Send this page to a friendPrint Page

Why GeoEx?

A little tent in Tibet

Geographic Expeditions was born 25 years ago when a group of trekkers, huddled in a cold tent at the base of Mount Everest’s North Face, cajoled a spunky gal named Jo Sanders into starting a travel company. An adventure travel company, of all things.

The idea was a little audacious. But it made sense. Whole swaths of the planet were opening up to the outside world. A Golden Age of Travel was upon us. We were raring to get up and go. We believed in the great, sometimes transformative, always instructive worth of travel. We were charmed to the core by the people we met, and we wanted our travelers to get to know them.

A quarter of a century later …

So we’ve been at this great task for a while now, enjoying it immensely. Bursting out of that little tent, we’ve expanded from the Asian heartland into just about every global nook: voyages, treks, trips, expeditions of all kinds to all seven continents. With 25 years of experience under our belts, our love of travel undiminished, our solidity and success a source of pride (and, for our old-timers, amazed glee), we’re still chomping at the bit, still deeply charmed by our well-peopled world.

Recognition

Rather than beat our own drum (not that it doesn’t make a fine tune), we’ll let the travel world speak: GeoEx has consistently been recognized by Travel & Leisure’s readers as one of The World’s Best Trip Outfitters. Conde Nast recently named us a Top Travel Specialist. Outside magazine has chosen our trips as Best of the Year. National Geographic Adventure has included us regularly in its Best of Adventure roundups.

More important, our travelers are loyal—76 percent of them are referrals or repeat clients. And they’re pleased—our post-trip questionnaires reveal a 96 percent satisfaction rate.

Just a quick tap of the drum (we can’t resist rolling out these great names, for one thing): GeoEx pioneered adventure travel to and forged bright new ways to experience places that most of us had just dreamed about. Backcountry Tibet. Far western China. The Kangshung Face of Everest. South Georgia Island. The length and breadth of Bhutan. The mountains of northern Burma. Kilimanjaro’s Western Breach. Snow leopard haunts in Ladakh. New corners of Patagonia. Etcetera and onward. And—with lots of pioneering to be done and many familiar places to savor—we’re firmly established as one of the planet’s great travel companies.

Travel with a philosophy

Sure, it’s a little grand to call it a philosophy. But in the end, to be effective you’ve got to have a well-considered way of doing things. You might even call it a sense of taste. In general, we construct the kinds of journeys we’d like to go on ourselves. Specifically, that means trips that are:

Interesting. We think really hearty travel means more than lolling on a sun-kissed beach (which we recommend, and often enjoy, in Thailand, the Seychelles, Australia, Turkey, and many other loll-worthy spots). But we and our exactly chosen guides are a curious bunch, and so are our travelers. We want to know the places we visit, get the brain clicking. How did Greco-Buddhist statues end up in the middle of China? What does it mean that the Dalai Lama is a reincarnation? What do Iranians really think about America? How does the Great Game impact today’s world? Just how endangered is Africa’s wildlife? What’s the difference between a bactrian and a dromedary camel? What was the Silk Road all about? What’s it like on the other side of that hill? This whole catalog is about the joyful, in-depth investigation of interesting people, places, and things.

Intimate. One of the things we often see on pre-trip questionnaires is “I really don’t go in for group travel, but ...” Since most of us don’t much like being herded around by a guide waving a flag, we’ve always constructed our trips with the idea that traveling with like-minded friends is the ideal. Our maximum group size is almost always 16, and quite often less. And our Private Journeys (see page 5) range from one member on up.

Innovative. Not just because new places are exciting, but because you have to be permanently sunk in the armchair not to know that even familiar places have innumerable crannies to explore. We scout, we delve, we ponder, and we construct our trips with the idea that jumping out of travel ruts is an imperative. Our staff is made up of travel sleuths, and this catalog is a testament to their investigative talents.

Well planned. People sometimes ask why they need us. Why they can’t just wring their reservations out of the web. And we say: you probably can, in most cases (though certainly not all). That is, if you have unlimited amounts of time, money, and patience. Try booking a flight on Druk Air. Good luck on plunking down in Nairobi and finding a respectable safari outfit. Want to get over the border from Kyrgyzstan to China? Want to see backstage Angkor? Find Turkey’s hands-down best gulets? Get in touch with an in-country expert in, say, textiles or pre-Columbian art? Be prepared to squander lots of time, money, and even more patience. Our business is to take the hassle, guesswork, nagging uncertainty, and misleading Googley grandiosity out of travel. Our professional recognition and our travelers’ loyalty point emphatically to the fact that we do that business very well.

Safe. It’s impossible to take the adventure out of adventure travel, but we give it a good shot. We maintain around-the-clock emergency logistics, and our automatically included insurance program—$10,000 medical expense, 24-hour medical assistance, and $75,000 evacuation insurance for every trip member, with optional and recommended trip cancellation, trip interruption, and baggage insurance—is tops. To say that safety is our top priority is an understatement. We live and breathe it.

Responsible. We live in a time when savvy travelers are rightly concerned with disruption, both ecological and cultural, of the places they visit. We are, too, in spades. This is an easy thing to bandy about; the web is full of eco-this and eco-that. But we ask you to question us, and to read this catalog carefully, and we think you’ll be satisfied that not only are we fired up and mindful about the places we go, we’re intent on making sure they’re not ground down by the wheels of mass tourism.

Our suggestion

We’re not the only folks who know that we’re in the midst of a Golden Age of Travel. People around the world, as never before in history, are hitting the road with gusto. Supply, as we spend 99 pages pointing out, is vast. But demand is increasing (our most coveted trips fill 9 to 12 months in advance). So bookings at many of the most sterling destinations are tight and getting tighter. If we may, we suggest you keep in mind our old buddy Seamus O’Banion’s dictum that “wanting to go someplace is as important as actually going there,” but don’t forget Cole Porter’s admonition:

There’s no cure like travel
to help you unravel
the worries of living today.
When the poor brain is cracking,
there’s nothing like packing
a suitcase and sailing away.

SpacerLoader SpacerLoader