Sometimes the good company is as important as a good price.
Who hasn't sat in front of the computer and spent more than an hour looking for a flight at a better price or reading reviews and more reviews from travelers about the location and services of the hotels without obtaining any satisfactory results? Who has not ever had the feeling of wasting time or Have you concluded that an expert would have done better?
Just because you know what you want, and when and how you want it, as well as having the technological tools at your fingertips to organize and buy a trip on your own, doesn't mean you should always do it that way. There are moments in life when we value our time more than other aspects such as money. or the mental burden of balancing everything scrupulously, without any loose ends such as schedules, transfers, tickets, etc.
This, together with the fact that travel agencies (especially online ones) are increasingly specializing in sectors and offering packages focused on one type of traveler or another, means that delegate to another the organization of our trip is more of a relief than a trauma. And even more so if we take into account that, on occasions, these types of trips offer an extra, an experience or a service, that otherwise would not be within our reach.
Therefore, because you are at that point where you want to entrust your time and money to an expert to guide and accompany you during the purchase process (and even during the journey), these are the organized trips that we believe are worth it.
You just worry about taking the perfect photo, the rest is taken care of by a travel expert.
TO MEASURE AND IN ITS RIGHT MEASURE
As if it were a tailored suit, there are companies that organize trips based on your tastes or concerns, also adding experience, skill or in-depth knowledge of a destination. For example, Namaste Viajes, although it currently offers trips to all kinds of destinations, can boast of having served the needs of travelers for more than 20 years. in India, Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan, where they have their own offices with Spanish speaking staff.
"Before, they asked us for many group trips, but now, especially in certain parts of the world, they ask us for more personalized or tailor-made trips. It is true that a very large percentage of clients have clear ideas, but there are others who arrive very confused and our job is to guide them," Juan Carlos Lorenzo, owner of this Valladolid agency, explains to me.
About to catch a plane to Nepal to visit the new hotels that have just opened in the Asian country, Juan Carlos wants to explain that many times it is the field work that makes the real difference: "The fact of knowing and traveling frequently to a destination allows you to adapt what you are going to offer in the future, the simple fact that there is a new road can make you change the course of a route".
There are places like the Maldives, continues this expert in Asia, which must be surveyed every season, because it is usual that there are some 25 new hotel openings that arrive accompanied by a good 'introduction price', "price that usually triples in successive years".
Juan Carlos also wants to clarify that it is wrong to think that a hotel is going to give a better price to a traveler who is going to stay in it once in his life than to a company that guarantees the reservation of 200 rooms a year, for not talk about the flights, since many times the airlines offer them better conditions or the possibility of saving a flight without having to issue it.
The news of Namaste Viajes for this 2019? A photographic trip accompanied by a prestigious professional travel photographer and the possibility of visiting Kyrgyzstan (climbing a mountain at 5,000 meters) or Ladakhi, in India, with the aim of seeing the coveted snow leopard.
Did you know about the existence of the new M?venpick Resort Kuredhivaru Maldives? Because Juan Carlos yes.
LIMITED EDITIONS
If there is an agency specialized in large tailor-made trips, it is in NUBA, with offices spread throughout the main Spanish cities. But this time we will not pay attention to your "personalized handmade" model from alternative safaris in Africa, expeditions to Antarctica or reservations in quasi-secret hotels, but to their signature Limited Edition trips.
Designed for a maximum group of 15 travelers with the same interests and, as they explain to us, "accompanied by historians, archaeologists, painters and artists, writers... who sign an unrepeatable experience, they are trips taken care of in detail, away from the usual tourist routes, that are drawn through the culture they run through".
One example is his upcoming signature trip to Japan (June 8-16), where 14 travelers will discover authentic Japanese cuisine in the company of chef Carlos Navarro, a finalist at the 2016 Sushi World Cup in Tokyo. A trip through Kyoto, Hakone and Tokyo full of experiences: there will be markets, sake cellars, restaurants specializing in kobe beef and certified to cook puffer fish, as well as thermal baths in the traditional onsen and private kaiseki dinners.
NUBA can make you the one who is bathing in this onsen.
IN RICH COMPANY
Because yes, sometimes during a trip the important thing is not the fact of being accompanied, but what you learn from the person who is by your side. Hence, more and more boutique-type agencies (such as the Parisian Travellur) organize retreats and meetings with artists or writers that provide added value to leisure time at the destination.
More than Victoria Woolf-style solitary retreats, what is appreciated now is the contact with other writers so that there is a creative permeability, what it would be like to transfer the literary talks of the cafés to more idyllic and vacation settings.
This philosophy is what Rita Rodríguez, founder of Entelequia Cultural, applies in her weekend cultural retreats in which the attendees, in addition to participating in a course or workshop given by renowned thinkers, authors and artists, live with them and other people with similar interests in rural houses.
