Adventurous family holidays off the beaten track

[Cornwallian]

Do people have recommendations for adventure holidays off the beaten track (or as off as you can get nowadays within a two week holiday!).

Holidays we have loved of this type include:

• travelling the length of Vietnam, using sleeper trains and local transport, spending time on boats through the Mekong delta, cycling through villages and generally getting a real feel for the place
• trekking in the Atlas Mountains
• Northern Norway in mid winter doing cross country skiing and searching for the northern lights, ice fishing etc

The kids are older now so we could be more adventurous but need ideas.

Ghana has been one of our favourites.

going to Singapore and KL and some islands of the east of Malaysia for diving just after Easter.

@grimupnorthnot

Trailfinders told me flights in summer holidays would be £5k for 3 people so I think £800 each seems a bargain compared to that!

We had an amazing trip to Argentina. You can get a tour guide to arrange the adventures. Iguazu falls has boat trips to under the falls where you get drenched under the water fall. There is lots of forest with zip wires and the like. We went on a whale watch from Patagonian coast. It was an incredible trip.

If you are up for really long haul, there are no end of adventures in New Zealand.

Sri Lanka & Borneo both fit your bill. Also Canada but that might be cost prohibitive. Amazing though. Or maybe something closer to home, interailing through Europe?

it is! so which agent did you use?!

@backwayentrance freedom destinations

i’m going to buzz them tomorrow 🙏

@backwayentrance

I'll message you

so kind thank you

Don’t book through trail finders. Our DD lived in Malaysia and she’s never paid more than £500 return. Even at Christmas.

Don’t waste money on travel agents. Never met a decent one yet. Personally we just do our own thing.

you never came back to the thread i was on to clarify how you did 18 nights in Canada for a family of 4 including all accommodation and flights and trips for £6k! how?!

Trailfinders are really expensive. Clearly there are people willing to pay the premium as they sell a lot of holidays. But they are so much more expensive than booking for yourself that I am always really curious as to who their customer base is.

Madagascar or Costa rica

@Takoneko

I guess I would be their customer base - although I am quite happy to book myself for short breaks or more straightforward holidays I felt in this instance I wouldn't be comfortable - it's somewhere different to where I would usually go with a few more pieces to slot together.

Have having joined some Borneo fb groups there seem to be so many random people with just a WhatsApp that reply to every post offering their services for trips and tours I would have no idea how to establish who was reliable....

We flew LGW to Calgary with air Canada back from Vancouver. Booked one way car hire via a local agent in Calgary as most has a big one way charge this one didn’t. Car was Hertz in the end.

stayed just out side Banff - inn on the rockies. Then we went north to a place called grande cache as to stay near jasper was off the scale. Whilst there we visited beaver creek and went white water rafting.

also whilst near lake Louise we did an early morning cable car as included breakfast to go bear watching included the best breakfast all trip.

we then stopped in cannlops overnight. And had an apartment in Whistler - booked locally. from there we went to Vancouver stayed in a motel just outside - did a days whale watcoong

flights where 2.4k
car £400 much cheaper to book on the local site in Canada.
accommodation a mixture of motels and self catering booked mostly through local sites in Canada - admittedly Grande Cache was a bit out of the way but was cheap and the hiking and white water rafting was awesome and the wildlife.

awesome holiday.

We’d priced up costs rica had to change plans but looked awesome and was going to be about £3& for two of us for 14 nights.

Namibia. Look at Expert Africa, ATR and Aardvark Safaris to get some ideas. You can have a really varied trip, more than just safari and it’s cheaper than eg Botswana.

Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador. Cheap as long as you don’t try including the Galapagos, and plenty to see and do especially with older children. Columbia also worth investigating.

Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras also

Edited to add: obviously not suggesting you fit 3/4 countries into two weeks! Pick a country. Or look at weather patterns and pick parts of a country based on those.

One of my favourite holidays was 2 weeks in Madagascar. We did a few days travelling down the main river in a dug out canoe sleeping in tents on the sandbanks, climbing the tsingy rock formations, went to see the avenue of the baobabs, and we saw orangutans in the wild. We also did a bit of a beach holiday on an island off the coast at the end too, which was one of the best beaches I have ever been to (Isle St Marie).

We used a local tour company (Rija Tours) who planned the whole thing for us. Being a local company they were real experts and took us off the beaten track - and they were cheaper than using a Western company with the added bonus of the money going directly into the Madagascan economy.

Interesting. If you hadn’t found the freedom destinations price, would you have been able or willing to pay the extra £4k plus for Trailfinders?

I'd seriously consider Sri Lanka.
I'm assuming summer school holidays, flights would be £800 ish each.
Accommodation, food and activities are very very good value there, especially if you get away from the beach hotels.
We hired a driver and MPV for a fortnight which was invaluable. He took us off the tourist track, to local restaurants, even took our kids to cricket club with his kids one afternoon.
There is so much to see - ancient ruins, fishing trips, whale sharks, tea plantations, spice farms, temples, beaches. We did a safari whilst there too - spotted leopard, croc, elephant, bear. With the accommodation and food being so good and cheap, we could really throw money at activities.

@Takoneko

No that was beyond my budget. I was looking about £10/£11k max and hoping I could get it - I think I actually got slightly more for the price than I was originally expecting.

Obviously I have some food and activities on top - that will be for the beach part of Borneo, KL & Singapore. We will probably just eat in the street food places so should not be too expensive. I've got about 2-2.5k budgeted for food activities and spending I think on top.

Hi, the adventure holiday potential for families booking with a tour operator has really snowballed the last few years. They seem to understand how much we want to provide more authentic, eco-conscious, educational trips alongside all the relaxation and fun and waterparks. There's loads of choice out there - South America is one continent that I think has everything, plus there are some really amazing family safaris including campouts and getting back to nature in Zimbabwe/Zambia. There's a big family travel event happening at Twickenham Stadium the last weekend of March if you can wait that long - loads of destinations in attendance plus kids' activities like zipline, bungees, go-karts...looks awesome.

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