Explore Worldwide Anmeldelser 246

Holiday was an amazing expeience full of variety.
We had a great group leader who was just a wonderful person to spend time with.
It was the visits to a number of community projects where the holiday was supporting local initiaves that made this a very special experience.

Excellent guide, great walking and reasonably priced. I felt secure and safe. The company was good. The walking grade system is helpful and I’ve booked on a higher graded walking week for next year.

Excellent varied itinerary, both on the Ecuador mainland and the Galapagos islands, with lots of contrasting experiences and a few extra surprises along the way.

Particular highlights:
Quitsato Equator centre
Music demonstration at Peguche
Mindo hummingbird garden - a great way to spend an hour!
The indigenous communities and ecotourism projects at Otavalo and Yunguilla - excellent lunches at both, sampling the local produce.
Quito old town walk
Seeing the Cotopaxi volcano after the cloud lifted.
The variety of amazing wildlife in the Galapagos, particular the walks on the smaller islands, and we saw everything on the wish list!
Tortuga Bay - idyllic location; surreal experience swimming with the white-tipped sharks.

Japan is a wonderful country. Easy to travel around as signage on public transport was in Japanese and English. Very helpful people; if they cannot answer your question they will try to find someone who could. Great value for money. Most cafe/restaurant menu’s were in Japanese so ordering food was an adventure in itself; however staff would go out of their way to help.

Excellent variety of places to visit on the Coast to Coast trip to Costa Rica lead very ably by the local guide Andres who was very knowledgeable on how best to spot the many birds, frogs, sloths, monkeys and other animals in their habitat especially the elusive Quetzal and the beautifully colored nocturnal frogs. Watching a sea turtle lay her eggs on the beach was a key highlight along with the zip wires and canopy walks in the rain forest. Great to see single use plastic bottles were banned from many parks and recycling actively encouraged.

We have travelled with Explore many times and keep using them as they provide a brilliant experience. Our most recent trip was to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and it did not disappoint. Great tour leaders in each country, knowledgeable local guides, modest, fabulous, and sometimes quirky accommodation (particularly in Kyrgyzstan), and a really authentic experience. We loved it. And the architecture in Uzbekistan blew us away.
If you enjoy being in a small group, using a variety of local transport, potentially staying in very humble accommodation, eating a variety of food and meeting friendly and curious locals, and are prepared to be on the go with sometimes long days, then choose this tour.

I have been with Explore Worldwide for a long time but I was disappointed that for this trip the trip notes were disjointed, with some blank pages as if they hadn't proof read them. Also they had not mentioned about an ESTA causing me to miss my flight I had to pay for another flight and stay overnight in an hotel Cost me alot of money £1250+£150. Also affected my other flights to get Belize which I'd to pay for

Great trip, well organised and a fantastic tour leader.

Very good varied led by excellent tour leaders and local guides.

The guide went above and beyond for everyone, ensuring we had a great time. The scenery was amazing as was the company on the tour.

I had never been to Greece before, I loved the island hopping and the time spent in Athens gave us another glimpse into life in Greece. Our guide, Peter, was fabulous. He took a personal interest in each member of the group, noting their physical abilities for each outing. We learned a lot about life in Greece's past and present from Peter. My favorite island was Syros. We spent enough time on each island so that it felt relaxed and not frantic. I really liked the flexibility of the tour. This meant I was able to do a little rambling on my own each day.

This was the first family holiday where we've booked to holiday with a group and we were a bit nervous but we are completely converted! Meeting people from different walks of life with shared interests and values really enhanced the holiday and our young people really enjoyed each others' company too.

We really appreciated the ability to have an active and culturally engaging holiday without the headache of planning and organising it on the fly every evening. The itinerary was cleverly arranged with enough down time in which to rest and enjoy the amazing hotel pool. We enjoyed the variety but our favourite day was the sea kayaking; that said, the days on the private chartered boat were blissful too! Another huge highlight was the chance encounter with the beekeepers who generously invited us to sit and eat bread and honey nearing the end of our walk in the incredible foothills of the Taurus mountains.

