Why choose Exotic Adventures.

Exotic Adventures  was born in 1999, the idea was a little audacious. But it made sense. Whole swaths of the planet were opening up to the outside world. A Golden Age of Travel was upon us. We were raring to get up and go. We believed in the great, sometimes transformative, always instructive worth of travel. We were charmed to the core by the people we met, and we wanted our travelers to get to know them.

More important, our travelers are loyal—76 percent of them are referrals or repeat clients. And they’re pleased—our post-trip questionnaires reveal a 96 percent satisfaction rate.

  Travel with a philosophy

    Sure, it’s a little grand to call it a philosophy. But in the end, to be effective you’ve got to have a well-considered way of doing things. You might even call it a sense of taste. In general, we construct the kinds of journeys we’d like to go on ourselves. Specifically, that means trips that are:
Interesting. We think really hearty travel means more than lolling on a sun-kissed beach (which we recommend, and often enjoy, in Mancora beach,  and many other loll-worthy spots). But we and our exactly chosen guides are a curious bunch, and so are our travelers. We want to know the places we visit, get the brain clicking.  What do world´s people really think about Peru? How does the Great Game impact today’s world? Just how endangered is Manu’s wildlife?  What’s it like on the other side of that hill? This whole catalog is about the joyful, in-depth investigation of interesting people, places, and things.

Intimate. One of the things we often see on pre-trip questionnaires is “I really don’t go in for group travel, but ...” Since most of us don’t much like being herded around by a guide waving a flag, we’ve always constructed our trips with the idea that traveling with like-minded friends is the ideal. Our maximum group size is almost always 16, and quite often less. And our Private Journeys  range from one member on up.

Innovative. Not just because new places are exciting, but because you have to be permanently sunk in the armchair not to know that even familiar places have innumerable crannies to explore. We scout, we delve, we ponder, and we construct our trips with the idea that jumping out of travel ruts is an imperative. Our staff is made up of travel sleuths, and this web is a testament to their investigative talents.

Well planned. People sometimes ask why they need us. Why they can’t just wring their reservations out of the web. And we say: you probably can, in most cases (though certainly not all). That is, if you have unlimited amounts of time, money, and patience.  Get in touch with an in-country expert in, say, textiles or pre-Columbian art? Be prepared to squander lots of time, money, and even more patience. Our business is to take the hassle, guesswork, nagging uncertainty, and misleading Googley grandiosity out of travel. Our professional recognition and our travelers’ loyalty point emphatically to the fact that we do that business very well.

Responsible. We live in a time when savvy travelers are rightly concerned with disruption, both ecological and cultural, of the places they visit. We are, too, in spades. This is an easy thing to bandy about; the web is full of eco-this and eco-that. But we ask you to question us, and to read this web site carefully, and we think you’ll be satisfied that not only are we fired up and mindful about the places we go, we’re intent on making sure they’re not ground down by the wheels of mass tourism.

Our suggestion

We’re not the only folks who know that we’re in the midst of a Golden Age of Travel. People around the world, as never before in history, are hitting the road with gusto. Supply, as we spend 99 pages pointing out, is vast. But demand is increasing (our most coveted trips fill 9 to 12 months in advance). So bookings at many of the most sterling destinations are tight and getting tighter.

But don’t forget this admonition:

        There’s no cure like travel
        to help you unravel
        the worries of living today.
        When the poor brain is cracking,
        there’s nothing like packing
        a suitcase and sailing away.