Sorry for not writing in dutch but I couldn’t find an english section on this board. However, I found this forum while doing a search on google.nl since I know dutch people love to travel a lot.
I live in Romania and I love to travel as well. I’ve been on my own in almost all the countries in Europe so far and recently I’ve been for more then a month in South-East Asia. Everything went fine so far but this time I want to try Central or South-America.
I need some recommendations for a travel operator in these areas who can offer me a safe and pleasant journey in these areas, I’m not going to travel on my own in these areas due to safety concerns…
I did find a couple operators doing a google search such as: sawadee, shoestring, koningapp, fox, baobab. I’m not sure which one to choose.
I have no experience with those operators because I travel independently. I don’t think you need to worry all that much about safety. I travelled through Brazil and Peru solo for 9 weeks, and Peru, Bolivia and Chile (and Nicaragua) with a female friend and nothing bad happened, except one camera was stolen in Nicaragua from my friend. Lots of tourists also get robbed in Amsterdam, Rome, and what have you. But it doesn’t stop people from going there.
Summaries and photos are in my website (see signature).
Several European countries are probably just as dangerous. And travelling with an operator doesn’t take away 100% of any dangers there might be. Just be streetsmart and you’ll be fine. The biggest dangers are petty crime (sneaky theft) which can quite easily be prevented, and road accidents (crashes, or buses falling into ravines… can happen with a Djoser bus too). Travelling independently leaves you much more flexible.
You can easily book short local tours in South America, for example two day trip to the islands in Lake Titicaca with an overnight stay with a local family; a daytrip to the Ballestas Islands in Peru to see sealions; 4 day trip in Bolivia across the Salar de Uyuni and coloured lakes and amazing landscapes, etc.
If you still want to do the entire trip with a tour operator, I hope other people will post their experiences and opinions.
Well it’s not only for the safety but being part of a group makes a trip more enjoyable overall, I think this is the reason I want to book my trip with a tour operator instead of traveling alone. Finding a partner for this trip would be very hard for me.
I know the chances of something bad to happen are pretty much the same everywhere (I almost got killed in Lisboa 3 yrs ago) …
Perhaps a group with English speakers would be nicer for you. For example GAP do trips through South America.
Dutch people tend to speak quite good English (although many overestimate their skills), but amongst each other they will always go back to Dutch and you won’t be able to follow the conversations and jokes (and you will make people feel like they need to speak English for your sake, and make them feel sort of guilty if they don’t).
Finding travel mates while you’re over there is easy enough if you use hostels and book local tours, I met plenty of cool people that way. Even a two hour dolphin watching trip can be enough to meet lifelong friends (in a couple of weeks I’m meeting up with a gay guy from Spain I met in Brazil on a dolphin tour, he was one of the people I spent time in Brazil with travelling together and we’ve gotten together for drinks on other occasions in Europe in the meantime).
If I were you, I wouldn’t book a trip with only Dutch people. Most of then speak English, however, they won’t do it all the time. You may feel excluded. Sometimes guides are local people speaking English, but sometimes there’ll be Dutch guides.
Shoestring also offers trips for international groups, maybe that suits you better? Their site: http://shoestring.eu/. And another good agency: http://www.gapadventures.com. I’m quite sure you’ll find more recommendations on the website and forum of the Lonely Planet.
I know about gapadventures, tucantravel and others, do the dutch operators make the trips with the help of gap, tucan and others ? I didn’t knew that. I’ll have a look on the lonley planet forum as well, thanks for your suggestion.
Good to see Jenny repeating my comments about Dutch groups and the language issues that will arrise.
From personal experience I know that it’s very awkward and uncomfortable for the odd one out. Only this year I spent a weekend in Paris with 9 Dutch and 1 Italian who spoke English. In such a large group nobody continues to speak English to each other, and pretty soon the Italian is left out. Only short conversations with her took place (one-on-one or maybe a few people at a time), but our loud and joking group conversations were in Dutch most of the time.
And for example I would not dream of joining an all-Swedes group holiday even though the Swedes’ English is fine… but I don’t speak Swedish and wouldn’t want to force them to speak English just for me.
I don’t know if Jenny meant that GAP work together with Dutch agencies; she just mentioned international groups done by Shoestring.
I don’t know where GAP are based but I came across one of their groups once in Peru and the group consisted of Australians, British, Canadians…
I’m not claiming Shoestring and GAP are working together - I really don’t know. Just have a look at GAP’s website to find out where they come from.