You can check the dates and participants on her website, but Rita recommends two events: "The one in June, with Pablo Martín Sánchez, which will be very interesting, It will be held in Calonge (Costa Brava) and will be titled The creative force of the lock. A Potential Writing Workshop and Get out of the ordinary, by Sara Mesa, which will also be on the Costa Brava in November, but this time in Tossa de Mar".
One of the cultural retreats of Entelequia Cultural.
ROUTES AND ADVENTURES 2.0
The era of expeditions is as far away as it is close, thanks to Google Maps, to any point on the globe. However, it is possible to feel something of that very "Mr. Livingston, I suppose" feeling, if You are part of the team of an explorer-journalist like Henry Stanley was, only from our time.
These are the adventures of Viajes El País and B the travel brand together with fellow travel journalist Paco Nadal, who on April 12 sail on a wooden sailing ship built in 1910 around the Svalbard islands (Norway) in search of polar bears, walruses, whales, seals and glaciers.
The places for these 2.0 expeditions are usually full months before departure, "I'm lucky," Paco confirms, but don't worry, since he tells me that he is orchestrating the next destinations for 2020: "We will return to Africa, because it is my favorite continent, and we want to do something in Alaska, maybe in the North Cape and sail along the Norwegian coast by boat. The philosophy is to try to take travelers to places that have moved me."
In the specific case of this trip to Svalbard, the writer explains to me that it is a territory that he knows quite well, and one of the most incredible he has visited in his life (that's nothing) because of its remoteness and, at the same time, because of its proximity to the North Pole: "There are more polar bears than people. It is the only European territory where weapons are not only not prohibited, but where you have to go out armed for your own safety."
"These types of unique adventures can only occur to a crazy person like me," Paco confesses with a laugh as he explains what they are looking for and what those who share their time with him will find: "Most of them know me of the newspaper or the radio and they follow me on social networks.They seek to share a different experience in which they can chat with me and where I I will teach you to banish pre-established premises, to look at the obvious places differently, through my eyes, to be moved by what moves me and to get out of the usual routes and circuits", concludes the author of the book The Perfect Journey.
Another writer, Fran Contreras, will be in charge of reveal the enigmas of the Camino de Santiago in an itinerary created by Pangea with departure on April 13 and in which the mysteries surrounding the Path of the Stars, that star map that marked the route to 'Finis Terrae', will also be addressed.
The Cruz de Ferro hermitage is one of the magical places on the Camino de Santiago.
ACCORDING TO YOUR INTERESTS
Getting it right when booking an organized trip is directly proportional to the trust that the travel agent transmits to you. This is closely linked to their experience in a specific area, so **if you are looking to climb Kilimanjaro or Everest there will be no better company than the long-standing Tusker Trail,** which has been dedicated to the mountain for more than 40 years .
Regarding adventure trips, G Adventure has designed different itineraries for small groups under the National Geographic Journeys label, in which, in addition to the territory, local cultures are explored in an immersive way in the chosen destinations: from the Victoria Falls to the jungle of Borneo, through tours of South and Central America.
The Classic Journeys boutique agency has a special section for gastronomic trips that includes organized trips with names as appealing as: Make ravioli under the Tuscan sun or Toast Chianti in a 15th-century castle, toast being a friendly traditional tasting-celebration around wine and Italian cuisine. Because, what is the greatest Italian treasure: Michelangelo's David or a perfect and tiny gnocchi bathed in butter and sprinkled with fresh sage?, as ironically on their website.
There is nothing more Tuscan than an al fresco dinner with friends.
ALONE AND WELL ACCOMPANIED
The forcefulness of the word alone (which even in English keeps the spelling of its Latin root intact) is contrary to the flexibility that the term acquires by the mere fact of being social beings. Thus, we can travel alone to an organized trip to share a journey with other people, and if they are related to our tastes or interests, better than better.
Adventures in small groups for solo travelers between 30 and 49 years old is what Flash Pack offers, exactly what Radha Vyas was looking for and could not find before founding this agency that he cares about devising "meaningful adventures that have an experiential impact."
More than an age range, what Flash Pack deals with is connect travelers from the same tribe, the one who is not looking for a typical Nile cruise but rather to cross it freely in a kayak or who, although she wants to get to know Machu Pichu, does not want to leave Peru without her multicolored photo of the Rainbow Mountain.
Flash Pack offers the kind of trip that every 'thirty-fortysomething' wants.
IN FEMALE
Goddess Retreats is a pioneer in creating transformative retreats for women in idyllic settings. Group gatherings in positive and empowered environments that combine relaxation and action: there are yoga, surfing and fitness in Bali and skiing in Japan.
The reason they have specific start dates for their groups instead of open dates is that the real goal of these retreats is experience the affectionate, fun and intelligent union that occurs when women come together and share their experiences.
For its part, WOM designs trips for women who travel alone but want to do it in a group and they divide the experiences by their level of adventure from one to four (marked with a picture of one, two, three or four vans), because sleeping in a yurt is not the same as walking through the rocky terrain of a United States national park. Joined.