Eastern Europe Active and outdoor Trips

I went to Jordan because my husband wanted to see Petra, but the country had so much more. The people, the culture and the history from over 9000 years before. Our guide was excellent, thank you Mo. You were kind, made history accessible without overwhelming us with information. Well worth arriving a couple of days before to get a feel for Amman and the people. and R&R at the end at Aqaba and Dead Sea was most welcome(safest snorkelling trip we have been on)

This trip is not for the faint- hearted. But for me, part of the appeal was very basic accommodation, sleeping in a hammock on deck and showering in cold river water. If you don't expect any luxury on the water, you'll love it. With no changing facilities on board apart from a rudimentary loo/ shower you get to know your fellow travellers very well. And great teamwork when the boat was caught in a storm, battening diwn the hatches. Explore make it clear that it isn't what most people would describe as a cruise!

My first holiday with Explore and certainly not my last. What a wonderful experience and with a great knowledgeable leader. Pace was full on as described but that meant we packed more places into our time there. If I had to find a negative it would be the standard of breakfast in our Petra hotel ( Edom). There wasn't enough variety compared with the other two hotels we stayed in.

The accommodation was as a described in the trip notes varying from a Radisson hotel to cute beach huts, cramped metal cabins on the ferry and hammocks close together on the deck of our private boat. If you can't cope with that then don't book this trip. We had a great group and a wonderful guide who coalesced as friends and had an amazing experience. Don't expect to see much mammalian or reptilian wildlife apart from some monkeys, dolphins and Cayman but on the motorised canoe trip on the smaller reaches of the Rio ***** and on Marajo there was copious exotic bird life. Be super careful about food hygiene on the public ferry - a few of us succumbed - but otherwise the food was good and the fruit delicious as was the piranah soup made from the piranah we caught that day.

The organisation of this trip by Explore! was second to none. From booking a night pre tour, right to the end, everything just worked. Mo, our tour leader was friendly, knowledgeable and always willing to go the extra mile. The Toledo Hotel in Amman was a great start, the Edom hotel in Petra was of a lower standard but still clean and comfortable. Salem camp in Wadi Rum was much more comfortable than I'd imagined and the My Hotel on Aqaba was great. We saw wonderful things and Mo organised restaurants and side trips, such as camel ride and snorkelling in the Red Sea. The coach was the most luxurious that I'd ever been on! Al in all a fantastic adventure

A full on trip which maximised our time in South Africa. A really good balance of cultural insights, scenery and wildlife. This wouldn't have been possible without our super guide Christian. He knew how to keep us safe, was resolutely positive and energetic, and made the trip. There was a lot of driving which we knew about when we booked. If we had more annual leave available, we would have booked an extra night in Capetown at the end. This would have enabled us to book both a Robben Island excursion, and a Cape of Good Hope trip. We are very glad that we booked this trip.