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.

Jane Tomlinson sent me an email yesterday about the Oxfordshire Arts Festival:

Come and have a shufti at my paintings, which I’m exhibiting for Oxfordshire’s visual arts festival (www.artweeks.org), on Saturday 26, Sunday 27, Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 June 2007, from 12 noon-6pm at 18 Newland Close, Eynsham, just six miles west of Oxford.

You’ll see colourful, vibrant watercolours and prints of magic landscapes from Oxfordshire, the UK and around the world, pictures of birds and animals, stones, pebbles and sunflowers. Have a sneaky peek here.

Refreshments are available, access for the disabled is good and parking’s dead easy. And there are lots of other artists in Eynsham exhibiting for Artweeks, so they’ll be tons to see.

Really hope to see you. Very best wishes,
Jane

I’m hoping (fingers crossed) to go down in June and take a look.

Looking at my regular dose of the Travel Daily ( an interesting little travel industry focused enewsletter) I noticed their lead article on over 50s Saga cruises:

Under the Single Equality Act, companies are banned from discriminating on the grounds of age in the provision of goods and services.

This means that companies cannot specify that a holiday is only available for over 50s or I guess for 18-30s only. I wonder how many other companies will be impacted by this government legislation?

Personally I think it makes tours far more interesting to have a good mix of people from all ages, backgrounds and even countries. Its been one of the minor highlights of my Explore experiences having people from Australia, Canada, the US and from 6 years to 70 years (depending on the type of tour of course)!

However, I would be very interested to know what you think?

Cameron Alexander (nee Parker), the Managing Editor of Easy living Magazine, headed out to Nepal on our Everest Tea House Trek. Alastair caught up with him her recently for this podcast. You can also read more in June’s Easy Living Magazine page 157!

 

 Cameron Parker - Everest Tea House Trek [7:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1782)

Update: I’ve had an email from Anna, who is booked to go on our Other Side of Everest tour - she would love to have someone to talk to about the tour - so if anyone who has been on this or any other walking and trekking tour in and around Everest and Nepal wouldn’t mind swapping emails with her then, let me know by leaving a comment or sending us an email at talktome [at] exploreblogs.co.uk (replace the at with an @).

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!

Cathy Hillman, who is booked on our Cradle of Voodoo tour to West Africa, dropped me an email yesterday asking for some advice. Whilst we have our experts here at Explore, I thought it would be also good to get anyone who has been to West Africa to offer their advice. Here are the questions from Cathy (slightly edited by me) however any suggestions would be most appreciated.

We had a FANTASTIC trip to Mali in Oct 05 (best holiday ever) and been desperate to get back to West Africa since then.

I’m really interested in helpful - practical - suggestions of things to take:

• what was the best sort of Mosquito Net (am thinking about taking one of the Pop-Up ones but no idea if it is suitable because of the variety of accommodation we have).
• should I try and find a map over here, or buy it there?
• Is there access to both drinking water and ordinary water for showering or is it another case of a cup in a washing up bowl?
• Was there much to buy - not just souvenirs but things to eat?
• Is there much free time?
• Should I change a little money as we go along or change it all at the airport?
• When we went to Mali I took a little “bubble set” which went down a treat with all the children as they had never seen bubbles before and took the pressure off them following us for money. Is this a good idea?

You can leave your comments by going here.

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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

I wanted to share with you some pictures taken by a fellow passenger on my recent trip to India.

John Patterson took the following wonderful shots on the extended version of the tour I went on, which also includes Moghul Highlights as well as Rajasthan.

John and his wife Kay are extremely keen walkers, and John even leads walking tours in the UK. He has a great eye for ‘photos’ and he kindly sent me through these great pictures.

The Amber Fort, Jaipur

Also the Amber Fort, Jaipur

Meherangarh Fort in Jodhpur

Jain Temple at Ranakpur

Traditional Cattle powered pump for irrigating the crops.

Gateway to the Fort at Kumbalgarh

All photos © John Patterson 2007.

Bryan Tomalin is certainly one of Explore’s best customers. He’s travelled no less than 38 times and has more trips booked for 2007 (and yes that’s trips!). He even talks about being on a tour led by Derek Moore, one of the founders of Explore, who is now an Associate Director of the company (not the Managing Director, Alastair!) and the current Chairman of the Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO).

Bryan talks about his love of Explore and the type of trips offered and about some of his future plans. And also sings the praises of our website at www.explore.co.uk

All I can say is, Bryan is defintely an Explore enthusiast! Thanks for your support, Bryan!

 

 Interview with Bryan Tomalin [4:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1267)