JoeWras
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2012
- Messages
- 12,228
** Digging up an old thread for a good reason **
It was this thread, from 8 years ago, that resulted in a fantastic vacation that DW and I had last week. These are the reasons I come back to ER.org, despite my occasional squabble I may have, as I did on a thread earlier today.
A few posts back, someone mentioned "Sherpa Expeditions." Well, they are kaput. Before they got absorbed by World Expeditions group, I signed up for their news. Once World Expeditions absorbed them, I kept the news from Walker's Britain and Utracks. You see, sometimes an 8 year old discussion pays off years later.
Utracks is ultimately the group that I connected with, and they presented the tour we did a few weeks ago. I only have good things to say about the experience. It was affordable, adventurous, and meticulously planned. They came through on everything they said they would, including luggage transfers and assignments to fantastic small family run hotels/pensions.
The specific tour we did was a self-guided walking tour of Andros Island, Greece. Here: Andros Trail Self Guided Walk In Greece
Our first contact with them was by phone to a N. American specialist. He knew his stuff. Then we signed up online, and we immediately were asked some pretty direct questions to assure we were fit enough, and if we knew what the hell we were getting ourselves into. All email discussions were prompt and professional. Eventually, we had to answer some direct questions about health, and they cleared us, although sometimes people are asked to get doctor's approval. Although this seems invasive, it was really for the best.
The travel documents they provided were subbed-out to a local expedition group from Greece. These were extremely helpful and very detailed, right down to expected cab fares, and names of people we should chat with, including one of our cab drivers (and boy, she gave us an island history in 20 minutes, it was great!).
We were odd ducks on Andros. Everyone loved to hear we were from America because most of their clients are from Europe or Greece mainland. We shared a lot of discussion.
If you read the tour summary at the link provided, you see there are some ferry rides, public bus rides, and taxi rides, many of which require our own coordination. That's not my style, I like driving. But I was glad to be forced into it. In many ways, the public bus part was the most memorable as we had to rely on the locals to help translate. One young lady made sure we got our transfer, then she had an exchange with the bus driver that was typical Greek (loud). We wondered what we did wrong. Nothing: she convinced the bus driver to take a small detour and drop us off right in front of our hotel. Now that's memorable!
Route instructions were detailed. We mostly used the phone app, which was awesome. And we did some dead reckoning too. We found things not described, like a really old church in ruins, or the man and his granddaughter having a Sunday morning moment in a quite place in the woods. We intruded on them, but they were happy to see us and astonished we were from America.
I could go on and on about the food and generosity, international travel troubles, and all the other wonderful parts of the trip (beaches!), but I have to stop somewhere.
I'll leave you with this: if you imagine doing this or any of the many other Utracks trips, don't delay. The elevation changes were challenging as they are on most of the trips. We were fit enough cardio-wise, but took a lot longer than expected because we didn't want to break or twist anything on the loose rocks. Breaking an ankle 5 km into an island path is not a good thing to do. As my arthritis continues to advance, I'm not sure we'll be able to do this again... but we're thinking about it.
We have a million pictures, but for some reason these two touch me. Maybe DW and I will go back in 15 years, after our hiking days are done, and be the lovely couple holding hands walking on the beach:
It was this thread, from 8 years ago, that resulted in a fantastic vacation that DW and I had last week. These are the reasons I come back to ER.org, despite my occasional squabble I may have, as I did on a thread earlier today.
A few posts back, someone mentioned "Sherpa Expeditions." Well, they are kaput. Before they got absorbed by World Expeditions group, I signed up for their news. Once World Expeditions absorbed them, I kept the news from Walker's Britain and Utracks. You see, sometimes an 8 year old discussion pays off years later.
Utracks is ultimately the group that I connected with, and they presented the tour we did a few weeks ago. I only have good things to say about the experience. It was affordable, adventurous, and meticulously planned. They came through on everything they said they would, including luggage transfers and assignments to fantastic small family run hotels/pensions.
The specific tour we did was a self-guided walking tour of Andros Island, Greece. Here: Andros Trail Self Guided Walk In Greece
Our first contact with them was by phone to a N. American specialist. He knew his stuff. Then we signed up online, and we immediately were asked some pretty direct questions to assure we were fit enough, and if we knew what the hell we were getting ourselves into. All email discussions were prompt and professional. Eventually, we had to answer some direct questions about health, and they cleared us, although sometimes people are asked to get doctor's approval. Although this seems invasive, it was really for the best.
The travel documents they provided were subbed-out to a local expedition group from Greece. These were extremely helpful and very detailed, right down to expected cab fares, and names of people we should chat with, including one of our cab drivers (and boy, she gave us an island history in 20 minutes, it was great!).
We were odd ducks on Andros. Everyone loved to hear we were from America because most of their clients are from Europe or Greece mainland. We shared a lot of discussion.
If you read the tour summary at the link provided, you see there are some ferry rides, public bus rides, and taxi rides, many of which require our own coordination. That's not my style, I like driving. But I was glad to be forced into it. In many ways, the public bus part was the most memorable as we had to rely on the locals to help translate. One young lady made sure we got our transfer, then she had an exchange with the bus driver that was typical Greek (loud). We wondered what we did wrong. Nothing: she convinced the bus driver to take a small detour and drop us off right in front of our hotel. Now that's memorable!
Route instructions were detailed. We mostly used the phone app, which was awesome. And we did some dead reckoning too. We found things not described, like a really old church in ruins, or the man and his granddaughter having a Sunday morning moment in a quite place in the woods. We intruded on them, but they were happy to see us and astonished we were from America.
I could go on and on about the food and generosity, international travel troubles, and all the other wonderful parts of the trip (beaches!), but I have to stop somewhere.
I'll leave you with this: if you imagine doing this or any of the many other Utracks trips, don't delay. The elevation changes were challenging as they are on most of the trips. We were fit enough cardio-wise, but took a lot longer than expected because we didn't want to break or twist anything on the loose rocks. Breaking an ankle 5 km into an island path is not a good thing to do. As my arthritis continues to advance, I'm not sure we'll be able to do this again... but we're thinking about it.
We have a million pictures, but for some reason these two touch me. Maybe DW and I will go back in 15 years, after our hiking days are done, and be the lovely couple holding hands walking on the beach: