Naturetrek Traveller Reviews

A truly amazing holiday with many, many highlights. A common thread was how the fieldcraft of the ship's captain, zodiac pilots or expedition leaders positioned us to enjoy intimate and extensive views of so many different animals without disturbing them. Watching, for example, the polar bear sliding down a slope on its back and then returning to do the same again in case we'd missed it the first time. The magnificent Bowhead whale, not just an occasional or distant view of the double blow, but repeated views over a period of nearly two hours and including two great tail flukes when diving. The belugas, not just white blobs, but fully visible in a feeding frenzy with Kittiwakes and Glaucous Gulls. They came so close we could watch them swimming underwater. And the list goes on, King Eider, Grey Phalarope, Arctic Fox, Walrus all enjoyed many times with some superb views. The glorious weather and incredible Arctic scenery just added to the experience. We felt privileged to be part of this wonderful adventure.

Naturetrek

This was a Naturetrek holiday which combined stunning scenery wonderful bird life sightings of various mammals including beautiful views of black bears. Great itinerary and organisation and top quality guide - exactly what we come to expect from Naturetrek

Responsive, excellent pre-departure information, great itinerary and guide

In Samos itself, the tour was effectively organised and run by Greeks. The guides were Greek and the hotel was operated by a Greek family. So we saw the wildlife, but we also benefitted from local knowledge of the language, history and geography of the island. An authentically Greek tour in unspoilt and sometimes rugged country.

Naturetrek is an efficient and well organised operator that understands the specialised requirements of its clients.

The holiday was to Finland from the 10th until the 17th July 2024 in the hope of seeing three iconic mammals, brown bears, wolves and wolverine. I took my partner Vanessa who is very new to wildlife watching and with three nights in a hide this was a case of going in at the deep end. In summary the holiday/adventure went above and beyond our expectations. We saw all three targets and much much more. Our guide Jan basically lived his dream and his passion and enthusiasm were infectious. This is the best holiday/adventure that I have ever had. I’ve swam with basking sharks, done road trips around California and the west coast of Canada taking in the Rockies and Vancouver island, but this stands out. The support from Naturetrek was excellent throughout and put our minds at rest. This is my second time with Naturetrek after visiting Iceland last year. We are already planning our next Naturetrek holiday. The polar cruise and Polands mammals at the top of our bucket list.

Naturetrek for me are the ones to go to for this kind of holiday. Always there for us and ironing out any little concerns we have. This is my second Naturetrek holiday and already we are planning our next adventure, be it the polar cruise or mammals in Poland.

I booked a Tailormade safari holiday for myself and my 11year old grandson, who loves wildlife and especially flamingoes. Naturetrek arranged a driving holiday in Kenya with a naturalist guide/driver which included a 2 night stay at Sentrim Elementaita Lodge on the shores of Lake Elementaita and 3 nights at Speke’s Camp in the Masai Mara. At either end of the holiday we stayed at Four Points by Sheraton at Jomo Kenyatta airport, an excellent airport hotel. En route to Elementaita we enjoyed a boat ride on Lake Naivasha, seeing hippos in and out of the water, many pelicans and various birds and antelopes. A full day trip to Lake Nakuru enabled us to have sightings of four Southern White rhinos, some flamingoes although not the huge flocks we had hoped for, lions on a zebra kill and many bird species. Lake Elementaita actually had larger numbers of flamingoes which we could see from our balcony in our extremely comfortable lodge. A drive across the western escarpment of the great rift valley took us to the Masai Mara and the excellent Speke’s Camp. This provided an authentic safari experience, with a wonderful ambience in huge safari tents, with lovely furnishings, attentive staff and first class food. It was everything I wanted in a safari camp. This was my grandson’s first safari and he had excellent sightings of the Big Five, the Wildebeest crossing the Sand River, a female cheetah teaching her four offspring to hunt, a Serval with a rodent in its mouth, a leopard hunting, a forest cobra and many other wonderful sightings. All in all Naturetrek organised a fantastic trip for us which completely covered our wishes

Naturetrek Tailormade listened to my ideas and budget for this holiday and suggested various itineraries before we decided on this one. Initially we had been booked into a camp on the River Talek in the Masai Mara, but this was destroyed by the May floods so we were changed to Speke’s Camp which fortunately could accommodate us. This turned out to be very fortuitous as we both loved the authentic, back to nature safari experience, with a touch of luxury! Our guide/driver proved to be an excellent spotter and good company so we felt extremely comfortable and safe with him. I have used Naturetrek for several wildlife trips now, both Tailormade and small group and have on every occasion been impressed by the knowledge of the staff, the excellence of wildlife sightings (although of course nothing in nature is guaranteed) and the care both they and their agents in the field have taken to ensure our trips are a success. They have also impressively taken note of our budget and kept to this.

Our small group was led by Stephen, an expert Naturetrek birder who made our trip thoroughly enjoyable!

Naturetrek took care of all trip details. All Naturetrek staff communicated all relevant information effectively and in a timely manner!

Every day was an adventure, we loved every minute, scenery amazing and we learned so much about butterflies, birds and flowers.

Very knowledgeable.. We were looked after so well, we couldn’t have asked for better (and the picnic lunches were amazing)

Our holiday was all about wildlife viewing especially the chance to see jaguar. We stayed in some good accommodation. Some simplistic and others quirky. We loved staying on the Flotel and going off each day to try and see all the wildlife of the Pantanal. We were lucky to see jaguar on each of our boat trips - we had 16 sightings in all. We also saw giant otters and lots of different birds. Raul our guide was brilliant. Very knowledgeable and great fun. The trip we chose was a small group trip. We’ve never done this before but would certainly do it again. We chose two extensions to the main trip - to Iguazú Falls and Rio. I’m really glad we did these. The falls were magnificent and the power of the water immense. Rio was wonderful. Our hotel looked over Copacabana beach which was a hive of activity. I think you can buy everything on the beach!

We had really great service from the team. Tom our main contact was always on hand to answer our questions.

We had an amazing time in Borneo, we were lucky enough to see the Clouded Leopards, saw 2 families of elephants on 5 occasions and had some wonderful close encounters with Orangutan, Proboscis monkeys, silver-leaf langurs and crab-eating macaques !!! Also a quite close enough encounter with a salt-water crocodile and a pit viper! Our guide Henry was absolutely brilliant in every way, and our drivers Mex and Albert, and the boatman Basri were also fantastic. They were all extremely courteous , professional and highly skilled. The food was wonderful and plentiful, and the lodges were great. Deramakot accommodation was basic but fine….we had the most fabulous time and brought home many memories and even more photos!!!

Information was timely and detailed…..the species checklist was comprehensive and invaluable

Observing and photographing the dragonflies, butterflies, birds and other fauna of Bulgaria

They specialise in nature-related holidays all around the world.