Why Explore Worldwide is your ticket to the kind of small group holiday you’ll never shut up about.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
Explore Worldwide has a habit of creating itineraries that feel like they were designed by an expert guide who looked at a normal holiday and said,
Let’s dial that up a bit.
These aren’t trips for the brochure-loving traveller who colour-codes their packing cubes.
These are for curious, unscripted travel lovers: people who’d happily chase a volcanic sunrise, follow a dog to buried truffles, or have no shame at unbuttoning their jeans after one too many Churchkhelas.
Here are the coolest Explore experiences begging for a spot on your bucket list. Just prepare to make some epic memories you’ll retell for years to come.
Soak your body at Pamukkale
Türkiye
If you’ve ever wanted to feel like you’ve wandered into a surrealist painting after a long night out, Pamukkale’s thermal pools are your moment.
The place looks like a giant, fluffy glacier, but instead of ice, it’s warm, calcium-rich water spilling over soft-white terraces you can wander barefoot. The locals call it the “cotton castle,” which feels spot-on once you’re ankle-deep in warm, toothpaste-blue pools that are soothing enough to make you forget your ever-growing inbox exists.
But don’t miss the Frozen Waterfall: a natural wonder that looks suspiciously like someone paused nature mid-drip or Cleopatra’s Pool, where you can swim among ancient, toppled columns.
And because Explore never just does the obvious, the wider Western Turkiye itinerary adds hidden ruins, local delicacies, and enough history to keep your brain interested without venturing into boredom territory.
Walk the Orkney Islands
Scotland
Think of the Orkney Islands as Scotland’s greatest hits album, but instead of streaming it, you get to walk through it. This tour takes you along cliff edges, over green headlands, and straight into the interesting kind of ancient history.
You’ll wander past Skara Brae, a Stone Age village older than the pyramids, and poke around the dramatic Brough of Deerness, where the views are as wild as the winds that’ll inevitably try to steal your hat. Everywhere you go, birdlife erupts around you and seals lounge along the shore (probably judging your hiking form).
The slower pace means you actually feel the islands: the salty air, the Norse echoes, the ancient layers beneath your feet. And because this is Explore, it’s done with just enough quirk and curiosity to keep even non-hikers grinning.
Hike Mount Etna & Vulcano
Italy
There’s nothing quite like walking up the flanks of an active volcano to remind you that the Earth is very much alive. Mount Etna delivers smoky drama, sweeping lava fields, and panoramic views that’ll have you trying not to gasp (they’re that good). Explore’s Sicily Walking trip gets you right onto the volcanic slopes, where the crunch of black ash underfoot feels both thrilling and mildly concerning.
After conquering Etna, you’ll hop a ferry to Lipari - an island that sounds fictional but is very real and very sulfur-scented. The walk to the crater rim is a highlight, with views stretching across the Aeolian Islands like they’re posing for your camera. You get geology, mythology, Mediterranean beauty, and bragging rights that last a lifetime.
Sicily shines in the space between rugged and indulgent, and this trip captures all of it: warm breezes, fiery landscapes, ancient ruins, unexpected villages, and food that’ll have you go going back for seconds (and then thirds).
Summon the spirits at a Voodoo Festival
Benin
Forget everything Hollywood has taught you: real voodoo is vibrant, joyful, complex, and culturally rich in ways that deserve waaaay more global respect. And you’ll see all of that explode to life at the Voodoo Festival in Ouidah, Benin, the spiritual home of voodoo traditions.
At the festival, worshippers gather in dazzling traditional costumes, masks whirl into motion, and drums pulse so relentlessly you feel them in your ribcage. It’s immersive in the truest sense: you’re not watching from behind a rope, you’re right there in the energy of it all, witnessing ceremonies, blessings, and a community honouring centuries-old heritage.
This Benin & Togo Voodoo Discovery trip layers this with markets, shrines, storytellers, and everyday encounters that reveal the human side of voodoo.
Marvel at the Northern Lights
Iceland
Everyone has ‘seeing the Northern Lights’ on their bucket list, but doing it in Iceland on a Northern Lights Adventure upgrades the whole thing from “pretty cool” to “I need to tell everyone I’ve ever met immediately.”
