A heartfelt thanks

Firstly, I’d just like to say thank you for all the support we have received throughout the pandemic. With many of our destinations effectively being off-limits for nearly two years, it has been a tough period, but knowing our clients were still out there - sending us encouraging messages, joining our webinars and, in several cases, still travelling whenever and wherever they could (with one lovely couple from the States even getting engaged while on vacation with us in the former Soviet country of Georgia) - gave us the inspiration we needed to get through those challenging times.

The path to recovery

While I wouldn’t say travel is out of the woods yet, with none of us being quite sure which direction Omicron will lead us, we do seem to be on the path to recovery with both more of our small group tours departing and some of our intrepid tailor-made clients now travelling again to many of our favourite destinations.

Last month, Thailand, India and Cambodia all opened up to join other countries already accepting international visitors. In the past few weeks alone, we have taken some of you to Georgia, Armenia, Greece, Romania, Iceland, India, Peru, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Uzbekistan and Pakistan.

Despite having necessarily downsized over the last two years we have, fortunately, managed to retain most of our longest serving travel specialists, so our intimate knowledge of our key destinations remains intact. And, during the ‘downtime’ the pandemic has afforded us, we have been busy behind the scenes.

For starters, we have been developing a new reservation system. Although it’s not quite finished, by early next year this will give you a dedicated, personalised area of the website where you will be able to see your all-important ‘Wild Miles’, converse with your designated travel specialist, see your itineraries, bookings and pay deposits and final balances online. This will then feed into a new app (My Wild Frontiers - soon to launch!), which will mean all your documentation will be conveniently on your phone, tablet and computer.

An even more sustainable Wild Frontiers

From a sustainable tourism perspective, we have been working to make sure our business is ready for a new era of travel. As such, we are actively working to help reduce our carbon footprint. We are also partnering with a new organisation to plant trees and support carbon mitigation projects in destinations we visit. Through this, you will be able to see for yourselves how many trees we plant and carbon we’ve offset - more on that to come.

We have also been busy with the Wild Frontiers Foundation; as well as numerus other projects we have remained active in, our Bundi Covid Appeal in India alone raised and distributed over $10,000 worth of food and medical products.

As a business we have taken the first steps in becoming an accredited B Corp business. We are also delighted to be a signatory and launch partner of the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism, introduced at COP26. What’s more, we’re working towards making all of our travel documentation paper-free.

New frontiers

Another area in which we have been busy is developing new group tours and tailor-made journeys in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. As some of you might have seen, I was lucky enough to recce some of these fabulous new trips in Greece, Italy, Turkey and yes… even bonnie Scotland. I loved them all and I’m sure you will too.

Travel now and in the future

The Covid pandemic has changed many aspects of our lives, and travel hasn’t escaped that. However, not all of the changes have been negative, such as the increased focus on sustainability.

As we head towards a brighter 2022, we are really looking forward to reconnecting with, and supporting, the communities across the destinations we visit, who are at the heart of Wild Frontiers.

In terms of safety, for the foreseeable future, we are requiring all of our group tour travellers to be double-vaccinated. We are working rigorously with our local partners to ensure safety for clients and crew alike and have introduced extremely flexible booking conditions, entitling you to a free transfer or a full refund if your trip is not viable due to Covid.

A great time to travel

The pandemic may not be fully behind us but those who are travelling with us at the moment are reporting fewer crowds than usual and a warm welcome on the ground. There may be a few more hoops to jump through in terms of testing and paperwork, but it is very much worth the effort.

Now is also a great time to book ahead, as places are starting to become busier due to pent-up demand. All our 2022 small group tours are live on the website and filling fast, and we are busy publishing our 2023 tours, most of which are now live and, of course, our experts are on hand to advise you if you wish to travel tailor-made.

Lastly, let me say thanks again for your continued support. We hope that you have stayed well during the pandemic and that you will continue to travel with us on that long-awaited journey.

Very best wishes,

Jonny