"We are freshly returned from an extended 12–day trip to
Argentina – covering Buenos Aires, El Calafate, Bariloche, and Iguazu,
with Fred’s Exploration Journeys as our travel guide / tour operator –
a trip cross crossing over a country where we did not speak the
language, with no more planning from our side than booking the
international flight into and out of Buenos Aires.
This was an unparalleled experience
which we consider the best trip of our life, particularly for the
superb selection of hotels, tour guides, activities and the extensive
hand-holding and support we had throughout our trip. Fred at
Exploration Journeys coordinated our trip, I have never seen a travel
organizer like him.
Fred's Exploration Journeys has a tagline of "Worry free and
First–class". I was not able to grasp the depth of how truly he means that until right about now. I'll try my best to explain, but it is really difficult unless you experience this first hand.
As a background – we have taken vacations that are operated as a group, have taken cruises where the schedule is planned out for all on the
ship, and have mostly taken vacations where we use online tools to make
reservations for accommodation, transportation, and activities, and then use an integrator app (like TripIt) to string them together. We did not entirely appreciate
the mass–entertainment model of the large tours (including cruises). On the other hand it is difficult to get the time to plan out a long vacation ourselves – all the research, the planning, the tracking, let alone the complexities of doing these on a foreign land speaking a foreign language.
This is where Fred showed a service that is unimaginable and
unparalleled.
Fred and the incredible team he built around his service
throughout Argentina gave us a trip to remember a lifetime. Once we
explained our party – 2 adults, 2 young kids, and what we were looking
for (glaciers, waterfalls, and city life – basically a taste of all
there is), he meticulously planned out our entire itinerary.
Every hotel was perfect, every room was booked to our tastes. Every
activity was not only planned – they were tracked for changes,
rescheduled as appropriate, we were informed about the updates, all
tickets and permits were in our and before the activity started. It
was like an extended version of the Flash Pass in adventure parks – we
skipped practically every line there was and were zoomed into the core
of the activity.
We most appreciated the extensive hand–holding and acting as a
support line throughout our trip.
Fred was constantly in touch with us, like a lifeline in a
foreign land, and answered a zillion questions, including what
should we buy as gifts to bring home and where to go."
