We love finding fantastic operators and guides who have bags of local expertise, knowledge and passion. In most cases they will be small, locally run businesses, the result of an individual’s passion for their environment. Picture for example, Marcus, who has revived some dilapidated old charcoal burner’s huts in the Swedish wilderness into a truly magical destination, with cosy forest huts, warming fires and fascinating wildlife experiences tracking wild wolves and moose, or Keith who puts on superb mountain biking trails on his farm in the Austrian mountains complete with great accommodation and hospitality. We do also feature several slightly larger specialist companies working across borders, who have proved themselves to deliver truly inspiring itineraries in tune with the local culture and who have a strong ethical and responsible travel approach.
We follow a vigorous selection and review process so we can be confident a trip with any of our suppliers will be a happy one. There is nothing worst than a disappointing holiday so we are going to every length to only select the best operators and to give full and candid information on each adventure holiday. Typically things go wrong either when the operator is duff or when the style of holiday doesn’t suit your tastes. Our selection and review process (read more about that below) helps make sure we only feature great operators and guides, whilst our full and candid reviews help make sure the holiday you choose suits you. After all, some people like to have loads of time to themselves, whilst others like to be off on an adventure from dawn to dusk, some will never be parted from their hair-dryer whilst for others the further into the wilderness the better.
We work hard to make sure you have access to the best available rates. We are not a discounter, we help you find great operators and guides where quality is the most important consideration. Typically, the small operators we work with don’t discount, but when they do we make sure you will benefit from those rates when you contact them through Tourdust.
We subject every new supplier on Tourdust to a rigorous selection process. We handpick our favourite cultural and adventure travel holidays and tours based on our research. We scour guidebooks, online communities, blogs and word of mouth recommendations to find the best authentic suppliers of experiences worth travelling for.
We then speak to the suppliers at length to get to know how they work. We interview them and then do further research online to make sure we have picked up all consumer comment about the supplier that is available online. We use this to make our decision on whether to include them in Tourdust and of course to provide the insight we use to write about them.
Ultimately, it’s important you are aware that the supplier is responsible for the quality of experience. We can put our hand on our heart and say that we are hugely passionate about all our suppliers and think they are the bee’s knees. Our legal advisors tell us you shouldn’t take that as a guarantee, but there is not one experience on Tourdust that we personally wouldn’t be hugely excited about doing ourselves.
We also publish reviews from customers as they are, completely uncensored. Although we do everything we can to make sure each experience is superb, there is nothing like seeing the customer feedback to back that up. If a supplier feels any review is unfair, they have the ability to reply to it. Like Tripadvisor we don’t only restrict ourselves to reviews from people who have booked with a supplier through our site. Theoretically anyone can write a review on a supplier, so we keep a very close eye on new reviews to make sure there is no funny business.
The original inspiration for Tourdust came, bizarrely in a ger in the middle of the vast Mongolian steppe. We had lucked out and found a guide who took us to stay with a wonderful nomadic family. We drank fermented mare’s milk and gnawed on mutton bones and attempted to communicate. Wouldn’t it be great if we could have somewhere to tell other people about this great local Mongolian tour and give them a chance to discover it too?
Now, when we are travelling, we always try to hunt out passionate and knowledgeable tour guides or hosts like our Mongolian friends. The kind who love what they do, and love sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm with you. The kind who don’t pretend to do 4 star luxuries or flawless service, but who deliver an experience with character and charm. Finding these little gems is difficult, and often it feels like we are looking for stardust (hence the not so cryptic name)
So join us. Scrap the soul-less coach tours, the scripted guides, and bland hotels and embrace the passion, knowledge and personal touch of raw and authentic travel experiences.
