Enter the living systems behind Hoi An
Five place-based journeys reveal how materials, soil, water, food, livelihoods and tourism are being reconnected for the regenerative sustainability across Hoi An and the lower Thu Bon floodplain.
EVEN MORE SPECIAL PROGRAMS
–> For schools and educational travel partners
–> For MICE event organisers and corporates
–> For individuals, families and groups at need of re-designing life
The Hoi An most visitors never see
Hội An is often experienced through its ancient streets, food, craft villages and river views. Yet the future of the destination also depends on less visible work: preventing waste, keeping resources in use, returning nutrients to soil, caring for vulnerable farmland and sustaining the people who hold these systems together.
Green Youth Collective and its partners have spent years building and adapting practical responses in real places. Hoi An Eco Hub connects tourism businesses, communities, workers, farmers and local institutions around zero waste and resource recovery. REwild Land restoration farm in Cam Phu village brings together floodplain restoration, closed-loop farming, agroecology, local knowledge and village-based hospitality.
Travel with Purpose creates responsible ways to enter this work. Visitors do not arrive to perform a green activity or claim to restore a place in a day. They observe how a system works, learn from local practitioners, take part in useful tasks, reflect on the learning value, and carry the inspiration and experiences into their own home, school, organisation or journey.
The trip does not create the regenerative work. The regenerative work gives the trip its purpose.
Five journeys as entry points for responsible tour operators, travel agencies, DMCs, students, learners and travellers
1. Zero Waste Systems Tour
What happens after a hotel, restaurant or household separates its waste?
Go behind the scenes at Hoi An Eco Hub to trace materials generated from hospitality businesses and tourism destination through prevention, source separation, organics management and local recovery pathways. Meet the work and relationships required to turn a zero-waste commitment into daily practice.
Best for: schools and universities, tourism and hospitality teams, local authorities, development partners, families and responsible travellers.
2. Reuse Tour: Designing a Local Circular Economy
What if the better solution begins before something is thrown away?
Follow reuse and refill in practice across the Eco Hub, Refillables Dong Day and selected local partners. Explore how procurement, packaging, customer behaviour, business models and community infrastructure can replace disposability and keep value circulating locally.
Best for: tourism businesses, corporate and ESG groups, students, designers, entrepreneurs, families and circular-economy practitioners.
3. Land Restoration Tour
Tree planting alone is not restoration. What else must return to land and community? A shift from experience design to relationship design
Read the floodplain landscape through water, soil, vegetation, farming and village memory. At REwild floodplain agro-ecosystem restoration learning hub in Cam Phu village (outskirt of Hoi An), encounter the long-term work of rebuilding ecological functions, testing nature-based practices, propagating useful plants and strengthening local stewardship.
Best for: schools, universities, families, corporate groups, researchers, restoration practitioners and travellers seeking a deeper understanding of place.
4. Agroecology Tour
How can food production restore relationships rather than simplify them?
Follow the living connections among soil, plants, animals, food, biodiversity and farmer knowledge. Through field observation, practical work, dialogue and a seasonal local meal, explore agroecology as a transition in how a farm uses resources, makes decisions and supports livelihoods.
Best for: educational travel, farmers and food-system practitioners, culinary and hospitality teams, families, researchers and purpose-driven travellers.
5. Village Futures Tour
How can a village carry what matters into the future?
Walk through traditional villages in and surround Hoi An (Triem Tay, Cam Phu and other villages) as a living system of memory, land, knowledge, livelihoods and community relationships. Meet the people carrying village life forward and explore how heritage can remain useful as a floodplain community adapts to a changing climate and economy.
Best for: schools and universities, educational travel, families, corporate and ESG groups, development partners, community-tourism practitioners and purpose-driven travellers.
One connected ecosystem
The journeys connect through the one united ecosystem and landscape.
- Waste prevention and reuse reduce the pressure placed on local recovery systems.
- Source-separated organic resources can return nutrients to cultivation rather than become an harmful pollutant.
- Agroecology builds healthier farm relationships among soil, water, plants, animals, food and people.
- Restoration connects farm-level practice with riverbanks, biodiversity, the wider floodplain and long-term climate resilience.
- Village Futures makes visible the human system that holds this work together: local knowledge, collective memory, community institutions, changing livelihoods and the capacity to decide what comes next.
- Regenerative tourism brings learning, fair local income, demand and new partnerships back into the work.
Visitors may join one focused tour or combine several journeys into a full-day, multi-day or curriculum-linked programme.
Why these journeys are different
They take place inside real operating work
The Eco Hub, REwild farm, nurseries, gardens, community partnerships exist beyond the visit. Activities respond to current operations, seasons, place and community needs
Local people hold real roles
Farmers, operators, waste workers, community hosts and technical practitioners participate as educators, decision-makers and stewards. Their time, knowledge and labour are recognised as part of the value of the journey.
Learning is designed
Each programme moves through a clear arc: encounter → understand → participate → reflect → apply. Participants leave with a stronger systems question, not only a handmade souvenir.
Contribution is useful and honest
Tasks are selected according to participant skill, safety and actual need. A short visit may support maintenance, learning, local income or longer-term partnerships.
The organisations play complementary roles
Green Youth Collective convenes the place-based systems and learning relationships. REED develops destination-level technical and operational solutions. REwild Vietnam designs and operates the licensed Travel with Purpose journey. Refillables Dong Day and community partners hold specialist roles within relevant programmes.
Choose the depth that fits your purpose
Focused visits
Half-day journeys introduce one system, one central question, a practical encounter and facilitated reflection.
Full-day field learning
Full-day programmes connect multiple parts of a system, allow more time with practitioners and may include a seasonal local meal and a deeper practical task.
Multi-day learning journeys
Programmes of two to five days can connect Hoi An Eco Hub with Land restoration farm and wider Go Noi region through a cumulative landscape narrative, project-based learning and community-based hospitality.
Custom programmes
We adapt learning objectives, facilitation and evidence for schools, universities, families, corporate and ESG groups, tourism teams, researchers, local authorities and development partners.
What participation supports
Programme income helps sustain local hosting, facilitation, environmental operations, site care and continued learning. Depending on the journey, participation may support practical roles in material recovery, reuse and refill, nursery work, farm care, restoration monitoring, community hospitality and education.
After each customised group programme, an Impact Receipt can record what participants engaged with, what they contributed, what they learned, what continues locally and what the visit does not claim to have solved.
Come with a question, leave with a different way of seeing the destination
Choose one journey, connect several themes or work with us to design a programme around your curriculum, organisational priorities or travel audience.
Contact line:
hanh@greenyouthcollective.org [and/or] rewild.hoian@gmail.com
WhatsApp +84 978 134 277