I’ve never been to Central or South-America, but why don’t you just book a tour on the spot? Rates are probably better, you support the local economy, and you’re in an international group. It’s easier to compare different agencies, and you can get information from returning traveles.
Jenny you are repeating me again , but apparently Yipsilon doesn’t want to do that (book tours locally). Indeed there are multiple tour operators in all the popular places and it’s fairly easy to travel by public bus or train independently. This also gives you more flexibility: if you like it somewhere you can stay longer, if you don’t you can move on. But Yipsilon wants to travel in a group (I suppose for the whole journey).
And Jenny I can really recommend travelling in Latin America!!
Only short conversations with her took place (one-on-one or maybe a few people at a time), but our loud and joking group conversations were in Dutch most of the time.
Yep, this will be awkward I’ll write some emails to those companies to find out more about the origins of the group members…
Maybe you should read a little better, he just says he doesn’t want to travel around alone. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to travel with a group with a local agency. :dag:
(Any guesthouse can pick you up from the airport, so you don’t need to travel alone on arrival.)
Local operators idea starts to become interesting as well since I’ve found plenty of articles today while doing searches on Google. Actually many people encourage trips in Peru using local operators , here is a good independent and non commercial website that has some good info http://www.andeantravelweb.com/peru/index.html
I’ll need to keep searching these days to find and book an itinerary till the end of the month.
What do you mean by ‘booking an itinerary’? You don’t need to book local tours in advance. The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu is the only exception; you need to book that months in advance (and the trail is closed in February for maintenance). But there are alternative trails you can walk to Machu Picchu, for example the Lares Trek or the Salkantay Trek. Or you can go by train.
Or did you mean which countries you want to go to and what flights to book?
How much time have you got and when are you going? Climate is an important issue. And costs can vary a lot for each country, for example Bolivia is about twice as cheap as Argentina so this may influence your choices as well.
Obviously the languages may also influence your decisions (Spanish-speaking countries only? or Brazil too?), although you’re probably used to different languages and getting by, after travelling so much in Europe.
Try to make a logistically efficient circle, or try to book an open jaw plane ticket so that you can travel from A to B over land and don’t need to backtrek.
The GAP / Djoser / whatever itineraries can serve as inspiration of course…
With your travel experience it really won’t be that much newer or more dangerous or whatever.
Have you discovered the South American Explorers Club yet? Could be a good way to hook up with other travellers or find good tour operators as well.
I have to add: there are probably thousands if not millions of tour operators all over Latin America that have no websites yet, but organize perfectly fine tours. It’s very easy to just arrive in a town and compare a few simply by walking in, and to ask other travellers in the street what their experiences are.
Yes, I need to book my flights and decide on which countries I want to visit. So far I’m pretty much decided over Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. I’m not sure if I can extend my trip to Galapagos Islands as well, it seems very expensive no matter how much I’ve tried to look for a cheaper way to see the islands. However, I will get myself an open-jaw ticket departing from Madrid because it’s cheaper that way to fly to Quito and return from La Paz back to Europe.
I’m planing for a maximum 5 weeks in the area, departing in early April 2012. I don’t have time for the moment to visit Brazil/Argentina or Chile. Spanish is not a language barrier for me, I can read Spanish well, understand most of it and speak very little, but that can be improved over the time.
Thanks for the South American Explorers link, I didn’t knew about them.
Wow, 3 countries in 5 weeks, that is less than 2 weeks per country!
I think you should book one organized group trip from start to finish, not because of safety, not because of travel mates, but simply because otherwise over half of your time will be spent on buses, arranging bus tickets and trying to find a hotel, finding tour operators, waiting for the start of the tour, and you’ll have hardly any time left to actually enjoy these amazing (but huge and mountainous) countries.
Have you checked travel times yet? Or do you have enough money to book extra flights?
It sounds too much but in fact it’s enough time for me to visit places that I’m really interested in. I’m not trying to see all the attractions covered in the touristic brochures. For example in Peru I would like to visit Lima for 2 complete days, head to Cuzco by air and stay for 2 days + another 4 on the Inca Trail then back to Cuzco by train. Take another 4 nights tour in the Amazon and stay in one of the lodges there. Depart to Lake Titicaca for another 2 complete days to explore and head to La Paz on the Death Road and to Uyuni for a 3/4 days tour. Also another visit to Sucre in Bolivia. I did checked so far the timetables for 2011 and i’m sure they won’t be significantly different for 2012. I have plenty of time to arrange the rest of the details and find tour operators to link my tours so I won’t have to spend so much time doing nothing between the tours.
