Some travel agents are content just to trump out sun and burn beach holidays for those for whom a sortie to the pool bar is about as adventurous as they ever get on holiday. Mercifully there are also operators out there who specialise in offering something a little different and taking people beyond their comfort zones to places that broadens both the horizons and the mind. One of my favourites are Explore, who certainly live up their billing as the ‘Adventure Travel Experts’.
Explore specialise in Cultural, Walking, Cycling & Trekking adventures and spread their net right across 120 countries around the globe. You can choose from their myriad adventurous escapes, which include everything from walks and treks, through to cultural adventures, cycling tours and family adventures. The impressive list goes on and on and on…
They invited me in recently to check out their ace new emotion-tracking software, which uses a technique known as electroencephalography (or EEG), which analyses your emotional reactions to stimuli. The technology may have been complicated to conjure up, but Explore use it brilliantly.
The idea is simple – to show you a range of travel images and then track your emotional responses. This provides a picture of what genuinely excites and interests you. The results then go a step further and recommend a holiday for you. I had my doubts, but after a few minutes of being measured the tech came up with a spot on trip for me, back to Namibia’s glorious Namib Desert.
You can follow all the mind tracking travel shenanigans on the social media hashtag #explorethemonent.
While the emotion tracking gear is great fun it hints at something wider, namely Explore’s determination to inspire people and create perfect experiences for their tastes. Their website brims with loads of these ideas and you could spend ages in there revelling in ideas, with direct advice available too over the telephone, and even good fashioned brochures available along with e-newsletters that help you keep track of their constantly emerging options.
