Tour Operators

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I'm going to give a bit of an evaluation of the tour operators that I've travelled with. Maybe this will someday come up when someone's researching one of them and hopefully it will help them out!

Greenforce: The pre-trip stuff is a nightmare! It's hard to get questions answered and a couple people in our group were misinformed about various aspects of the trip. Once we were in Nepal it was amazing! Our tour leader was well-travelled and experienced so he knew how to deal with any sort of event that came up. The local Nepal group, RCDP, wasn't as great. Most of our group got food poisoning at their hostel and one of the bags that we stored there wasn't taken very good care of. The outside of the suitcase was fine, but everything inside of it was damp and moldy, like someone had opened the suitcase and dumped water inside. For Greenforce, if you have enough patience and persistence to deal with the pre-trip stuff, I would recommend it.

Intrepid: Both of the trips I did were Basic style trips. Intrepid has a couple different categories: Basic, Original, Comfort, and Active. The basic trips only include accomodation and transport and then you can choose to do optional activities. These trips really depend on your tour guide. One of mine I had a great tour guide who always gave us a couple options of activities and then we could choose whether or not we wanted to do them. My other tour guide wasn't very good at telling us what was available so we had to figure out most things for ourselves. I wouldn't recommend doing a basic trip on your own. If you're with someone else you always have someone to explore with even if none of the rest of your group wants to do stuff. If you're the only one in your group who wants to explore and see everything then it's frustrating. A lot of the optional activities you need at least 2 people so it's good to have another person with similar interests. As for hotels, it says they will be basic but they're not bad at all! Only the starting and ending hotels on my trip had air-conditioning, the rest just had fans, but they were all clean. And in Asia they all had western-style toilets! Basic tours are the cheapest option. They're more expensive than travelling on your own, but in some countries it's nice to be with a group.
The Original tour seems to be the better option. I've never done one, but from what I understand from people who have almost all of your activities and meals are included. So the people in your group will be willing to do all the activities since they already paid for them. It's more expensive, of course, but almost eveything is included.

African Impact (volunteering Zambia): I had a really good experience with these guys. The housing and food was good, everything was well organized, it seemed like the organization was well-liked within the community. I'm glad I chose the program I did with African Impact. They also have a bunch of other programs throughout Africa, some working with people and some with animals. I would recommend them.

Oasis Overland: There are a bunch of overland tour operators that essentially do the same itinerary. It just depends what you're looking for. Some have a cook, some you cook your own food, some are bigger groups, some smaller, some have African leaders, some have British or Australian, some camp more than others, some have a bunch of activities and game drives included, others you decide what you want to do on your own, some are slightly more expensive. Oasis was mostly camping, we cooked our own food, had an English leader and an Australian driver. The first part of the trip we had a huge group (23), the second part we only had 14. The set-up of our truck was good, most of the activities weren't included, but some of the game drives were and activities were easy to figure out and do; Oasis helped with that. Our tour leader wasn't spectacular, but that depends on the leader, not necessarily the company; it's kind of the luck of the draw. I would recommend an overland trip, the company doesn't make too much of a difference, just don't go for the luxury type, then you don't actually get to see the real Africa.

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