Naturetrek Traveller Reviews

Tailor made trip spending 2 weeks on the fantastic Yacht Angelito visiting many sites on Galapagos. Then a week birdwatching in Ecuador with our own driver guide. Thanks to our guides we learnt so much and saw amazing wildlife. Ate far too much good food. Lots of highlights but the snorkeling was the enduring memory, swimming with sea lions, penguins, turtles, reef sharks aswell as loads of colourful fish was awesome. We can now spend the winter looking at the underwater videos to try to identify them all!

This was our first Naturetrek experience and will not be our last. Staff very knowledgeable and adaptable in helping us plan our itinerary outside of their brochured trips. Very professional service,sorted everything out for us when our original boat got stuck dry dock requiring a last minute change, would highly recommend Naturetrek for tailor made wildlife holidays, and I am sure their group tours would be good too.

It was a great pleasure to be back in Turkey, where I worked and lived 50 years ago. The autumn had been unusually dry, so the flowers weren’t generally as good as we had hoped; but we saw a good range of crocuses (C. matthewsi particularly memorable), Colchicum spp. (especially C. variegatum, C. decasnei (at Phaselis) and C. baytopiarum (at Termessos)), Sternbergia (especially S. clousiana), and a wonderful carpet of Cyclamen graecum, with a few spikes of Spiranthes autumnalis (again at Phaselis). Yasemin, our guide/leader, adjusted the programme very sensibly to take in more wetland sites for birds – memorable kingfishers, dabchicks and other grebes at Phaselis, and Long-legged Buzzards at Girdev Gölü; more archaeological sites (a particular pleasure to see the theatre at Termessos); and old wooden barns and store houses at Beyler and Bezirgân. Accommodation was always comfortable, and Blue and White (at Çıralı, near Antalya) particularly so, with memorably good breakfasts. Dinners and picnic lunches were always good and very enjoyable – especially a restaurant on a deck half-way up a huge plane tree.

Pre-travel information from Naturetrek was generally at the right level of detail, and reliable. Our tour leader/guide, Yasemin Konuralp, unfailingly helpful, knowledgeable, and a gifted communicator and flower photographer, adjusted our programme very sensibly to suit the dry conditions and the interests of the group. We were particularly thankful for her sensible and effective help when my sister sprained her knee in Elmalı and was in some pain: she found crutches, took us to the local hospital where they examined and x-rayed the knee very competently and quickly, adjusted the programme and got us back on the road within three hours! Our driver, Mehmet, was very competent, good at spotting flowers on the roadside, and unfailingly helpful.

A great mix of history and heritage - forts in Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and Jaipur, local crafts and culture and lovely hotels including maharajahs palaces - and wildlife - birds, insects, reptiles and mammals including tigers. Our tour guide looked after us perfectly in all ways - while travelling, at hotels, on local tours and, his real speciality, the birdwatching for experienced birders and novices alike. An amazing holiday in an amazing place.

Efficient booking, good information - no problems.

An 18 day tour of Rajasthan based around wildlife and the fortress towns of the maharaja. Very well chosen and organised with a superb guide

We have used NatureTrek for 4 holidays and have two more already booked. We have found them to have a very clear and honest advertising website, great care taken during holidays and very good choice of local operators.

Excellent as always. Great start travelling by Eurostar, less hassle than flying. Great wildlife sightings found and organisation by our excellent leaders Jason and Emilie. Lovely hotels so a really good week away in this lovely region of France.

Have travelled with Naturetrek numerous times and have 2 more trips planned for next year

We had a wonderful experience of the vast and arid Namib Desert, intense colour of the dunes in Sossusvlei, the awe inspiring Skeleton Coast and Etosha Pan, getting close to the pelagic birds at Walvis Bay, amazing plants, veteran desert trees and desert specialist animals such as desert elephants, zebras, ostriches. There was abundant wildlife living in such a harsh environment. Thanks to our superb guides we saw both black and white rhinos, cheetahs, porcupine, brown hyenas and many other mammals and bird species. Another highlight was watching a mother and young leopard. We learnt much about the many animals living in fragile habitats and ecosystems. There was also impressive geology and rock formations and the awesome lichen fields north of Swakopmund. And many beautiful sunrises and sunsets in the desert...

Naturetrek is a tour operator with attention to detail with detailed pre-departure information, Tour Itinerary and Tour reports. Importantly each trip produces a checklist for record keeping. They are very helpful if some unforeseeable difficulties arise during the tour. Their guides and local guides are very knowledgeable and professional, often with humour. For this trip they used SafariWise with a very well designed route, excellent guides and excellent accommodation and food.

This was our 4th visit to India, and it was by far the best organised and comprehensive tour we have experienced. It was called a Marathon, and certainly was, as it was very busy, but we loved every minute.

Naturetrek staff on the UK were very helpful and totally organised at all times. Our paperwork, tickets etc arrived exactly as promised. Their website is a joy, as it works so well and is very informative, having an archive of previous holiday reports with a wealth of information in them.

A Tiger Marathon in four of India’s National Tiger Reserves. No guarantee to see a tiger but we were lucky to see several. Holiday was full on but great fun and each day was a new adventure. Accommodation was very good, food was varied, tasty and plenty of it from breakfasts out on safari, lunch and evening meals. All traditional Indian food, well prepared and served. The jeep safaris were well organised with local guides providing us with information and good sightings. We lost count of the number of different birds we saw along with many mammals big and small. Would do it all over again, just brilliant.

From the initial booking to arriving back in the U.K. nothing was too much trouble. Plenty of pre holiday information and guidance. The tour leaders was fantastic, knowledgeable, approachable and wonderful human beings.

It was a tour of 4 National Parks in India with a main objective of spotting tigers and other wildlife.

Naturetrek went above and beyond what you would expect from a tour operator.

A 13-night intense rainforest wildlife-watching tour in Sabah. It started with one night at Sepilok, largely to visit the orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. Then seven nights at Demarakot Forest Reserve, where the schedule was structured around nightly spotlighting drives in search of elusive nocturnal species (slow loris, leopard cat, flying squirrels, colugo, civets etc), whiled daytime allowed some forest walks. Finally, three nights at Kinabatangan Wetland Resort, with daily boat trips along the river in search of orangutans, proboscis monkeys, birds and other wildlife. We had an excellent and highly expert guide, with whose help we saw around 125 species of bird and 31 mammal, plus numerous reptiles, butterflies and other wildlife highlights. Accommodation varied from fairly basic, at Dermakot, to very comfortable, at Kinabatangan. Conditions were hot and humid, with rain on many nights. The group of seven guests bonded well and all completed every activity, whatever the conditions. All in all, a memorable experience of the special wildlife iof this part of the world.

Naturetrek have always impressed me, not only with the quality of their product but also the quality of their information. They take wildlife seriously, and the pre-trip itinerary and notes are both detailed and realistic. Everything happened as scheduled, and our local guide was superb.