Svalbard
Est. 1998 · 41 countries · By introduction
Where the map
stops, we begin
A small atelier of eleven planners who design private journeys to the last quiet places on earth — and stay awake in the time zone you're travelling in.
The register
Journeys open now
Six routes with a window still free. Each is held for a single party at a time.
The atlas — 41 countries
Ten countries.
One pin each.
Every pin is a country a planner knows on foot. Open one to see the places we'd actually take you.
Hover or tab a pin to open it
The atelier
We don't sell
itineraries. We
draw them.
Every journey starts as a blank sheet and a two-hour conversation. No packages, no tiers, no menu of add-ons — just a planner who has walked the ground, and who will redraw the route three times before you see it.
When you travel, that same planner is reachable on one number, in your time zone, for the whole trip.
11Planners
1:1Planner to party
94%Travel with us again
How it works
From first call
to final night
Five steps, roughly seven months. You are handled by one planner the whole way through.
1
Step 01 — Week one
Share your idea
A free two-hour call. Tell us how you want the trip to feel.
2
Step 02 — Weeks two to four
We design the route
Your planner drafts it by hand. You mark it up, we redraw.
3
Step 03 — Week five
Confirm and book
One quote, one invoice. Everything held in your name before you pay.
4
Step 04 — Before you fly
We arrange everything
Flights, visas, transfers, permits and insurance — booked and reconfirmed.
5
Step 05 — While you travel
Support while you travel
A local fixer in every region, and one number that always reaches your planner.
Dispatches
Sent back
Sent back
from the field
Unedited, and printed as they reached us.
LHRLondon
LYRLongyearbyen
Experience
They moved a whole week north because the ice was late. Nobody asked us to pay for it.
LHRLondon
PUQPunta Arenas
Experience
The night in the glaciologists’ field camp was the best of my life. Everything around it was flawless too.
LHRLondon
KTMKathmandu
Experience
Four nights with a Sherpa household above 4,000m. Our children still write to them.
Journeys designed, 2026212
Average planning window7 months
Repeat parties94%
Enquiries accepted1 in 4
Enquiries for 2027 close 31 October
Tell us where
Tell us where
you’d rather be
One conversation is enough to start. If the idea is still vague, that is usually the best time to call.
- Enquiries close
- 31 October
- Reply within
- One working day
- Journeys a year
- Forty, at most
51.5074° N · 0.1278° W
How it works
Five steps,
seven months
From the first call to the last night on the ground, handled by one planner who never hands you on.
The shape of it
Seven months,
Seven months,
five phases
Bars show how the work actually overlaps. Only the last one involves you leaving the house.
The conversation
Two hours, no charge
Drafting & redrafts
Usually two passes
Booking & deposit
One invoice
Arrangements
Flights, visas, permits
You travel
We stay on call
Typical private journey · shorter windows compress phases 2 and 4
A two-hour conversation, free either way
We ask what you want the trip to feel like before we ask where you want to go. By the end of the call you are matched to the planner who holds that region.
You bring
Rough dates, rough party, one honest sentence.
We bring
A planner who has walked the ground in that season.
You leave with
A named person and a realistic budget band.
Drafted by hand, then redrawn around you
Your planner drafts the route night by night — lodgings, guides, permits, and the reasoning behind each choice. You mark it up. We redraw. Most parties go round twice.
You bring
Honest reactions. "Too much walking" is useful.
We bring
Alternatives that hold the feeling but change the effort.
You leave with
A drawn route you have actually argued with.
One quote, one invoice, one deposit
Every room, guide and vehicle is held in your name before the balance falls due. Nothing on your itinerary is provisional, and nothing carries a commission.
You bring
A deposit and the names as they appear on passports.
We bring
Rates at cost, with our planning fee shown separately.
You leave with
Confirmed bookings, not held options.
The part you never have to think about
Flights, visas, transfers, park permits, insurance and equipment hire — arranged by us and reconfirmed 72 hours before you leave, then again on the ground.
