The Explorer Society | Gear Check 2025: Our Year in Review

Before you climb any mountain, rappel into any canyon or head off on any travel, it’s best to do a gear check. That way, you know exactly what you are dealing with and ensure there are no nasty (or fatal) surprises.

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We do the same with The Explorer Society as a whole. We check our current position, review our ascents and descents, and at the end, we look back at the view. It also gives us a chance to work out some stats, and who doesn’t love an interesting stat?

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The Good

5-star service/Referrals

We have mentioned this a few times, but we will keep on talking about it until we can’t! After all our years of planning expeditions to the remote corners of the world, we still have an average 5-star rating from our past travellers. Thanks to each of you who has taken the time to give us a review.

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In addition, the number of new travellers coming into the Society via referrals from past travellers continues to grow. That is someone trusting their loved one’s dreams to our hands, and we are extremely thankful for each and every one of them. For us, a small team focused on delivering unique experiences around the world, this is the best compliment we can get. So, thank you!

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10k, and other new faces

We recently crossed over 10,000 subscribers to The Explorer Society and these email Dispatches, which is astounding to us. More importantly, not only are more people receiving them than ever, they’re also being read and enjoyed by our Society members at three times the average rate for most companies in our industry. We take a lot of pride in our stories, and in sharing them with you. And thanks to those taking the time to write to us after each Dispatch and letting us know how much you enjoyed it.

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In addition, the Society continues to grow, both in front and behind the scenes. We recently hired a new Chief Marketing Officer, and one of her first tasks was to go and explore some luxury lodges in South Africa. Yes, that’s for real. Yes, she did shed a few happy tears on her first day of the trip. And no, she isn’t quitting so that you can have her job. There’s even more to come behind the scenes: 2026 will see others join the team so that we can continue creating more trips for more lucky travellers.

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New Destinations

We launched some new destinations this year.

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For us, the Arctic was a natural extension and has seen great interest from many travellers, all to form a larger Polar exploration range for us. We can now take you from Pole to Pole and to see the unique wildlife at both ends of the earth. And culturally, our West African destinations offer something really unique, from festivals of spirituality to national parks in their infancy. And speaking of unique, many travellers instantly jumped on the chance to visit the Congo with us. Within a week of it being launched, we had already planned out multiple trips, with more still in the works!

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Within our existing destinations, we have also been busy. Many of our destinations now have more unique offerings, including new lodges, community activities and amazing conservation experiences. Whether that be spending time with park rangers as they go about their important work, or relaxing in a river for some well earned sundowners.

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The Bad

Government shenanigans

There’s been a bit of governmental meddling this year across a few of our destinations that has made matters trickier than needed. There were small issues, like countries bringing in e-visa requirements when they previously weren’t needed, or much lauded e-visa systems not working as they should. There were also the annoying, like Zanzibar requiring travellers to now pay both a passenger tax and a mandatory insurance fee, even if passengers already had travel insurance. And then there were the serious, like sudden price hikes for national park fees and elections in some regions not being as open as they should be, leading to protests and shutdowns.

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It’s all manageable and par for the course, but life would be easier without this sort of nonsense.

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Migration horrors

We’ve been saying for years that the Great Wildebeest Migration needed better management. This year saw proof for why this is important, with disturbing images of people disrupting migratory exits from the river and overcrowding stressed-out animals. To avoid the overcrowding that the region is quickly becoming known for in August of each year, we intentionally encouraged our travellers to explore the Masai Mara and Northern Serengeti at other, equally amazing, times of the year. This means that travellers were still able to have unforgettable experiences and witness all the wildlife they were hoping to see, without worrying about the herds of tourists. And consequently, we had zero travellers in the Masai Mara or Northern Serengeti in August this year and zero travellers caught up in the issues that arose.

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There has been movement from the authorities in both Kenya and Tanzania to enforce the rules in this region since this came out, and we hope that this effort isn’t derailed by the tourism money it brings in. Either way, we will keep recommending real and revealing safaris, far away from the crowds.

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High season spread

Quite a few lodges came out this year, with great fanfare, announcing that they weren’t increasing their prices. That’s great news, right? However, at the same time, a lot of them simply extended their high season. What that means is if the high season used to be July to October, for some lodges in Africa the high season is now from the end of April to mid-November. So, whilst their prices may have technically stayed the same, people are now paying more to stay there in the quieter months than they would have in the past.

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Based on our experience, what we think will eventually happen is that in a few years, they will finally raise prices for their busiest months, meaning there will be a “high season” and a separate “really high season”. And they will celebrate themselves for not raising prices in the high season, although that used to be a low season.

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Confused yet?

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The Upcoming

Brutal dissection (and junk food!)

December is a good month for us. It gives us a few weeks to breathe whilst some begin their Antarctica cruises, and people’s attention shifts to Christmas gift buying. And, it also gives us a chance to come together and see each other. As a fully remote company, this face-to-face time is really looked forward to.

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This time together also gives us time to pull apart the company for a good servicing. Every 6 months we spend the whole week holed up somewhere and dissect what we do, and more importantly, what we can do better. This brutal analysis then sets the agenda for the next 6-12 months. Nothing is off the table, and nothing is too big or too small. This time also gives us a chance to see if we are staying on track with our offerings, our ethics and as part of our bigger goals.

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Plus, we usually have some hamburgers and lots of Christmas chocolate. Great times!

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The Stats

Most popular month for travel: July

July has always been a popular time to travel, all around the world. For our northern hemisphere travellers it is their summer holidays, and they finally have time to get away. For Southern Hemisphere clients it is winter, and it is nice to go somewhere warm. July being busy isn’t really a surprise, but most of our travellers during this period avoided East Africa (see August below) in favour of Southern Africa and other destinations.

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Least popular month for travel: August

This is a big change, as last year it was our busiest month. But as mentioned above, we have been trying hard to recommend other, less crowded and intrusive, times of year. We had no travellers to East Africa during this month at all, and our explorers instead enjoyed the same migrating wildebeest during other months of the year. In doing so, they also avoided the crowds and the price increases. Thanks to you all for trusting us.

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Most organised traveller

One of you planned and booked a trip 22 months in advance. You know who you are. We bet you have already bought next year's Christmas presents, and have a storeroom full of neatly organised wrapping paper.

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Number of remote locations worked from

We are a fully remote company, for reasons we have gone into on a few occasions. This also means that our team can work from anywhere in the world, provided they have an internet connection. This year we have had our team working remotely from well over 10 different locations around the world, across various time zones. This has included the deserts of Namibia, the grassy fields of northern Japan and various coastlines around the world. If office life is getting boring, why not move the office to somewhere more interesting?

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The number of travel photos that we haven’t gotten around to sorting yet

Amongst all of us, over 7,000.

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Oof.

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