Undiscovered Destinations - www.undiscovered-destinations.com

I have travelled four times with this Tyneside based UK travel company and my criticisms are verifiable by others who endured the tour problems I am reviewing. This company acts as middle-man for locally based travel agents and has displayed a remarkable lack of oversight when planning and operating trips, and evasiveness when approached about its health and safety failings. On a trip to Sudan, in fifty two degree heat, their local agent repeatedly ran out of water, when there was water we were limited to 50ml bottles, a tour member was so dehydrated they were hospitalised in Wadi Halfa. In Cameroon, the group was sent to the North of the country despite local security concerns, on a visit the the Parc de Waza reserve, a French family travelling separately were kidnapped by Boko Haram, the local agent evacuated the Undiscovered Destinations group, but, due to a mechanical failure with the mini-bus, left them alone fully exposed by the roadside in a village for several hours, just a few miles from the kidnap site. On a Central Asian trip, their local agent sent the group through a border crossing so notorious for shake-downs and corruption that the local US Embassy stated that it was a well known risk. A tour member was arrested and detained for a week on the Uzbek side for possession of locally resricted, but domestically prescribed, medication. Undiscovered Destinations' own Tajik agent stated, to the group, that it was inconceivable that we should have been sent through the border unattended and there are alternative cheap air routes into Tajikistan. Out of four tours booked with this company, three have had serious, and entirely avoidable, incidents arising from bad judgment and lack of oversight, both in planning and on the ground. Although they make much of their Ethical Travel branding, they display little ethical practise in their response to criticisms raised buy their paying customers. Their immediate stance is defensiveness rather than concern, they will refuse to answer wholly reasonable questions, deny any opportunity for examination of failings or neglect, attempt to smear and corrupt event accounts verifiable by several tour members and independent agencies, such as local consulates, and ultimately ban you from traveling with their company should you attempt to address your concerns with them seriously. Businesses are to be judged by their response to problems, particularly those who would have you believe they operate ethically, this one fails on all fronts. Adventure travel is a competitive field, but a company which has such a regular record of incident and error and ofuscates, smears and evades in response rather than enter into a mature, responsible and proper dialogue with its customers is not to be trusted and to be wholly avoided. Had my concerns been engaged with and discussed in good will one could accept that any failings had been rectified, as of now one can only assume they are being covered up. Do not travel with this company, there are other better known providers with demonstrably more professional reputations and customer policies, use them instead.