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Explore review
Find out how Explore fares for escorted tours in our survey of nearly 20,000 package holidays
Who is Explore?
Explore offers small group adventure holidays in worldwide locations, with an average group size of 11 people. It claims to provide ‘over 350 trips to more than 100 countries’, in Asia, Africa, the Arctic and the Americas.
Which? verdict
Explore offers interesting destinations and itineraries with four-star customer service and value for money. Helpfully, Explore does carbon label its holidays so you can factor the impact in when choosing which trip to book.
Explore customer ratings
| Holiday type | Which? Recommended Provider? | Customer score |
|---|---|---|
| Escorted tour | No | 78% |
Customer score Based on a combination of overall satisfaction and how likely people are to recommend the company. In an online survey in August/September 2024, we asked 12,119 Which? Connect panel members and members of the public about 19,958 holidays from the past two years.
We tracked the price of more than 20,000 holidays to find out exactly when to book to get the cheapest price – read our 28 ways to save on your next holiday
What's an Explore holiday like?
Explore covers trip-of-a-lifetime destinations, such as Antarctica and the Galapagos Islands, promising authentic adventure-travel experiences that delve into the local sights and culture. It received a good customer score of 78% but unfortunately in a category with so many fantastic companies that only earned it 14th of 25 escorted tour providers in our escorted tour table.
Customers were pleased with Explore’s customer service, for which it received a four-star rating. One reader said: ‘There's very good customer service, and they provide the type of walking holiday that I enjoy.’ It was also awarded four stars for organisation and value for money.
Explore says it favours small, family-run guesthouses and mountain lodges over big hotels, but it only got an average three-star rating for its accommodation and food. One holidaymaker said their hotel was ‘dirty’, while another said ‘the accommodation was not up to the standard I'd expected’.
Description matching reality was also rated an average three stars. One reader told us about ‘replacement guides provided at the last minute’, who were ‘unfamiliar with the tour or the nature of the group’. Another said that the ‘quality of leadership of Explore trips has steadily declined over the years’.
Explore does impress with its policy of carbon-labelling its holidays. It estimates how much CO2 is emitted on each holiday, allowing you to make more planet-friendly choices. Only a few companies currently do any kind of carbon labelling, including Explore, and its (better-rated) competitor, Exodus.
Should I book a holiday with Explore?
Explore’s escorted tours are well regarded by readers, but there are plenty of better-rated options in our table of escorted tour providers, such as fellow sustainability-focused rival Exodus.
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