4 independent reviews for South India vacation, small group
Reviews for South India vacation, small group
Sally Knowles-Jackson review 4 Mar 2023
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?
The variety of places I got to see an experience in southern india and the tiger we saw on our visit to one of the national parks!2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?
If you want an excellent overview of southern India just go for it. It was an excellent trip.3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
Yes - I feel like the tour operator truely make an effort to use local guides and to support local families and businesses and do what they can to support environmentally conscious travel and responsible tourism.4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?
It was great. The tour guide was excellent, we had a great group and I enjoyed every moment.Stephanie Monk review 6 Feb 2019
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?
I loved the Kerala backwaters and the maharajah’s palace at Mysore.2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?
There’s a lot of traveling, don’t expect to sit still for long.3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
Yes, our guide dealt directly with local people. Filtered water was available in most places.4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?
I loved South India and it’s people, such a beautiful and extraordinary place. Our guide Dinesh was excellent.Rose Sandham review 22 Dec 2018
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?
Our stay in the beautiful Chetinad Mansion in Chetinad, Tamil Nadu.2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?
Be prepared to take lots of photos as there are so many amazing things to see.3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
Yes, the trip ensured we use local companies, guides and places to stay where possible. They were also very aware of the importance of sustainability in relation to travel.4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?
A most enjoyable trip and our guide Justin Bruno was brilliant, knowledgeable, kind and fun to travel with and he had an excellent knowledge of the places we visited.Rose Ortiz review 5 Jan 2015
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?
Probably the meenakshi temple visit. I also thought Kerala was beautiful.2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?
I would advise other travelers to research the areas being visited because I didn't think there were enough interesting activities offered.3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
Not sure.4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?
2 stars. Although our tour leader was nice enough, I found her rather disorganized and not particularly communicative regarding the areas we visited (unless we asked direct questions) or the history of the areas /past/present. The local guides command of English was not great and often impossible to understand (except for mr Abraham, who was funny, sincere, and engaged). For instance, I don't remember anything that the guide at Meenakshi said. When I asked about the evening ceremonies ( something a friend who had gone with another company highly recommended ), it was met with disinterest by both the tour guide and the local guide. I was then given 2 incorrect times, and, as a result, I ( and 3 other tourmates I recommended this to) spent 3 exhausting hours trying to locate either ceremony. Luckily, we did get to see some of the final ceremony at 9:30pm. This guide I also heard was rude when we did not purchase something from his buddies across the street where we were corralled into for that "great photo" from the roof of their building. That whole hustle is really tacky and lame and I'm surprised your companies still engage in this stuff. At any rate, If the company can't offer an evening guide, at least have information available about this activity. Other observations: munnar was lovely but that tea farm visit was ridiculous (like a school trip) and visiting a dam? I heard the scenery around there was nice (I didn't go), but c'mon. I think someone needs to get on the ground in south India again and research either new places or alternate interesting things to do in these areas. Also, we had to leave cochi for alleppey quite early but for what reason? The rooms at Alleppey were unavailable for a couple of hours. Our leader said we left early " because we might see interesting sites along the way and stop." When we asked why we hadn't stopped, she said there " hadn't been anything interesting to stop for." And then there were the number of crappy restaurants. The big frat style restaurant in cochi was insane. I was ill (awful migraine -my head was on the table the whole night yet the guide never asked if perhaps I needed to go back to the hotel) and we waited about 2 hours for a meal I could not eat. The guide also often did not give us times to meet back up at activities where we dispersed. As a result there was often a lot of milling around unnecessarily waiting to connect with other members, being unable to go back to the bus or along to the next activity because the others may not know where we were. Anyway, south India itself and its people were beautiful and I wish I had had more of a chance to walk around amidst the people and learn more cultural and social facts. Also, the group members themselves were great. We all got along well and were quite well matched personality wise, for the most part. I think the thing was , almost everyone was very well travelled (I was probably the least well travelled person) and most had some issues with the quality of the experience. Whether they write about their experience remains to be seen.Read the operator's response here:
We’re sorry to hear you were disappointed with elements for you tour and our customer relations team are in direct communication with you to address the points raised.
Holiday Reviews
You can trust Responsible Travel reviews because, unlike many other schemes, reviews can ONLY be written by people who we have verified have been on the holidays. In addition, we don't run these holidays ourselves - our only interest is giving you the best independent advice.