There are a few tiny reasons I haven't awarded 5 stars. Firstly, our guide was very kind and clearly extremely knowledgeable but his English was barbaric which meant it was hard to make the most of his experience. We'd also have appreciated more options/variety/value for money for group meals - there is an amazing vegetarian restaurant and several good value Italian options that would have suited our group (2 vegetarian families in our group), but the suggestions were dismissed by the guide. It barely mattered because we spent so little time in our rooms, (and the staff were delightful - despite having virtually no common language!) but the hotel was very basic, with old and uncomfortable beds, poor curtains and terrible showers (air con was excellent though!).

Having seen the benefits of this kind of holiday, we'd definitely be interested in the more exotic destinations. We'd trust Explore to help our family get the most from being in an unfamiliar and more adventurous part of the world.

Great guides. Very organised. Can't fault any of it.
From booking through to getting on the plane back everything was so well organised. Flights, getting met at the airport, the hotel and other overnight locations and the trek itself was great.
The trek masters were amazing and so helpful.
The food was gorgeous. I took loads of snack bars and gels and hardly used any. How the cooks made the food they did in a tent is amazing. I was never hungry and no funny tummies within our group. Would definitely recommend this company.

I have done several guided cycling holidays with Explore and each one has been excellent.

Have been on over 15 holidays with Explore and have never been disappointed. Their holidays are nearly always full on and busy but this gives you the chance to see as much as possible in a shorter time. Always use good guides. Highly recommended.

The guides, walking, transportation, accommodation, food and spirit of the experience were all excellent and enabled participants to truly enjoy the land, people and activity of the tour.

Explore were brilliant during the pandemic with my holiday booking. All the customer service staff who helped me were helpful and handled my questions quickly and efficiently. When I finally managed to get away I was really glad my trip was booked with Explore and they really deserve the 5 stars. I have already booked my next holiday for next year

An enjoyable trip including most of the highlights of Colombia.
Our stylish art deco hotel was well located in Bogota for exploring the capital's colonial architecture, churches, colourful streets, Gold Museum and the Museo Botero, featuring the artist's artworks and sculptures.
A flight took us to the coffee region where we stayed in an attractive hacienda, located on a coffee farm, which we visited. Hummingbirds visited the feeders. After visiting the small attractive town of Salento we had an enjoyable hike through the Cocora Valley hills, which were covered by the beautiful high wax palms.
Our next stop was the large modern city of Medellin.. There were limited sights but it was great to explore the La Comuna 13 neighbourhood high up on the mountainside using the metro and cable cars to experience the street art and learn about the past history of violence and drug barons.
We then visited the attractive town of Guatape, famed for its colourful bas-reliefs on many of the houses. The 700 step climb up to the top of the 200m El Penol rock was rewarded with wonderful views of the lake. However, the evening boat trip on the huge monster of a boat was a complete waste of time as it was cold, wet with the darkness preventing us seeing any of the lakes attractions.
Our final flight took us Santa Marta. A modern town on the Caribbean coast, it didn't have many points of interest. It was meant to be the point, from which to travel for a hike through Tayrona National Park, but the heavy rain in the previous few weeks made it inaccessible. Our fallback was a short boat trip on the Don Diego River, but the rain also partly disrupted this trip as well.
Our final destination was the lovely city of Cartagena. Our hotel was conveniently situated in the heart of the wonderful old walled city with all its colonial charms. The convent and huge castle up on the hills were a good destinations. I took a taxi for a worthwhile visit to the National Aviary.
The trip was well organised and run by a dedicated tour leader, but there were a few minor hitches caused by the weather and the disruption of Explore trips because of Covid.

I had been waiting to go to Costa Rica for a number of years, it being postponed many times due to covid. Having now been, it did not disappoint. The trip (code CC), was packed with activities, wildlife encounters and rest time. Overall the itinerary was good, though for those wildlife lovers a couple of extra days in the wildlife hot spots would have been even better. The white water rafting is definitely worth the experience as well as the hanging bridge walk. I have travelled a number of times with explore and this is one of the trips I'd rank in my highlights (very difficult to pick my favourite!).

Hi, I traveled to Malta and Sicily with Explore (June 2022). The itinerary was well thought out, allowing us to see all the interesting sights in both regions. I especially enjoyed our visit to the top of Mt. Etna. Both guides (Chantelle in Malta; Max in Sicily) were personable, knowledgeable, and fun to travel with.