We charge a fee so we can recommend the cheaper hotel
Planned journeys arranged for a stated planning fee, with every supplier commission rebated to you rather than kept.
How the practice is paid
The days people remember are the empty ones
A fee, and every commission back
A travel planner paid by commission cannot honestly tell you the smaller hotel is better, because the larger one pays more. So we charge a planning fee, publish it, and rebate every commission a supplier pays us against your invoice — which means our recommendation is worth exactly as much as our judgement and nothing more. The second thing worth saying is that a good itinerary has gaps in it: most journeys arrive over-scheduled because a full page reassures the person who paid for it, and the days people remember are almost always the empty ones.
What we arrange
Four kinds of journey. The fee is the same for each; the work is not.
Planned private journeys
The bulk of the practice. Two to four weeks, built around a household rather than an itinerary template, with the difficult logistics — permits, charters, a driver who actually knows the road — arranged rather than delegated to you.
Fixed departures
Six a year, on routes where a group of ten makes something possible that two people cannot arrange — a chartered boat, a closed monastery, a guide whose season is booked years out. Dates are published and do not move.
Family journeys
Built around the youngest traveller rather than around the adults, which changes almost every decision — flight times, distances between stops, and how many days in a row anybody is expected to be charming.
A single arrangement
Not a journey — one difficult thing. A permit nobody will answer about, a table that is genuinely full, a transfer at four in the morning in a place you do not speak the language. Charged by the hour and often the most useful thing we do.
From recent journeys
Photographed by us, on trips we arranged.
Ladakh and Zanskar, September
They rebated forty-one thousand rupees of commission against our invoice, itemised, which I had assumed was a marketing line until I saw it. They also removed four things from our own draft itinerary and told us we would thank them on day nine. We did.
Fixed departures
Six a year, ten travellers each. Dates are published in January and do not move.
Spring
14 nights
11 nights
Monsoon
16 nights
13 nights
Autumn
12 nights
15 nights
Speak to a planner
The first conversation is free and often ends with us saying you do not need us — a straightforward two-week trip to a place with good infrastructure is something you can arrange yourself, and we will say so.
If you can book it yourself, we will tell you to
About a third of first conversations end that way. The fee only makes sense when the logistics are genuinely hard, and saying so is cheaper for us than a disappointed client.