Exodus - Adventure travel

Exodus is a company with over 30 years experience in providing small group holidays and the range of holidays to choose from is immense. There are trips to over 90 countries, spanning every continent, including Antarctica, and the duration of trips can be from less than a week to several months. In the last five or six years i have booked two Exodus trips, one to Costa Rica and one to Thailand.

===_Choosing and booking a trip_===
...brochure then Exodus produces a number of these which categorise the holidays as follows: Wlaking & Trekking, Cycling, Winter Activity, Polar Expeditions, Family Adventures, Discovery, Wildlife & Adventure. The last two categories would be suitable for those people not interested in any particular activity but rather are interested to explore a particular country or region. Children are allowed on holidays in the Family brochure but not the others.
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Exodus is a company with over 30 years experience in providing small group holidays and the range of holidays to choose from is immense. There are trips to over 90 countries, spanning every continent, including Antarctica, and the duration of trips can be from less than a week to several months. In the last five or six years i have booked two Exodus trips, one to Costa Rica and one to Thailand.

Choosing and booking a trip

If you like to thumb through a brochure then Exodus produces a number of these which categorise the holidays as follows: Wlaking & Trekking, Cycling, Winter Activity, Polar Expeditions, Family Adventures, Discovery, Wildlife & Adventure. The last two categories would be suitable for those people not interested in any particular activity but rather are interested to explore a particular country or region. Children are allowed on holidays in the Family brochure but not the others.

In addition to the brochures, which can be ordered on-line or or over the phone the website is also extremely comprehensive, www.exodus.co.uk and I would be more inclined to browse here myself. There are a lot of trips to chose from and this can seem daunting at first, but it is possible to run a search on the home page to immediately narrow the options down by choosing any or all of: a continent, a country, an activity, preferred length of trip, start date after, return date before and price. This swiftly will bring back a summarised list of trips meeting your criteria.

The summarised listing will include trip name, price, exact dates and availability indicator. From here it is possible to select individual trips in order to read a summary of those which interest you, the summary will include an overview, a brief daily itinerary, accommodation types (nights in hotel, on train, camping etc), types of transport used, meals included in price and any activities included. Additionally for each trip there are photographs and a detailed dossier, usually three pages along which describes the itinerary in detail for each day as well as practicalities, such as flight times, accommodation, time travelling and so on. The dossiers end with general information such as visa and inoculation requirements, guidelines on spending money and clothing and equipment you will require.

Booking can be done on-line or you can download the form, complete it and fax it back. There is a telephone number provided for any queries. The website states that your trip will be confirmed within ten days, however in my experience the confirmation has been much quicker, either the next day or the one after.

The Trips and groups

The trips I chose were both based around seeing a country rather than participating in a specific activity. The group size on both trips was about 16. The Costa Rica group included a few couples, some friends travelling together, a mother and daughter and several solo travellers. The Thailand trip was mainly couples with two solo travellers. The ages ranged from late 20's to 60's but most people were in their 30's or 40's. If you are travelling solo then you can either pay a single supplement and be guaranteed of your own room (not available on all trips), or Exodus will pair you with another solo traveller of the same sex. If you agree to be paired but there is nobody to put you with then you will get your own room without paying the cost.

If you book your trip including flights then the guide will meet you at the airport, most people take this option. If you prefer to book your own flights then you will go straight to the meeting point hotel and there will be a message or notice informing you of the time of the first days meeting. This meeting is about an hour and is an opportunity to meet the guide, the rest of the group and the guide will do a quick run through of the plans for the rest of the trip.

Exodus has partnerships with local tourist operators and the guides provided are local, one guide will travel with the group for the duration of the trip. On both trips I found the guide to be extremely knowledgeable and could answer questions on virtually any topic that might conceivably come up about their country, from the history and culture to the flora and fauna. Additionally and crucially they had excellent language skills which allowed them to build rapport with the group and helped it to gel during the first few days. I mention this in particular as I spent 6 days in China with a competitor company and that local guide could not communicate beyond the most basic of English.

Both of my trips had very busy itineraries that would have taken a lot of research, planning and organisation to put together myself. The Exodus write-ups proved to be extremely accurate in every way, including even the estimated travel times between one point of interest and another. My Costa Rica itinerary covered most of this small country including areas only accessible by boat. In Thailand the trip covered Bangkok, Chiang Mai, a trek around hilltribe villages, Kanchanaburi (bridge over River Kwai) and finished with some island hopping in the south. Both trips included a multitude of activities such as horse-riding, elephant treks, diving, rafting, and wildlife watching but also had enough time for relaxation.

As my trips involved a lot of travelling around, I stayed in numerous different places but mainly small local (rather than western chain) hotels, guest houses and lodges. I have been happy with virtually all the accommodation provided, it is not luxurious but has always been clean, pleasantly furnished with private facilities. I think the quaintness and individuality has added to the overall experience and adventure.

Main pros / cons and considerations

Exodus offers trips to some more unusual destinations and particularly for women holidaying alone, it opens up the option to visit countries that they might hesitate to travel alone around and properly explore for safety reasons. For all trips, Exodus have done the research and planning and provide valuable local insight with their choice of guides. I personally enjoy the planning almost as much as the doing, however planning such a full intinerary from scratch when working full time is not as easy as it sounds.

It is not possible for me to give an average price of an Exodus trip as there are too many and too varied. However I do think their prices are at the upper end compared to similar trips from direct competitors. I have also thought that they sometimes take the unnecessarily cheaper option, for example in Thailand we had an overnight train journey and were in second class rather than first class even though we discovered that first class would only have been a few £'s more, which i thought was a bit cheap of Exodus considering that 16 day trip had cost well over £1,000 not including flights.

I have likewise sometimes struggled to reconcile the price with the standard of accommodation provided. One year I decided to travel independently and designed my own trip around Nepal using an Exodus itinerary as a template, I spent the same amount of money but stayed in much superior accommodation throughout including some leading establishments which would definitely not be on the menu with Exodus. On the other hand, I did not do quite as much, did not have a guide and I did spend a lot of time on research.

If I had one top tip before booking a trip, I would suggest calling Exodus and asking about the people already booked, in terms of ages and the make up into couples, friends, solo travellers etc. The group dynamic is very important so don't be afraid to do this. I feel my trips have been greatly enhanced by the presence of some individuals of retirement age, however I would probably still not choose to be the only person under 70 on a trip, as happened to somebody I know. Also when I arrived in Thailand I found that until two days earlier, when there was a last minute booking by another solo traveller, I had been the only solo traveller on a trip with seven couples. I don't think this would have been a problem for me and it was a really good group however I probably would have preferred to known when making my decision to book.

I would definitely consider booking a trip with Exodus again but i think this would be in one of the following situations; if travelling to a more unusual destination, to a region where one needs to be especially wary of crime or if I want to participate in unusual or a range of activities. I have rated as four as overall my satisfaction has been very high and I would use them again myself, however they could still improve. 

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