We believe that offering our tours without the flights included gives you several advantages.

While we are happy to arrange flights for our customers, and hold an ATOL to protect all bookings made with us with a flight, we feel leaving this as an option gives you far greater flexibility in deciding which airline you might prefer to book with, where you want to come from, or where you might want to stop off en-route. You are able to hunt around for the best deals on offer, possibly saving yourself some money. As well as these, some people join our tours when they are already in the country, removing the need for a flight altogether.

 

Yes you can - we have made a more detailed family information page with more details about travelling on our tours with your family and children.

 

The booking costs for our local agents are also much less than ours here in the UK, so by buying the flights from them, you are ensuring that you keep the cost of your holiday down as much as possible.

When we do ask you to pay for flights locally, then our local agents will book your flights in advance, on a specific quote, and you will be provided with a receipt for your payment when you arrive.

 

Why are your tours such good value?

• We don't produce expensive brochures - but we hope you like our website
• The United Kingdom market is more "competitive" than the US market as a whole - for the same well organised tours
• Other tour operators hide the local cost of arranging these tours by adding in the air fare. You get what you see with us.
• The majority of our tours are sold direct so there are no travel agent commissions & distribution fees. This “hidden commission” that you get in many other companies prices can often be quite high (over 25% in some cases), but has to be there as most travel agents don’t like the operators they work with to undercut them.
• We don’t have an office in a prestigious location in London.

We don't cut back when it comes to putting together your tour, but we do ensure that our marketing and advertising costs and our UK operating costs are kept to a minimum, as ultimately is you that ends up paying for it. We know that a satisfied customer will refer a friend and that's why we're successful.

 

We comply with the 1992 European regulations relating to Package Travel, Package holidays and Package Tours. Our membership with the Travel Trust Association gives our customers 100% financial protection as all funds sent to us are put into a designated trust account, which is supervised by an independent trustee (who is a banker, chartered or certified accountant, or solicitor) approved by the Travel Trust Association. Your funds are held in this account and may not be released to us until you complete your holiday. Your payment to us is also covered by a fidelity policy, which works under the umbrella of the Travel Trust Association. For more information regarding your Financial Security and the Travel Trust Association, visit our Financial Security page.

 

After you have booked, we will email you with pre-departure information. This will include details of the hotel where you will join the tour and spend your first night, as well as contact details for our local representatives who you can contact in advance for further details.

 

In most countries, we include an airport transfer whenever you arrive, as long as we are arranging your accommodation that night.  If you arrive one day before the start of the tour, we can organise an extra night's accommodation and transfer for you. Details will be included in the pre-departure information we send you after your booking. If you arrive two days or more before the start of the tour, we can offer you our arrival package. Extra nights can be added to this package if you require.

 

There are many great opportunities for buying exciting and valuable souvenirs on many of our tours. However, it is not always practical to carry large items around, especially if you are making train or boat journeys. Most places can arrange for items such as carpets to be shipped home at relatively low costs and this is usually a better and safer policy. Your guide and our local representatives will give you further information while you are on the trip, but if you have some specific ideas about what you want to purchase before you go, please do contact us for advice.

 

We try to help groups keen on joining our trips in several ways. Anyone who has been on one of our tours before may benefit from our 'refer a friend' scheme. We also try to offer group discounts for parties of over 4 persons. Please contact us for specific details for your tour.

 

In nearly all the countries in which we operate, we specialise in tailor-made tours for individuals, families and groups who are interested in cultural or adventure travel. You can use one of our set tour itineraries as a base, or we can create a completely new holiday for you. Please contact us and where possible, we will try to work together to create exactly what you are looking for. We are keen to help in this way, as in some cases in the past, this has given us new ideas for tours to run permanently.

 

Each of our activity tours is graded, enabling you to determine prior to booking whether or not it's suitable for you. You should be fairly confident that you match our criteria for taking part in that particular activity. With regard to diving, that's simple - if you meet the criteria on our diving information page then don't worry. Anything above and beyond that is based on having the first qualification.

 

We're not just your average tour company. While relatively small, we have grown by putting our customers first, and allowing them to customise their holidays with us as much as possible. We know that you may only visit many of the places we offer once in your life, and that getting exactly what you want is therefore very important.  All of our office staff have worked and travelled extensively in the countries in which we operate, so we can provide informed background information for you, as well as helping create the right holiday for you.