By day, you’ll road-trip through Iceland's greatest hits: waterfalls that roar like dragons clearing their throats, geysers that over-perform, and volcanic landscapes that make the moon look average (at best). And by night, you’ll head to remote dark-sky spots and wait for the aurora to do its cosmic dance. When those green ribbons shimmer overhead, it genuinely feels like the universe has decided to throw its own little party.
Photographers will lose their minds; the rest of us will just stare upwards like goldfish.
Try your luck at truffle hunting
France
Fancy following an adorable dog through a forest while it hunts for buried treasure that you can eat? It’s called truffle hunting (and you do it in Sarlat), the crown jewel of Explore’s Southern France adventure.
Local truffle hunters will lead you into oak groves where expertly trained dogs zigzag with purpose, noses twitching like furry detectives. When they locate a truffle, it’s genuinely thrilling. You learn why these fungi are so prized, how they’re found, and how to sniff out the good from the mediocre (hint: the dogs are better at this than you will be).
The rest of the trip flows through vineyards, villages, markets, and medieval towns, offering a greatest-hits tour of Southern French indulgence. Sign us the hell up.
Eat your way from Tbilisi to the Caucasus Mountains
Georgia
Georgia never fails to make us wonder why it’s not the most popular destination on Earth. And Explore’s week-long culinary trip takes you from Tbilisi’s cobbled streets, where bakeries spill khachapuri smells into the air, into the countryside for wine, mountains, and surprises.
You’ll taste Qvevri wine made in giant clay vessels buried underground, learn to fold khinkali dumplings without embarrassing yourself (fingers crossed), and wander vineyard estates that look like they’re straight out of a pastoral fairytale. Then comes the Caucasus Mountains where the views at the Holy Trinity Church are more dramatic than your fave show finale.
Throw in the Gremi Fortress, local family feasts, and cooking classes that may awaken your inner Georgian grandmother, and you’ve got a trip that blends culture, cuisine, and scenery like nowhere else.
Go searching for golden monkeys
Uganda & Rwanda
If you’ve ever wanted to feel like David Attenborough but with slightly worse narration skills, this trip is your moment. The search for Rwanda’s golden monkeys is a standout: you’ll trek through Volcanoes National Park’s bamboo forests until you find a troop of these rare, hyperactive primates leaping around like they’ve been heavily caffeinated.
Unlike mountain gorillas (which you may also get to encounter), golden monkeys live at lower altitudes, making this trek slightly kinder on the lungs but no less thrilling. Watching them dart, scramble, and launch themselves branch-to-branch is witnessing something incredible - something you’ll likely never see again.
It’s one of Africa’s most unforgettable encounters and part of a journey that takes you deep into some of the continent’s richest ecosystems.
Cruise the Okavango Delta
Botswana
There’s a moment on Explore’s Botswana Wildlife Safari when you swap the dusty roads for something a bit liquidy - gliding down the Okavango River, where Botswana’s watery wild heart really reveals itself.
It’s quieter than a game drive and slower than a walk, but somehow feels more alive: hippos yawn in the shallows, birds wheel overhead, and the shifting light makes the reeds dance mesmerisingly.
In a place where water literally writes the landscape, floating along at sunset feels like reading the world in slo-motion. You see more, you notice more, and you remember just how magnificent the Delta truly is.
Spot exotic wildlife
Costa Rica
Costa Rica is naturally an 11/10 destination: think wild jungles, wild coastlines, wild animals, and on Explore’s Upgraded Costa Rice Wildlife tour, accommodations that don’t make you feel like you’re slumming it in the name of adventure.
Over two packed weeks you’ll bounce from the Caribbean to the Pacific, cruising down jungle canals, scanning treetops for sleepy sloths, and hiking tropical trails that are sooo obviously Mother Nature’s favourites.
Tortuguero’s waterways are teeming with life; cloud forests drip with moss and mystery; beaches flash between gold and jungle green. Every day brings a new ecosystem, a new creature, a new “is this real?” moment. And then you get to collapse into a premium bed at the end of it. Sublime *said in Ryan Gosling as Ken’s voice*.
get in the know Sloths can slow their heart rate so much they hold their breath for up to 40 minutes. Dolphins tap out at 10. Our verdict? Nature is completely unhinged.
SHARE THIS ARTICLE
