Myanmar Adventure Outfitters

MAO brings economy, merely by running our business in isolated communities. Through establishing a responsible tourism industry that they can gain new opportunities. We are intentional in paying well in communities, but also give donations to our host communities, which they put into a community-managed development fund.

MAO invests company profits into initiatives spearheaded by these communities. In each community, their need assessment is different, and we want to contribute to their felt community needs, which takes on the various forms:

Education development - helping schools to grow, and helping families to be able to send their children to higher education options in Lashio.

Sport training & promoting exercise and health. In one community, we’ve arranged for Full Moon Days to be community sport days. This is great for community connection and for promoting healthy living.

Health and sanitation training - through collaborating with another local social business, we are connecting communities we engage with new health opportunities and sanitation training. We have also dispensed some water filters in some communities to provide clean water solutions.

Helping the community wherever the need is. Sometimes its a developed plan, and sometimes its impromptu, putting aside our plans to help our neighbors out.

MAO cares about the environment, and embraces a Leave No Trace mindset everywhere we go. How do we do this?

We clean up polluted waterfalls and trails as we go.

We connect with communities to encourage and show them how to take care of their beautiful environment.

We’ve joining a regional movement of Trash Hero and have spearhead a the movement in Lashio city to care for the city

We look for ways to reduce our carbon footprint wherever possible, choosing to buy filters for our water bottles so that we can drink local water instead of buying bottled water and multiplying plastic waste.

Our Team

Myanmar Adventure Outfitters is the passion project of Byron & Eileen Hartzler, North Americans who have worked in and out of Shan State for 8 years. They raise their two kids (age 4 & 8) together with them in Lashio.

Around them is a full time team of 4 locals (Kachin, Chin, Kayah, & Palaung people groups represented), Lin May, Nae Nae, Alex, & Ko Thet. Our goal with MAO is not only to develop the community but also develop our own staff, and we do this through developing their skills and empowering them room to grow in and out of the workplace.