Explore Blogs

You might not know, but Explore also organise School trips (or adventures as we like to call them). Right now one of our long time Schools’ customers - Teesside High School - are on their way around Thailand on their 4th adventure with us. A group of 19 teachers and students are travelling, and they are writing a blog about their trip with us, from start to finish.

So to see how Explore works from an education perspective go take a look at Teesside High School’s blog

Update: They have now returned - go to their blog to read more.

Recently been having a conversation with Clive Baldwin who is a Croatia fan. He has a website at www.THECROATIANFLYER.COM. Although not the best design in the world, it does have lots of interesting information about Croatia, particularly Croatian wine and Croatian islands. Worth having a look at if you are thinking about going there this summer.

Knowing our people in reservations, I can honestly say that they do try very hard to put customers first and be as friendly as possible. After all, what’s the point of going on a wonderful holiday if you don’t have fun from the out-set?

I’m very pleased to see that one of our sister companies, Keycamp are also getting acknowledged for having ’service with a smile’.

Diane Coleman on the Travel Weekly blog comments:

Like Keycamp for instance… I’m sure they have a smile on their face.

Fantastic! Its always nice to get a pat on the back from another professional in the industry and even better from a customer.

And while I’m looking at links on technorati…

Megan talks about her absolutely fantastic trip to Jordan. She also has some great shots of the tour up on flickr - the photo sets marked Jordan (obviously).

Megan also commented that she had a fantastic local guide called Hazem, who “…added so much to the holiday”.

Local guides always seem to make a lot of difference to people on our tours whether they are the tour leader or local guides in specific places, it can make all the difference between get to know the place or just seeing it.

Kate Smurthwaite announces that she had a “pretty amazing weekend away” on one of our Short breaks: Lapland Ice Adventure. Sounds like it was a very active trip - glad you enjoyed it Kate!

Update: Kate has put her photos online! (See Comments)

Our new short breaks programme gets launched in May so watch out for that. Quite a few new tours which look at least amazing, but can’t talk about them yet - wait for the ides of May!

Earlier this week I spotted a very interesting blog by Jane Tomlinson called “Sightlines“. In the about section she has a lovely sentence about what she does:

“I try to make lively, colourful images to excite the eye and feed the soul.”

And I think I would agree.

Jane has been on several Explore trips, however her most recent to South West Africa was what initially caught my eye. These pictures of Antelope (taken by her and her husband Moth Clark) and her drawings and sketches are lovely. Her writing also conveys what it feels like to be in a place and how she reacts to a variety of different sights, smells and sounds around her.

Jane’s sketches from Etosha National Park, Namibia

You can see more of Jane’s sketches in her gallery.

Gemsbok, Namibia

Puku in Chobe National Park, Botswana

Jane has an exhibition of her work in May and June 2007 - I think I may take a visit.

All images © Jane Tomlinson 2007

And now there is an interesting Sahara audio slide show up on the Guardian Unlimited site. Some very good photos - particularly like the sunrise and the pot in a corner.

A while ago we ran a competition with the Guardian, for 6 places on a trip to Morocco - our Short breaks Saharan Escape tour. The people who won and the Guardian Unlimited’s Anna Pickard are blogging about the trip at the Guardian’s travel blog: Travelog.

Most of the people, including Anna, are new to small group travel and adventure holidays. It is very interesting to read their perspectives, which are similar to my own before going on an Explore trip. Gerald Wills comments (emphasis is mine):

It’s not the kind of holiday we normally go on at all. Normally we go away about three, four times a year, but it’s always the beach. We’re realising now, we never really see the other side of the country, outside the resorts. This year, we’ll have the city breaks during the winter but again that’s just people-watching, and that’s brilliant. But this? This is awesome.

Anna Pickard talks about group travel in a similar vein:

Group travel - something I’d never even considered before, fearing it would be non-stop small talk and enforced jollity, impatience with people wanting to move at different speeds, wanting to see different things, and seeing the very same things in different ways.

But it’s amazing how fast the sense of camaraderie builds up, you are, after all, a set of excited people, all seeing something new for the first time. Information feeds through the group - “Did you see THAT?!”, “Oh! I’ve read about this!” And because no one’s having to concentrate on what we have to do next - which way, which meal, which camp - it seems that everyone relaxes quicker.

It’s a fascinating read about the tour from different perspectives - I’d highly recommend going and reading it.

Following yesterday’s posting I thought I would also introduce another good friend and ‘experienced’ Explore customer - Sheila Simkin. Sheila publishes the blog - Travels with Sheila where she posts about trips taken with different tour operators (including lots with Explore) and those organised independently. Sheila is based in the US and generally writes from an American perspective however the travel writing gives you an excellent flavour of places, people and what to look out for.

Always worth a read but particularly interesting series of posts on Uganda and Rwanda at the moment - I particularly liked this posting on Mburo as it shows Ankole cattle (one of my favourite aniumals - don’t know why!) and a shot of Boda - Bodas:

A “boda-boda” is either a motorcycle or bicycle used to carry passengers…similar to taxis and also used to haul goods on the back of them.

Sheila has suggested that this was one of her most inspiring trips and I can certainly see the attraction of Uganda from a wildlife and cultural perspective. Maybe next year…

Picture of Mountain Gorillas near Bwindi taken on Explore’s Gorilla and Chimp safari.