If destinations and accommodation are the bread and butter of a great vacation, a hands-on cultural experience is the secret sauce that brings it all to life.
We know that not everyone likes the idea of organized fun. You don’t need your hand held – we get it. But we also know that we’d bet our bottom kip that even the most die-hard independent travelers will fall for our incredible guides, whose in-depth knowledge and personal stories make every experience special.
The reason we can be so confident is because we’re independent travelers ourselves, and we know there’s nothing worse than coughing up for a cultural class or guided tour only to find that it feels inauthentic and touristy. That’s why we only recommend experiences we’ve personally road-tested and absolutely loved – no cookie-cutter day trips, no lackluster guides, and no doing something just because everyone else is.
In Laos, that means trekking up 100 waterfalls to picnic off banana leaves against the backdrop of the Nam Ou River Valley. It means cycling around the islands of the Mekong, stopping to watch craftsmen weaving bamboo and eating dinner with a local family. It means swapping Luang Prabang’s World Heritage architecture for its rural fringes, exploring the minority villages and tumbledown temples that line the banks of the Mekong.
We can take you beyond the standard tourist sites, but it takes the knowledge of a local to bring those places to life – and these experiences are the way to do it.
