The four things we will not book
No captive animals, no bed we have not slept in, no helicopter for the view, no one-night stops. Every year somebody offers to pay extra. Every year the answer is the same.
We lose about one enquiry in six to these four rules. That is roughly the number Dougal estimated in 2018, when we wrote them down, and it has not moved much since. They are not a marketing position. They are the four things that, each time we bent them, we regretted.
1. No captive animals
No elephant rides, no tiger temples, no dolphin pens, no “sanctuary” that breeds its residents or lets you hold them. This one is the easiest to explain and the one that costs us the most bookings, mostly from people planning a honeymoon who have seen a photograph.
We are not squeamish about animals. The Skeleton Coast journey spends three days tracking elephants on foot, and the Rausu boats go out among eagles. The difference is who decides how close you get. On our journeys it is the animal.
2. No bed we have not slept in
Every room on every journey has been slept in by someone on the staff within the last twenty months. Not visited. Not “inspected” at eleven in the morning with a manager. Slept in, with breakfast the next day and a note about the water pressure.
This is the expensive rule. It is why we work in five regions and not fifty, and it is why the Faroe house and the Mefjordvær house are the only places we book on those islands.
3. No helicopter for the view
Helicopters are for getting people out. We will charter one to lift a twisted ankle off the Exploradores approach without a second thought, and we have. We will not put a party in one to look down at an ice field for forty minutes, because the ice field is better from the ground and because the noise belongs to everyone underneath it.
4. No back-to-back single nights
Two nights minimum, everywhere, except the first and last nights of a journey where a flight forces it. A one-night stop means you arrive tired, unpack nothing, and leave before you have seen the place in morning light. Two one-night stops in a row is not travel. It is transit with nicer sheets.
What happens when someone asks anyway
We say no on the call, and we say why, and about half the time the person says that is actually why they rang us. The other half book with someone else, and we give them the name of someone good.