Azores Tours and Trips

Our tour leader (Tania) was fantastic and worked tirelessly to make this holiday brilliant. Her knowledge, enthusiasm and passion for the beautiful Azores islands shone through and made this a very memorable and amazing holiday.

A thoroughly enjoyable tour which gave a very good impression of the Azores. Although the weather was not ideal (some quite wet and windy weather with poor visibility), the programme was altered to make the best of things. The tour leader was excellent and got us through a difficult situation when a flight was cancelled and we had to stay a night unexpectedly on an island where we were just expecting to transit through. This was a benefit as we saw some extra things! The members of the group got on with each other very well and this added to the enjoyment of the trip.

I would give the leader Coco 10 stars out of 5. She handled the weather-related setbacks effectively and with grace and transformed what might have been a negative experience into a bonus. The hiking was fantastic and the sights were breathtaking - "walk" in the name of this tour might have been a bit misleading for some members of our group given the ruggedness of some of the terrain. I would 100% recommend this trip.

We've traveled with Explore many times and this trip was excellent. We had the chance to experience four islands with a mixture of hiking/walking and seeing various parts of the islands as well. The tour leader, Tania, was outstanding -- very enthusiastic and engaged. We had a smaller group which were well matched for walking, so that was helpful. While my wife and I walk/hike a lot, I will say that some of these walks could be challenging if you are a "casual" walker and not used to mountain paths or inclines. The pace of the overall trip was brisk without being overwhelming and we had no weather issues at all. Lodging was excellent and all travel arrangements were spot-on. There were a few group dinners, but most evenings were free to make your own choices for food. We would highly recommend this trip.

The holiday was a balanced mix of short(ish) walks and interesting activities and attractions, from wine tasting to whale watching, a botanic garden to a tea factory and from boiling fumaroles to a volcano interpretation centre. Transport arrangements worked perfectly and all four hotels were of a high standard and located in the main centres of activity in each of the islands. All in all an excellent holiday.

Thoroughly enjoyable holiday in the beautiful Azores. We visited 4 contrasting islands, but all were lush and green despite their volcanic nature. I thought that there might be more downtime than I like from the itinerary on the website, but in fact, there were activities every day, as our very organised and hardworking guide Tania, led optional walks for us in free time, and also ensured that everyone had the chance to go whale watching and climb Pico Mountain, if they wished. I would definitely like to return to the Azores and visit some of the other islands.