You bring
Passports, and any medication we should plan around.
We bring
Permits filed, transfers booked, kit lists that match the season.
You leave with
A dossier: routes, contacts, maps, and one number.
One number, in your time zone, the whole way
A local fixer in every region you pass through, and your own planner reachable throughout. Weather moves, and so do we — at our cost wherever a supplier will waive it.
You bring
Nothing. Call if the ice is late.
We bring
A rebuilt day, usually before you have finished breakfast.
You leave with
The trip you were actually promised.
What lands on your desk
Three things, before you go
The drawn route
Night by night, with the reasoning kept in. Not a brochure — a working document you are meant to mark up.
The dossier
Maps, guide names, permit copies, kit list for the season, and what to do if a leg fails.
The number
Your planner's direct line, alongside a fixer for every region on the route. No duty desk.
Before you ask
The questions
we get most
How far ahead should we start?
Seven months is comfortable. Four is workable. Under eight weeks we will usually say no, because the lodges and guides worth having are already taken and we would be selling you the leftovers.
What does the planning fee cover?
Everything up to departure: the conversation, the drafting, the redrafts, permits, and the reconfirmation pass 72 hours before you fly. It is charged once, per journey, not per traveller.
Can we change the route once it is booked?
Yes, and we expect to. Ice arrives late, monsoons arrive early, and people change their minds. We rebuild around it and only pass on costs a supplier will not waive.
Do you sell flights?
We book them, but we do not mark them up. You see the fare we paid. The same is true of every room and vehicle on your itinerary.
What if we need help at 3am?
You call your planner's number. It rings a person in your time zone who already knows your route, not a duty desk reading a ticket.
Ready when you are
Start with a
Start with a
conversation
No brief required. Tell us roughly where and roughly when, and a planner takes it from there.
- Reply within
- One working day
- First call
- Two hours, free
- Fee
- Nothing until you book
51.5074° N · 0.1278° W
The atlas — 41 countries
Journeys crafted
for you
Every route below is a starting point, not a package. Tell us which one moves you and your planner redraws it around your dates, your pace and your party.
Open routes
Six to start from
Prices are per party of two and include planning, guides, permits and transfers.
9 nights
Chile & Argentina
Patagonia
Granite towers, the Southern Icefield and two nights in a glaciologist's field camp.
From $12,900 /party
Learn more
7 nights
Northern Italy
The Dolomites
Rifugio to rifugio on the high traverses, with the via ferrata for those who want it.
From $7,400 /party
Learn more
10 nights
Jordan
Wadi Rum
Dune navigation with a Bedouin family, closing on the coral shelf at Aqaba.
From $11,200 /party
Learn more
8 nights
Finland & Norway
Lapland
The aurora belt by ski and sled, staying with reindeer herders above the Arctic Circle.
From $8,900 /party
Learn more
11 nights
Botswana
The Okavango
Mokoro channels at first light, then the salt pans when the delta pushes the game east.
From $13,100 /party
Learn more
16 nights
Nepal
The Khumbu
The valleys the trekking crowds never reach, with a Sherpa household as your hosts.
From $9,600 /party
Learn more
When to go
The window
matters more
than the place
Bars show the months we will actually send a party. Everything else is the same place on a worse day.
JFMAMJJASOND
Patagonia
The Dolomites
Wadi Rum
Lapland
The Okavango
The Khumbu
Not on the list
If the country you want
isn’t here, ask anyway
These six are simply the routes with space this season. Our planners work across forty-one countries, and roughly a third of the journeys we design each year begin with a place we have never published.
The register
Six journeys
currently open
Each is held for a single party at a time. We release the next window in October.
Why these four
Curated slowly,
Curated slowly,
released rarely
We publish a route only once a planner has walked it end to end, in the season we intend to sell it. This is what a year of that looks like.
