What does 'adventure with style' mean?
I describe Travel Queen group tours for women as 'adventures with style' - this is what I mean!
Adventure with style...from motorbike taxis through the jungle to luxury beachfront villas
What it doesn't mean is that you have to be a supermodel or live in a posh postcode to get on the tour, or spend the whole trip in high heels or posing by the pool not getting your blow-dry wet...in fact I'd encourage quite the opposite! For me, travelling around on a group tour is about being a little wilder and freer than you are at home or on an 'normal' holiday, so I'd recommend flip flops all the way and jumping into the abundance of gorgeous turquoise water at any given opportunity!
What 'adventure with style' does mean is that we really explore the places we visit, experiencing what makes that country unique and all the hidden gems that I've discovered on my travels. We see and do a lot on a Travel Queen group tour, but we do it in style with a little bit of luxury thrown in!
The Thailand Adventure
It means that on our Thailand Adventure group tour for women we see an amazing 7 different destinations, from the rainforest in Khao Sok National Park, three hours north of Phuket on the mainland, down to idyllic Koh Lipe, known as the 'Maldives of Thailand', which is Thailand's southernmost island, neighbouring Malaysia. The five other islands that we visit include Thailand's longstanding favourites of Koh Phi Phi and Koh Lanta, and the beautiful and relatively untouched Koh Mook and Koh Yao Yai, which, along with Koh Lipe, are islands yet to be added to other tour group companies' itineraries.
Why Koh Lipe got the nick name 'The Maldives of Thailand'!
With a lot of amazing activities and sights packed into two weeks, so you'll certainly feel like you're exploring the real Thailand and seeing a lot more than on a standard holiday. Because we do it in style though, the whole experience of visiting and travelling between these seven different destinations is designed to be a much more fun and comfortable one. That means that unlike many group tours, we don't waste away lots of time covering long distances between destinations or making you spend your precious holiday time away from work on long bus or ferry journeys!
How you travel on a 'standard' group tour compared to a Travel Queen 'adventure with style'
A good example of how I have designed Travel Queen group tours to be different to how 'standard' group tours normally work, is Day 4 of the Thailand Adventure. On most of the days when we travel onto a new destination, our travelling time is kept to a mimumum of 1 to a maximum of 3 hours (as we travel by speedboat with smaller groups and faster journey times than the ferries with the masses), so there is still lots of the day left to relax or enjoy some kind of activity once we reach our new stop.
Day 4 of the trip involves the most travelling, as we need to make our way from Khao Sok National Park Rainforest on the mainland, 3 hours north of Phuket, down through Phuket and then to the pier to catch our boat to our first island stop of Koh Phi Phi.
Stunning Khao Sok National Park and Cheow Lan Lake that we explore on the Travel Queen Thailand Adventure tour
I first did this journey myself (as I always try and test everything out in person before adding it to the tour) using the public scheduled ferry from Phuket to Koh Phi Phi. As there are limited departure times of these ferries, you are restricted by having to get to the pier about an hour before they leave. This meant the following for my overall journey that day:
Having to get up very early with no time to eat breakfast at the treehouse camp in Khao Sok to start the 3 hour+ bus journey to make it to the pier in time
Spending the whole day just travelling or waiting around, from the bus down to checking in and waiting at the pier, to the time consuming loading of hundreds of people and their bags onto the ferry (and off again at the other side), and the long, slow journey time of the ferry
Feeling pretty tired and hungry by the time I arrived in Koh Phi Phi about 5pm, having just grabbed snacks throughout, with no time to go somewhere nice for breakfast or lunch during the journey
A typical group tour or 'doing it yourself' type of journey
I decided that this wasn't how I wanted a full day of the Thailand Adventure to be spent. But I also really wanted to keep the amazing part of the tour in the jungle in Khao Sok as a great contrast to the islands on the rest of the tour, so we would have to make that journey somehow. So, I made the following improvements to make the whole journey much more enjoyable, as you can see in the photos from the tour below!
Pre-arranged a good breakfast to be ready for us at our treehouse camp to set us up before the journey begins
Arranged two private air conditioned minivans to pick us up direct from the treehouse camp and take us to the pier, with 3 stops along the way to break up the journey, including:
1. A comfort break half way between Khao Sok and Phuket
2. A visit to Phuket's Big Buddha Temple high above Phuket on an amazing viewpoint
3. A stop for lunch at a traditional Thai restaurant with stunning sea views before
completing the journey to the pier
Organised a private speedboat to be waiting just for our group on arrival at the pier (at our own selected time) to take us direct to Koh Phi Phi much faster than the alternative ferry - making all of the above possible by giving us time to enjoy the day and see things along the way to break up the journey!
A Travel Queen 'adventure with style' kind of journey!
The quest for value for money!
As a traveller at heart its really important to me that the 'adventure with style' strap line doesn't automatically mean super expensive. I've spent my life travelling all over the place from my teens to now in my 30s, so I'm pretty sensitive to the balance between getting a good deal and enjoying the nice things in life...or being ripped off! In my opinion, some companies out there are taking advantage of the lack of 'luxury' group tours on the market compared to the many budget backpacker trips, and have gone too far with how high they've priced their trips.
I'm really proud of the research and work I do before creating all of Travel Queen's trips, and believe the end result is fantastic value for money for the standard of accommodation, range of activities and carefully planned itineraries and travel throughout the tour.
If you'd like to hear what real women that have been on Travel Queen group tours think about their adventure with style, check out their reviews here on Facebook.
Thank you for reading and I hope you found it
useful! :-)
Mel x
(Owner of Travel Queen & Tour Group Leader)
Small luxury group tours, adventures, travel and holidays for solo / single women in 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s with Travel Queen
