Intrepid Travel? Tread carefully...
It's a lot easier to travel responsibly when you're making your own decisions.
I’m just back from my first (and last!) group trip with Intrepid Travel, ten days spent exploring Guatemala and Belize, and it was certainly an experience worth sharing. Strap yourselves in, this is a long one!
The good
There were two factors that Intrepid had no real sway over — the other people on the tour, and the inherently appealing features of the countries we were visiting, be that flora and fauna, stunning landscapes, welcoming people, delicious food — and I lucked out on both counts.
I think the sort of people who take Intrepid tours are generally nice and interesting — I’d not done one before, but our group was great, and included several still in touch with friends made on previous Intrepid adventures. If nothing else you’ve all got a shared interest in both travel and the place you’re visiting, and once you start getting out and seeing things you’re bonding over shared experiences. It was my first time doing group travel, and I was pleasantly surprised by how easily we all rubbed along.
As for the actual trip, I loved both Guatemala and Belize. Both countries can boast a ridiculous amount of beautiful birds and gorgeous scenery, and while I didn’t come away feeling like I’d learned much about either country or its culture from Intrepid, I’m a naturally curious person and have ended up doing my own research anyway. Over the course of ten days I got to snorkel with rays, hang out on a paradise tropical island, climb Mayan pyramids, watch a volcano erupt, go cave tubing, fly over the Blue Hole, and develop an unhealthy obsession with Marie Sharp’s hot sauce (click here for UK stockist).
The bad
In general, the trip didn’t feel like value for money. The hotels we stayed in were average at best, and we were paying a lot more per night than I’m used to, while staying in a (significantly) lower standard of accommodation. The final hotel was filthy, with unswept floors covered in bits of rubbish, someone else’s blood on my sheets, and a vial of insulin belonging to a previous guest still chilling happily in the fridge. While we definitely weren’t supporting global chains, I’m not convinced we were benefiting the local communities in any way either.
Which is a shame, as in Guatemala City I accidentally ended up booking into an (excellent) hotel that — as I learned upon check-in — also happened to be a social enterprise, with each night’s stay paying for a week’s schooling for a named child, whose picture and thumbnail biography was posted in your room. I found it on an OTA and booked for price, score, and location, with no knowledge that my stay was also doing some social good, so it was a pleasant surprise when I read my key card. The Good Hotel also happens to have a branch in Antigua, from where we kicked off our Intrepid adventure, but Intrepid don’t use it. Instead we were in a perfectly pleasant but unremarkable hacienda with no clear link to the community.
There were very few inclusions on the trip, with most meals and activities add-on extras that effectively doubled the ticket price. While Intrepid furnishes you with comprehensive ‘pre-trip notes’, the two most expensive excursions we were offered weren’t listed as potential options, immediately blowing any hope of budgeting out the window. Obviously all excursions are optional extras, there were no guns to our heads, yadda yadda yadda, but when the guide implies you’ve got opportunities to spend an extra US$500 and it turns out to be closer to $1000, it’s not great communication.
And while you can arrange your own excursions, it’s strongly advised against by your tour leader at the welcome meeting, with a long speech about everything suggested having been vetted by Intrepid, both for safety standards and for its positive community impact. Which is nice to hear, but in the case of our group at least proved to be complete and utter bullshit.
One of our group had trouble with their knees, and was concerned about their ability to partake in excursions that were particularly physically challenging. We were sold a volcano experience described as a 4x4 ride up the hill overlooking the volcano, followed by a flat 45-minute walk to our viewing spot. Both the Intrepid guide and the excursion sales rep emphasised (multiple times) that the walk was both flat and easy.
When we made it up the mountain (with four people and no safety equipment sitting on the flatbed of a pickup truck while we charged up a vertical rally stage that would have seen Sebastien Loeb need new knickers), all of the other tour groups were kitted out in climbing boots and walking sticks for the not-at-all flat hike up and down slippery ground. Our group flailed and fell, with two getting seriously bruised, while another struggled at the back with a panic attack, ignored by the guide despite repeated entreaties for help in both English and Spanish.
While the volcano viewing was brilliant and I’m pleased to have done it, neither Intrepid nor local operator Luik Adventures had any ability to control a natural wonder. It would have been beautiful no matter who we’d booked with — and the experience Intrepid sold to us for US$266 per person was available through getyourguide.com (on the same day, and with the same operator) for US$68 per person. Neither of those figures are typos.
The ugly
This is where it gets tricky, as I’m currently in contact with Intrepid about something potentially illegal (and definitely immoral) that happened on our trip. I’m not going to go into detail, because one of the best things about my Intrepid experience was the response to me raising a complaint with their accountability team.
But X happened, and stuck in my craw, so I decided to put my journalist hat on and emailed the press team asking for an official statement on their position on X. Within about 12 hours (and first thing in the morning on a Saturday their time) I’d received a response from someone very senior in the company, assuring me that X was not standard and was very much a problem, and that they would be conducting a full investigation. In the days since I’ve been in touch with multiple people at Intrepid, and have come away reassured that my experience was an anomaly, and one that is being dealt with through appropriate channels.
So I’m not going to smear them for a rogue operator going against brief, and I do have to credit them for their response. But would I recommend that you book Intrepid for your next adventure? I most certainly would not. I like plotting my own adventures, I try and make the effort to have either a minimal or a positive impact on the places I visit, and I get a hell of a lot more bang for my buck when I do it myself — and there’s no one forcing me to eat supper at 6pm like I’m some sort of pensioner.
Thanks for sharing this!
I nearly booked in Intrepid trip for my trip to Morocco next month, and then suddenly realised: it looks way more expensive to book this than to actually just book nice hotels, I'd have to share a room for that expensive price, and it wasn't actually spending the time I would want to in each place! Now I'm very glad I didn't.
Fascinating account of group travel.. having done it myself, I largely agree with your points.
I find it tantalising that I know the nature of X … can I not have a small clue.
Illegal and immoral, what can it be?