nature, wildlife, cultural, and fitness adventures, tours, expeditions, hiking and biking programs, as well as cultural programs that do not have their equal anywhere else in the world. Our special emphasis is on environmental integrity, social responsibility, human health and fitness in their widest sense, and the synergy among them. We feel that:

TOURISM SHOULD provide a unique, fascinating, intensely personal yet shareable experience of the natural, cultural, and ethnic treasures that exist in our world and that make it such a wonderful place. Travel should be transforming, enriching, rejuvenating, and fulfilling. Travel is not a luxury any more but a healthy and rewarding necessity in our fast-changing "global village."

TOURISM IS an integral part of the total net of interrelations of social, economic, environmental, cultural, physical, and spiritual factors that make up our world "ecosystem." Tourism entails not only rewards but also obligations towards our environment, other people and cultures, and even towards ourselves.

TOURISM MUST be respectful and responsible. In 1965 we coined the word "ecotourism," ‘wrote the book’ (so to speak), and posited the Four Pillars of Ecotourism:

1. minimum environment impact
2. minimum impact on -- and maximum respect for -- host cultures
3. maximum economic benefits to host country "grass roots"
4. maximum re-creational satisfaction to participating tourists: come back a new person!

Our programs are now being used not only by individuals and small groups but also for field studies, academic travel, colleges, universities, seminars, pre- and post-conference, associations, museums, corporations, incentive, and fund-raising activities where travel plays an important role. Additionally, we are offering our own "Outreach University," "Elder Journeys," "Teacher Excellence Training," "Ecosystems Field Studies," and many other programs. Our way of travel is nature-, culture-, people-, and activity-oriented. Many of our programs have been copied and imitated, and this kind of travel is continuing to spread like wildfire.

There are more than 30 of us now associated with Forum Travel International in our various offices, not counting our overseas offices and associates, who amount to a family of several hundreds of people all around the world.

We love our work, and many of our thousands of clients have become friends. They travel with us over and over again, and some of them have even started working with us. We hope that you, too, will discover beautiful worlds with us and become part of the great Forum Family of Friends.