We celebrate our first twenty years of operation further into this brochure, as we head towards the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century with just a few of the many highlights we can remember that our customers have enjoyed over the years. We will continue our policy of offering the highest quality trips, at the best value prices, many of which we pioneered over the years and we intend to continue to do so. Whilst many inferior copies of a number of our trips seem to abound nowadays, you may prefer to travel with the people with the vision and passion to explore and trail blaze in the first place. Our late publication this year has given us the ability to see many of our competitors prices for 2010, some of which are somewhat eye-watering.  Not only may you wish to travel with the originals, you will enjoy the best value for your traveling Pound, be escorted by some of the world’s best leaders and guides and know your money is safely protected by our licenses. We look forward to providing some of the best experiences in your life for many years to come.

 

New for 2010 we are pleased to announce another world-first pelagic voyage, the Indian Ocean Seabird Expedition.  We return to Jamaica for a new year round programme of independent birding holidays whilst our Trinidad and Tobago programme is now offered from only £999 inclusive for a week  including flights. Sweden in Winter is joined by Hungary in Winter as two more of our new new trips. Ken and Lys Hall will be leading our rather nice sounding Birds and Wine tours to Spain this spring, whilst experiencing the regional cuisines too. A revised Galapagos Seabirds and Endemics voyage is on offer after the hugely successful and enjoyable first trip this year on our new yacht, with year-round departures.  A revised Humboldt Current voyage is also on offer, with Chris Collins onboard throughout. The Western Pacific Odyssey will only operate for the next two years, 2010 and 2011, sign up soon for this unique ultimate pelagic, at the best prices too of course. We finally visited Midway Atoll this spring, an avian tropical seabird paradise in the Pacific Ocean, a truly world-class natural history spectacle. We continue to offer the ultimate range of the best bird and wildlife cruises to the Antarctic region. There are some great savings to be had for the upcoming winter still, you can’t take it with you and it’s not much use sitting in the bank at the moment! Our Kamchatka  group enjoyed a magnificent wildlife expedition in June, repeated next year of course. Some of the prices on the market for Spitsbergen next year are unreal, however you can join the best ship for our annual Polar Bear quest with Tony Marr, with over ten years experience in this Arctic wonderland, and inclusive prices from only £2779 per person. Our regular favourites are all on offer again too, Poland in Spring, Beidaihe and Happy Island (check out Mark’s pics), Eilat Spring Migration Festival, Hungarian Bird Festival,  Goa Bird Festivals,  Birdwatch Magazine Sweden in Spring, ‘Spoon-billed Pitta’ Thailand – another WildWings original. Dick’s grouse megafest in his semi-adopted home of Colorado runs again next year plus Simon will lead another onboard team as the Atlantic Odyssey sails north in March.

 

Camping on the ice edge in Arctic Canada with  Belugas and Narwhals, which you can watch, photograph and/or kayak and snorkel with,  joins our WildOceans programme of some of the planet’s top cetacean experiences, headed  still of course by Baja California and the Sea of Cortez voyage, which we first experienced over ten years ago. We have our own exclusive charter at the best time of the season or can now offer similar life-changing experiences on other dates too.  Our first Brazil Jaguar tour for next year is nearly if not full and we have a cheaper new Chile Pumas and Whales trip on offer too. Chas’s Maldives tropical whale and dolphin bliss trips are also booking now,  at the best prices, and we are happy to help if you want to combine with a resort stay. His Blue Whale in Sri Lanka photo isn’t bad either.

 

Lots on the planning board as usual, a rare Southern Indian Ocean (Kerguelan, Crozet, Amsterdam and St Paul Islands etc) voyage may be on offer in a few years time whilst we also expect to find a decent sized ship to visit Pitcairn, Henderson and a mouth-watering selection of other adjacent islands, an area we ran voyages to in the nineties. If either of these appeal to you, contact us to register your interest and be the first to receive more information when available (tours@wildwings.co.uk). New mammal tours also figure in our future projects, Snow Leopards (without radio collars) in their high altitude kingdom, and another trail-blazing new tour in Asia, details on our website in due course.

 

Thank you to those of you who voted for us in the Wanderlust Magazine ‘best specialist operator awards’,  it was great to receive a call from the mag,  telling us we were just outside the final few but the company who received  the most 100% satisfaction ratings. It helps us to keep maintaining the highest standards of service. As always, if you have any queries or questions, just pick up the phone or send us an e-mail.

 

We hope to hear from you soon and to you joining us somewhere around our fantastic natural world.

 

John Brodie-Good

 

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Conservation

WildWings are totally committed to the conservation of the natural world and we donate money to  ‘front-line’ organisations and projects every year. In operating our own tours and holidays we use local businesses and guides in each destination to inject money and employment into the areas that our clients visit. Since 2004, we have been donating money annually to the ‘Save the Albatross’ campaign for each customer that we send to Antarctica. This is also supported by our tour leaders when they travel on our various expedition ships and we are pleased to be donating thousands of pounds a year to this crucial campaign as a result. Our donations are currently being specifically used to buy tori-lines for use on Southern Ocean fishing vessels. We also continue to fund our annual Oriental Bid Club Conservation  Awareness Award too.                               

 

WildWings LIVE!

Come and meet the staff and most of our leaders. We are always at the British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland Water every August. Stop by for a chat, tell us about your last trip and ask us questions about your next. We look forward to seeing you there.

 

Your images wanted!

We are delighted to illustrate this brochure with many of our customer’s images. If you would like to see your work in print, of birds and wildlife, the people, places and vessels taken on your travels with WildWings, then please submit them via e-mail or on CD, thank you!

 

www.wildwings.co.uk

Our website is kept up to date, year round, with the latest information, dates and prices. Forthcoming tours and expeditions on the website appear as soon as they are available to book. Make our homepage a favourite, with the availability and news pages changing frequently. In many cases there is more information on the website than we have space for here, especially our post tour reports. If you do not have access to the web or encounter problems, please simply contact us and we will print the relevant information and mail it or fax it to you.

 

The WildWings team

Our friendly, knowledgeable and highly experienced staff are very happy to answer your questions and look forward to hearing from you soon. We only offer programmes that we really know ourselves and we are all keen travellers too.  John Brodie-Good oversees all our tours and looks after our independent expedition cruise clients. Sarah-Jane Thompson is responsible for our tour’s operations including our Trinidad, Tobago and Jamaican programmes and our clients traveling independently, worldwide.  Emma Brown assists in the Tours Department and looks after our Wild Insights customers and is now another Baja convert. Nicky Hudson designs this brochure, website and our adverts. The office staff are backed up by one of the best teams of tour leaders to be found anywhere in the world, based here in the UK, plus our many essential colleagues overseas, we are jointly committed to giving you the best bird and wildlife experiences available, and to have a great time doing it.

 

Financial Security

WildWings are a division of Strand Travel Ltd, based in London. The company has been trading for more than 20 years. We are fully bonded and licensed with ABTA hold CAA ATOL license 5429. Payment for your travel arrangements may be made by cash, cheque, bank transfer, debit and credit cards*. (*a 2% surcharge will apply for all payments by credit card.)

 

Prices

All payments must be made in Pounds Sterling. Overseas customers are very welcome, we can quote reductions for ‘ground only’ prices for those of you joining our tours at the overseas destination. You will always be quoted the up to date price by our staff at the pre-booking stage.

 

Please note – All information/products and prices subject to change or withdrawal at any time.