Thanks in no small part to responsibletravel.com, the concept of Responsible Travel is now encouraging many travellers to think twice about the impact of their holidays. It’s a concept that is second nature to many independent travellers – a respect for the local culture, environment and people wherever we visit. Tourdust concentrates on one aspect of responsible travel, discovering and supporting genuine local travel businesses. By booking tours and accommodation directly with local guides and hosts we can be pretty sure our spend goes towards helping the local economy. And by sharing these discoveries with the Tourdust community, we can help these businesses and local economies grow. This is really a happy side effect of our main purpose, which is to provide fantastic experiences deeply in tune with the local place. It’s a great coincidence that by selfishly pursuing a great experience we can also make sure our choices are responsible.
Environmental impact is another important aspect of responsible travel. Many of our operators have a thoroughly green approach (which we applaud and which helps make their products truly unique). However we have made the choice not to audit our operators on their green credentials, as we feel we would be excluding many genuine local operators who don’t have the resources or know how to go green. We are also aware that we are offering experiences from all over the world, which will mean air travel for most of our customers. Ultimately, we have decided to leave the decision of how green our members want to be, to them. So we have found loads of fantastic experiences on Tourdust which allow travellers to see their own country from a different perspective, alongside some more far-flung exotic places! (after all it is hard to beat the thrill of the new place)
Co-Founder: Ben Colclough - Responsible for pulling it all together. Ben has travelled extensively in Europe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, America, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China and Mongolia. His dream is to fit out a combi van with a broadband connection and enough space for three kids and a couple of surf boards and travel the world. Prior to launching Tourdust, Ben was a marketing director at American Express, having started out his career as a strategy consultant at L.E.K. Consulting.
Co-Founder: Anna Colclough - When Anna’s not getting us all excited with her boundless energy, she is on hand to make sure we source all the best local travel experiences. If you are ever short of ideas for your next holiday, then drop Anna an email, she loves planning other people’s holidays only slightly less than she loves planning her own. Anna has travelled extensively in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, America, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China, Mongolia and all across mainland Europe. Prior to building Tourdust, Anna was employed as operations manager and social media consultant at Market Sentinel and Account manager at Unilever.
Head of Customer Services: Becky Dale - Becky joined Tourdust from Abercrombie & Kent where she was General Manager of their Private Travel Division. Becky has a wealth of experience in the travel industry and (you’ll notice a theme here) has travelled extensively herself throughout Europe, Africa and parts of India, Sri Lanka, South America, Australia and the Indian Ocean.
Technology Guru: Peter Sweetman - Tech wizard and all round wise head. Peter held some rather senior technology positions at BP and ensures we make sensible and robust technology decisions. Peter has travelled extensively in Libya, Ethiopia, Fiji, Chile, Australia, Ecuador and China and is an enthusiastic diver.
Technology Guru: James Croft - James is the superb Ruby on Rails developer responsible for the fine underpinnings that keep Tourdust fast, easy to use and complete. James is perhaps the best travelled developer in the known world. He spent 6 months travelling around South and Central America exploring an intimidating array of countries (Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico) and has also travelled extensively in South East Asia, China, Pakistan and India.
Writer: David Jobanputra - David is a PhD student in anthropology, keen traveller and superb travel writer. He has travelled extensively in Africa and Asia, including overland trips from Tibet to Scotland and Beijing to Java. David recently returned from 18 months living with a tribe in the Rajasthani desert.
Writer: Amy Rich - Although Amy rarely boards a plane without sinking some Diazepam first, she'd rather face her fears than sit at home on facebook. Her highlights so far include Siberia for a family wedding, two weeks travelling solo in Turkey, and cruising around the Greek Islands. Amy is a trained journalist, and as well as writing for Tourdust, has also been published in The Guardian.
Writer: Zeke Iddon - Zeke Iddon - Zeke is a professional writer and SEO consultant living just down the road from Tourdust HQ. He has travelled around Europe and lived in Paris for some time armed with nothing more than a song in his heart and a confused look on his face, and his life-long travel goal is to reach the geographic North Pole. He also has a curiously-named personal website which is neither informative nor educational.
Chief Distraction Officers: Alex, Emily & Juliet Colclough - Responsible for general mayhem. Are already avid little travellers who have survived budget wanderings around Italy, S Africa and the deep South of the US.
