The Explorer Society | Gear Check 2024

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.

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?

The Good

5-star service

Although we don’t promote reviews, and we definitely don’t (and won’t) incentivise them, we still have a 5-star average from all our travellers. Whilst we know it probably can’t last forever (some people love their 4-stars), we are so proud to have this badge of honour and so happy that all of you have enjoyed your adventures so much. Many thanks to each of you.

The Grand Egyptian Museum opens!

This mystery surrounding the opening date for this became a bit of a running joke in a lot of our updates. In case you don’t know, the new museum has sat there, pretty much complete, for the past 18 months, waiting for an opening date. And so it is great news that the museum is open. Well, mostly. The Tutankhamun exhibit isn’t open yet, but we are just happy to have a chance to visit some of the treasures!

A bunch of book worms

Our initial goal for The Explorer Society was to be true to the name, and create a society of people who loved travelling to new and interesting places to learn all about it. As a result, we were determined to make our Dispatch newsletters worth reading, rather than a spammy marketing email. It takes a lot of work behind the scenes to make it happen, and a lot of professional marketing people looked at us strangely, but the results speak for themselves. Our Society has doubled in the past year and the rate of engagement from our readers is over double the industry average. For us, that’s further proof that travellers like real stories (and being treated like an intelligent person) instead of being reduced to a number on a list.

Lots of travel for us

We are a travel company, so of course we travel as much as we can. Over this past year the team has travelled to Brazil, Chile, South Africa (multiple times), the UK, Antarctica, Argentina and Peru. Each trip refreshes our tank and reenergises our passions.

Kid’s first safaris

Our co-founders both have young kids, so this year they decided to take their families on safari for the first time. These children have grown up hearing their dads talking on the phone about Africa, so it was lovely to see their reactions to experiencing it themselves. But, kids remain kids. For one of them, having travelled to some of the nicest lodges and some of the best safari locations in Africa, his favourite memory was the bunk beds in Cape Town. Ah well, they tried.

Amazing moments to share with our explorers

We had a lot of laughs this year with all of the team, but also with all of our travellers. As part of the planning process, we get to learn a lot about you as a person. Because of that, we have been welcomed into your lives. You’ve told us about romantic first meetings, new family arrivals, sadly missed partners and long held dreams. We have received late night photos of animals, lodges, swimsuits, pools, cocktails, icebergs and sunsets. And above all else, we have been constantly reminded that the world we live in is mostly full of good people doing good things, despite the negativity of the news we read. Thanks for making our 2024 the year it was.

The Bad

Many hands make light work

In terms of hiring new team members, we prefer to wait for the right person to come along (in whatever country they may reside) and then build a job around them.Having said that though, we could also use a few extra people. It has been so busy, with so many travellers, that a few ‘unimportant’ things have fallen through the cracks. The guide to climbing Kilimanjaro that has been 90% complete for 18 months? That’s one such thing. Our destination training videos? Another such thing.

The good news is that we finally have a plan of attack to get these things finished and out into the world. And 2025 also looks like our team might grow a little bit more too.

It’s busy y’all

The other difficulty this year, especially when it comes to Africa, has been finding availability. It has been a case of booking well in advance (we are talking 12 months even) to get some particular safari lodges or hotels, even during lower seasons. Victoria Falls is one such issue, Botswana has been another. This became even more apparent on a recent enquiry where a particular property was already completely sold out for two months in early 2026!

Every time we hear of a new hotel being built in Victoria Falls we always think “that’s probably too many”. And yet, whenever we need to find space for a traveller, it’s always a case of “there isn’t enough!”. This is doubly true for us, who always prefer smaller and more intimate lodges to the big 100+ room behemoths. What we are saying is, we need more lodges, not larger lodges. And we need the availability when we want it. And endless G&T’s. Is that too much to ask for?

The Upcoming

Two for you, one for us

It’s always a balance when we are looking at what destinations and experiences to offer our travellers. It’s even more of a case when we are looking at new experiences and destinations to offer. Do we simply gofor the most popular destinations, or do we offer things that get us excited? Our solution is to keep it rooted in our company vision (”avoiding crowds, real and revealing”) and to offer options on a two to one basis. There are some things we know are quite niche, and then there are things that appeal to a wider variety of travellers. For every super niche experience we offer, we find two more ‘wider interest’ options to balance it out. For every Congo adventure we reveal, we also offer two Arctic adventures that we like.

On that note, next year will see our Central and West African product reveal, and some more expansion on our Arctic program.

Less off-the-shelf

We have taken a long look at what we want to improve in the Society and also thought about the most “Society” way to do it. 2025 will see a lot more custom items become part of our company. Maps in our own unique style is one example, as is further development of our back-end systems. If it is worth doing right, it’s worth doing yourself.

Sharing the love

We have always had a focus on giving back to the areas we visit, but 2026 will see this introduced in a more consistent manner and with less ‘ad-hoc’ giving. That’s all we are going to say for now, more to come next year….

More travel (for us)

We are still deciding our final destinations for travel in 2026 but we have already planned on attending one of the worlds largest travel trade shows in Germany as well as a fact-finding trip to South Africa. The Arctic, Peru, Egypt and the Congo are all still in contention with various Society team members. Tough life.

The Stats

Most popular month for travel: August

August is always a popular month for travel, especially for Australians fleeing winter and Europeans and North Americans travelling in their holidays. But, August shouldn’t coast in its success, as it was very, very closely followed by May.

Least popular month for travel: February

February is instead one of the busiest months for planning travel, not taking it. That being said, it is a great time to visit many destinations.

Travel month with the largest growth: December

December is when the Antarctic season starts ‘heating- up’, and this December has seen a huge growth in our

travellers taking a cruise to Antarctica.

Face to face supplier meetings: 160

That’s 160 different properties or experiences from around the world, from multi-site operators to expedition cruise ships to single site tented camps. That’s not including the site inspections or personal travel experiences.

Missed school pickups because we got absorbed in our work: 2

We got there, just not on time. That’s not too bad right? Right?