uganda in October / November ...

looking to go to Uganda mid October, returning Sunday 3rd November ... after visiting the town of Pakwach for an event at 2pm

the best outbound flight option seems to be the Kenya Airways LHR - NBO departing 20:00 arriving 06:30 with a connection on to EBB departing at 07:55 arriving into Kampala at 09:15
for the return journey the KLM flight departs EBB at 23:30 arriving into Schipol at 05:55 with a connection to LHR departing at 07:15 and scheduled to arrive in London at 07:40
the outbound KLM flight leaves at 11:00 which uses up an extra day's holiday, although it does have the advantage of stopping in Kigali enroute to EBB
total for the Kenya Airways o/bound and KLM i/bound comes to 655 gbp with expedia, and plenty of other websites

for those not as restricted by timings, kayak has the most flexible options, with travelocity offering a 3 day +/- option which results in more or less the same flights ... bizarrely google flights has what looks like really good flexibility functionality, but it doesn't bring up the same (cheap) flights that it produces on standard search !
anyway, all the flight searches point to Turkish airlines being the cheapest - around 480 gbp

whilst in Uganda, to get some ideas for what to do (via the Tour Radar website) come from Gorilla Tours, Dragoman, Peregrine, Absolute Africa, Garuka Safaris, Audley Travel, Pinnacle Safaris, African Bikers, Absolute Africa, World Expeditions, Journey International and Bench International
and a few i found myself Exodus, Explore!, Rainbow Tours, Wildlife Worldwide, PearlAfric, Destination Jungle, Travel Quest, Chameleon and Astro Trails

FlyUganda operates internal flights around Uganda ... for a price !



Updated 26/5/13 - added Chameleon to list of tour operators.

cycling holiday companies

Saddle Skedaddle has a huge range of trips

Peak Tours has trips in the Peak District

Bikecation has trips in UK and Europe

Hooked on Cycling has trips in Europe and Canada

Cycle Active have mountain bike and road holidays around the world

Cycle Fiesta have guided and self guided trips in Spain

Norske Bygdeopplevelser have cycling trips in Norway

Many of the main activity holiday companies run cycling trips


The Guardian website has a cycling holidays section

The Travel Lists website has a cycling holidays section with UK and overseas operators

The Cycle Holidays directory isn't very attractive

C2C has a short list of cycling holiday companies

burma in october ...

i previously wrote a post about searching for a holiday - going through lots of different websites ... well, this time i found a decent search engine called Tour Radar ... hope it survives !

i'm looking for a trip to Burma which leaves on or after Friday 5th October and returns by 1st November ... and can be away up to about 16 days (3 weekends) ...

one of the cheapest options is Imaginative Traveller / Gecko who have a trip for 951 gbp - it includes an overnight train to Bagan/Pagan but doesn't mention whether it's a seat or bed (most trip fly up) ... starts in Yangon on Sunday 14th October and finishes on Sunday 28th

Explore have departures every couple of days starting in Yangon for example from Sunday 14th October to Saturday 27th October (but with limited availability), cost 1,399 gbp (or 2,233 gbp if the group flights are available) and includes two flights

The Adventure Company have a trip starting in Yangon on Saturday 6th October and finishing on Saturday 20th October for 1,570 gbp (or 2,619 gbp if the group flights are available) which includes 2 flights and a night on a riverboat / riverbank !

Exodus have a trip starting in Yangon on Wednesday 10th October which ends on Tuesday 23rd October for 1,449 gbp (or 2,259 gbp if the group flights are available) and includes 4 flights.

Spice Road have a cycling tour which is unfortunately fully booked, starting in Yangon on Sunday 7th October and finishing on Saturday 20th October for 2,895 USD plus 525 USD for cycle hire.  It includes 2 internal flights, 8 and a half days of cycling and is fully supported in case the cycling is too tough !

KE Adventure unfortunately don't start their interesting looking trip, which includes 4 days of hiking, until November

Bales Worldwide are fully booked for their October trips which cost 3,295 gbp from London

Panoramic Journeys unfortunately don't start their trips until late October.

Regent Holidays don't start their trips until November, and anyway, they're fully booked

Kumuka has gone bust

Travel Indochina have a trip starting in Yangon on Monday 15th October and finishing on Saturday 27th for 1,835 gbp including 4 internal flights.

Cox & Kings have a departure from London on Friday 19th October arriving back on Wednesday 31st October for 2,933 gbp including 4 internal flights.

Asian Horizons have a shorter trip with departure from London on Saturday 13th October, arriving back on Thursday 25th (seems too short for such a long way away) for 2,499 gbp staying in 4* hotels and includes three flights (rather than transferring by boat from Bagan to Mandalay) ... I guess you could add a few beach days on the end ...

Trans Indus have a trip starting on Sat 6th October from London arriving back on Thursday 18th for 2,698 gbp and include 4 internal flights


Amongst the companies offering private trips are Trailfinders who offer a 13 day itinerary, including 3 or 4 internal flights for 1,562 gbp from Yangon.

Mountain Kingdoms don't have any availability on the group trips, but do offer them as private trips.

Bamboo offer a 15 day itinerary from London for 2,995 gbp which includes 5 internal flights and takes in the west of the country that most trips ignore.

Another odd looking website has more suggestions.

activity holiday over easter

looking for somewhere to go for easter and to avoid flag waving royal jollity, i've been trawling the websites ...

Saddle Skeddadle have a couple of interesting trips - one to Spain, and a couple of different trips to Sardinia

Adventure Travel have a very well hidden search engine, but when you finally find it, they have an interesting trip to Iran/Persia

Exodus also has a decent search engine - they have a few self guided cycling trips, including one to Corsica

Tucan have an interesting calendar based search ... and an interesting trip to Lombok

Explore has a fairly rubbish search function, which returns lots of trips outside the dates that you enter ... and of those that do meet the dates, quite a few are to parts of the Middle East currently in turmoil ...

KE have a decent search engine - but don't have anything very useful

Dragoman have a really rubbish search engine ... and no useful trips

Intrepid Travel has a not very impressive search function ... but does have a couple of useful trips, but they're all full !

Kumuka has a seriously rubbish search engine, that returns a pile of trips which are full !

Cycle Active don't seem to have any search function at all !

Imaginative Traveller have a reasonable search engine, but don't seem to like bookings within less than a week to go ...

Nature Trek have a decent search function, but no availability !

Peregrine has a nice looking search engine ... but it doesn't work !

Sherpa don't have anything particularly inspiring.

Walks Worldwide don't have any sort of useful search options whatsoever !

GAP adventures have a decent search, but unhelpfully it brings up trips that are full.

Neilson Adventures act as an agent for a range of other companies ... their search function starts off being quite good, but it returns fully booked trips, grrr !

Page & Moy allow you to search by departure date - but don't have anything useful.