If you’ve noticed Hackney Tours has been quiet on the East London guided walks front, there is a reason. We’re busy training up some young tour guides for an exciting new travel social enterprise.

It’s been a brilliant journey working with the guides of tomorrow on their own turf, celebrating their own borough. Right now, we can’t say too much as it’s just about to launch.

But it embodies some things that are very important to Hackney Tours: connecting people to their heritage; exciting them about their history; provoking them to ask questions about the city and assisting them to articulate their own answers better.

It’s always been the long term plan to use travel to do good. From getting seniors out walking to just helping people see their city in another way and fully appreciate it, there’s being in London and then there’s really being in London.

Our sister company Half Day Holidays is already a social enterprise and has the ultimate goal of taking the sort of people to Margate who can’t afford a micro-break or even – incredible as it sounds – have never been out of their own borough.

Working with organisations that include schools and universities, we’re keen advocates of education – because it gives options. It levels the playing field, opens doors to worlds you never knew existed and gives you the tools to navigate those worlds. We think that’s pretty exciting.