“Expect some things to go wrong”: Intrepid

Is there anywhere genuinely new left for travellers to discover?

According to Intrepid Travel, there is, and they’ve gone out and found these places with their new Expedition style trips.

“Our customers are looking for something new and weird and wonderful,” Intrepid’s GM of marketing Steve Wroe told Travel Weekly.

“We’ve always had ‘out there’ trips, and not many other tour companies are doing this. It’s very much unique.”

“Expect some things to go wrong.”

But these trips aren’t for the faint-hearted, with Intrepid’s website disclaimer warning keen explorers to “expect some things to go wrong.”

Intrepid took to more than 1000 of its staff, who pitched dream trips to the world’s most obscure destinations, with over 50 submissions fitting the requirements of being logistically possible, not including a ‘danger zone’, and visiting somewhere genuinely new and unusual.

But it was only last September that a tour bus carrying 22 passengers crashed in Kenya, killing two Australians and injuring numerous more, an event which might leave travellers asking if these new Expedition trips are safe.

However, Intrepid says that all the trips submitted by staff were checked with DFAT to ensure traveller safety, and do not travel to places considered a ‘danger zone’.

Wroe also told TW that the company liaises with local tour guides to check the current conditions in each region, and ask whether the destination can be ruled as safe for travel.

And now Intrepid has launched a range of Expedition trips, with itineraries in a southern Mexico jungle, Georgia, Kosovo and Papua New Guinea the first to be announced, and with more itineraries to off-the-map regions expected to be unveiled throughout 2015.

The trips have limited departures in 2015, and Wroe told TW that the trips are “not designed to make money.”

“It’s never going to add anything significant to our bottom line.”

But that’s not the point, with Wroe explaining that this is more about providing new experiences for its existing client base.

“These trips are not designed to compete with other companies,” he added. “Our customers have said, ‘come on, give us something raw’, and this is it.”

And while it’s inevitable that, if the trips become popular, competitors will play copycat, Wroe says it won’t matter, as they will have already moved on to more unusual and adventurous destinations.

“It’s exciting to get out there, and get back to the roots of the company,” Wroe said. “This is why we’re in this industry, and from the managing directors to the local tour guides, everyone is united in developing this product.”

And speaking of managing directors, MD James Thornton put in his two cents, saying that the ideas are a reminder of the passion for travel the company shares with its customers.

“While the trips are all new, the Expedition-style of travel marks a return for us to the early days of adventure travel,” Thornton said.

“When Intrepid started 26 years ago there were times that we didn’t know exactly what we were doing each day, and that was part of the attraction for the travellers who joined us. Expeditions are back by popular demand.”

You can suss out the website for more details on the Expedition trips, from exploring the Mayan world in the depths of southern Mexican jungles, to careering through Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia.

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

Latest comments

Caitlyn says:
March 13, 2015 at 6:18 pm
Perhaps I missed a further release but I understood the Kenya accident was due to a burst tyre…. an incident that could easily happen whether you are in in Kellyville, Kenya, or Kentucky? Bit poor to draw a line between an unfortunate accident and Intrepid’s safety record. I’m not from Intrepid, I just am not a fan of subjective journalism.
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