19 July 2010

Here at In The Saddle, we’re always looking for new rides and destinations to add to our list of horseback excursions. So this year, we sent some of our lucky In The Saddle consultants on a number of exploratory rides to some new locations. Although we fully researched the rides and took references on our riding partners, they were new rides nonetheless – and for that reason we fully expected that anything might happen! Needless to say, it did...

Travels to Tibet

Chris has just returned from over two weeks on the High Plateaux of Tibet with a group of ten others, which didn’t quite go to plan! We’d sent Chris off to Tibet with a satellite phone so that she could keep in contact with us, and vice versa. Unfortunately, she had to use it fairly early on in the trip! On the very first day, as the group climbed to an altitude of over 4000 metres, one lady suffered badly from altitude sickness. The only cure is to descend, meaning the poor lady had to fly back to Chengdu and await the return of the group. Luckily she very quickly recovered once she was back at a lower altitude.

It never fails to amaze me how mobile phones work in so many far-flung places. It’s just incredible the way mobile phone masts are almost everywhere in the world when a whole culture is missing out on telephone landlines altogether.

Despite this initial glitch, Chris really liked the horses and the group had a great week’s ride in a fantastic landscape on the roof of the world, being welcomed into local Tibetan homes and visiting their monasteries. As one client has said on her feedback: “We were privileged to share some sights and experiences that few Westerners encounter, and this, for me, was the point of the trip.”

Postcards from America

On the other side of the world, our ranch holidays in Montana and Canada are in full swing. These are in some of the most beautiful parts of the world and certainly if I had a few millions, I would have a summer ranch in Montana! I say summer, because their winters are so long and harsh that June to September is really the best time to visit. Guests are returning with wonderful photographs and great letters of how much they have enjoyed themselves. Receiving letters and photographs from guests’ holidays is a really important for us – we invest so much energy in helping people choose the right holiday that we are so very happy when they come back and say it was just as good, in fact way better, than we had said it would be.

And finally...

We are over the moon about something else at the moment. In The Saddle has just been nominated for a British Travel Award – the ‘Oscars’ for the travel industry. We’ve been nominated in the Best Activity/Sports Tour Operator section. Voting is online and will run all summer, with the awards announced at a gala dinner in London in early November. We’re hoping for lots of votes!

Before I sign off, I must mention that Cathy has left on a three-week expedition to Kyrgyzstan today - we will eagerly await news and keep you updated with how she gets on!

‘Til next time

Olwen

More information

Find trip reviews and photo galleries of all the excursions mentioned at www.inthesaddle.com