Tips for choosing the best adventure travel companies of the world
November 23rd, 2007
This is a quick guide on how to find and choose adventure companies worldwide.
You can read a series of resources and find the right places to start you search…
Have you ever tried to do a Google search for “Adventure travel companies” or similar?
The last time I did this I’ve found only a Jungle of websites with thousand of offers for packages, discounted tours, etc…
How could I choose between a so big list of agencies and trips in quick way?
Sure! (I said) The new review of the best adventure tour operators of the world provided by the Nation Geographic will help me!
I have to say that the directory is really good and comprehensive.
You can browse the companies by:
- Quality score
- Type of activities
- Destination
- Price
I’ve to say that maybe it’s to much detailed. It lists agencies that have travel itineraries around different countries.
But there is a problem. If you try to do a search, you’ll find the same tour companies in the top of the list.
- Search n°1 (Search for Overall quality + Biking / Cycling + Africa)
- Search n°2 (Search for Overall quality + Biking / Cycling + Europe)
- Search n°3 (Search for Overall quality + Biking / Cycling + U.S. and Canada)
In the top of the list there the same 3 tour companies
If I were in the National geographic I’d improve the user experience by:
- Make the URL of the page changing so I send a page with my search or save it for the future
- It’s not possible to browse by country but only for continent
Tips to search and compare Adventure companies
The greatest thing you can do is to search following these 3 simple steps:
- Set the country of interest (ie. Adventure travel companies in Italy)
- Set the type of activity (i.e. Bicycle tours, Trekking trips, etc..) or specialty (family, small groups, women only, etc…)
- Mix up the words and make a list to search on Google (synonyms are good ways to find new concepts)
More specific means exactly results.
For example you should search for:
- Italian adventure travel companies
- Adventure travel agencies in Italy
- Bicycle tours company
- Company specialized in Trekking tours
- Directory of Adventure travel packages
- Tour operator that organizes small group tours
- And so on….
Once you do the searches You’ll have a list of companies…and now?
How to rate the tour operators
To valuate them you can:
- See if they are listed in the National geographic directory
- See if they provide information to trip participants
- See how environment friendly they are
- Evaluate the level of customer service (chat, mail timing, etc…)
- See how effective adventurous they are
- Search for traveller reviews or similar (Word of mouth, etc…)
- If they are registered with the International Eco tourism society [http://www.ecotourism.org]
Read more
- Best of Adventure
- How to buy an adventure package
- Interesting blog
- List of Adventure travel directory
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you grab this RSS feed!
