Madventure

Hi Laura, thank you so much for the great review! Always good to have you & Giancarlo on the tours. And you are a very good chef too! I will never forget the 3 course Italian meal you & Giancarlo made for us in Mexico ;-) We look forward to getting back on the road with you in the near future. Ciao, Will

Hey Maki, thank you very much for your review of your trip, it was awesome having you guys with us and we can't wait to travel with you again! "Good times" indeed ;-) Cheers, Karen

Thanks for your comments Brad. Was a pleasure travelling with you and thanks for all your help along the way. Would be great to travel with you again sometime, maybe on the Alaska to Brazil one day ;-) Cheers, Will

Hi Julie. I am sorry to hear your trip experience with us was only mediocre. We have been running that tour for 15 years and strive to improve it every time. Unfortunately before your tour started China changed their foreigners driving age limits and did not allow foreign drivers over 50 to be able to drive in their country any more. This was completely unexpected and as your driver was 53 we had to make last minute alternative arrangements to get through China by local transport. I appreciate this meant that you had to carry your bags to the vehicles, hotels, etc. but that would have happened even if you were on the truck. The big difference you experienced by not having the truck was that we had to accommodate everyone in hotels in China instead of wild camping as we would have usually done and I apologise for this as it did change the camping ratio overall. The Silk Road trip also has other sections where no camping is done so when you asked if you could camp more we said yes, by all means do, but when you were then presented with the opportunities to camp it is my understanding that you chose not to. Your driver had worked for us for 10 years and your guide had worked for us for 4 years so they were both very experienced. In saying that we do appreciate that it can be tough going on these expeditions and they can get stressed at times, especially in a situation such as when a broken leaf spring caused you delay on the Pamir Highway. Passenger safety is a priority so he had no other option but to go ahead and find a replacement part. We do try and stress on our website that things like this can and usually do happen on every trip we run as it is the nature of overlanding. On another such occasion waiting for the unreliable Turkmenistan ferry I believe you then got verbally abusive with the tour leader when she was trying her utmost to explain she has no control over the situation. I know it can be frustrating hanging around in a foreign country but these things are to be expected in places like Turkmenistan, the ferry simply has no schedule so we have to wait at the terminal until it arrives or we risk missing it. Food can be difficult to find on occasion so we always recommend people have a small stash of food when we are travelling through remote areas but your complaint has now lead us to insist the crew have emergency lunches available to prepare on the truck when in remote areas so I can assure you that will not happen again. On your tour we actually exceeded the meal quota but lunches are generally not included. I understand you did not get along with your crew for various reasons so I apologise if you thought they handled any situations unsatisfactorily. Both crew no longer work for us but they did run successful tours for Madventure over many years. Our tour itinerary is outlined very clearly on our website and is designed to take in as many highlights as possible within reason so if you wanted extra time in certain countries perhaps this was not the right tour for you. 3 months is a long time for most travellers and adding extra weeks into huge countries like Kazakhstan would make the trip unnecessarily long. We also feel that our trucks and equipment are a step above all other companies vehicles but we do appreciate it can get rough back there on many of the gravel tracks we encounter so I apologise if you were uncomfortable at times. Finally, it is never nice for us to hear that someone did not enjoy a trip with us but I do hope you at least took some good experiences away with you. I have taken all your points on board and wish you happy travels for the future. Best regards, William

Thanks for your review of the 2017 London to Sydney Tour Denise, much appreciated! Hope to see you on the Africa tour in the next year or two ;-) Cheers, Will

Hi Gaby and Norbert! Thank you so much for your review of our 2018 Iceland Tour! It was just wonderful having you both on board and I really hope you will join us again one day! Cheers, Karen