Talk to a planner- 1,400 Proposed By planners, local fixers and travellers just back
- 240 Researched on paper Permits, seasons and ground costs checked before anyone flies
- 60 Walked end to end In the same month we intend to sell it, at our own cost
- 11 Shortlisted Costed honestly, then held for a full season before release
- 6 Published Open for spring 2027
What makes a route ours
Three things we will
Three things we will
not compromise on
Walked, not brokered
Every night on your route has been slept in by the planner who put it there, in the same month you will be travelling.
One party at a time
We hold a single window per route. No shared departures, no filling seats, no strangers on your boat.
Redrawn until it fits
The published route is a starting point. Most parties change it twice before a single booking is confirmed.
Open routes
Six journeys,
Six journeys,
one at a time
Each window is held for a single party. Nothing here runs as a group departure.
01 / 06
How we choose
What goes in,
What goes in,
and what doesn’t
A route earns its place by being worth the flight. Everything else gets cut, however well it would sell.
Always in
Ground we know
Named guides, rooms booked in your name, and a fixer in every region you pass through.
Seasons we have tested
A route is sold only in the month a planner last walked it, not the month it photographs best.
One party at a time
The window is yours or it is closed. We do not run two groups down the same valley.
Never in
Anything commissioned
No lodge, airline or outfitter pays to appear here. If the cheaper room is the better room, that is the one you get.
Filler nights
A day added only to round a week out is a day we cut, even when it lowers the price we can charge.
Borrowed itineraries
If we have not walked it ourselves, we will not sell it to you, however good the supplier deck looks.
At a glance
Four routes,
Four routes,
side by side
Scroll sideways on a narrow screen — the first column stays put.
| The Ice Edge | Southern Icefield | Beyond the Khumbu | Empty Quarter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Svalbard | Chile | Nepal | Oman |
| Nights | 11 | 9 | 16 | 10 |
| Window | April | March | May | February |
| Party size | 2–8 | 2–6 | 2–6 | 2–10 |
| Effort | ||||
| Highest night | Sea level | 1,100 m | 4,790 m | 1,900 m |
| From | $18,400 | $12,900 | $9,600 | $11,200 |
Every journey
What the price
What the price
already covers
01
Planning and redrafts
However many passes it takes. We do not bill by the revision.
02
Guides and permits
Named guides we have worked with, and every permit filed on your behalf.
03
Transfers and internal legs
Every vehicle, boat and light aircraft between the first and last night.
04
Lodging, at cost
Rooms booked in your name at the rate we paid, with no commission added.
05
A reconfirmation pass
Every booking re-checked 72 hours before you fly, and again on arrival.
06
Your planner, on call
One number, in your time zone, for the whole time you are away.
Spring 2027
Six windows
Six windows
currently open
Each route is held for a single party at a time. When a window closes we do not reopen it that season.
- Windows open
- Six
- Held for
- One party
- Next release
- October
78.2232° N · 15.6469° E
The atelier
We don't sell itineraries.
We draw them.
Eleven planners, forty-one countries, one number.
A blank sheet and
a two-hour conversation
No packages, no tiers, no menu of add-ons — just a planner who has walked the ground, and who will redraw the route three times before you see it.
When you travel, that same planner is reachable on one number, in your time zone, for the whole trip. There is no duty desk and no ticket number.
11Planners
1:1Planner to party
94%Travel with us again
Standards
What we hold to
Four rules we have not broken in twenty-eight years of trading, including the years it cost us.
One planner, start to finish
The person who drafts your route is the person who answers when you call from the trailhead. No handover to an account team, no ticket number.
We have walked it
Nothing goes in a route that a planner has not done themselves, in the season you are travelling.
No commission steering
We are paid by you, not by lodges. If a cheaper room is the better room, that is the one you get.
We turn work away
One enquiry in four. If we cannot do it properly in your window, we will say so and suggest who can.
Eleven planners
The people who
draw your route
Each holds two regions and no more, so nobody is guessing.
01
Ingrid Halvorsen
Arctic & Nordic
Nineteen winters above the Circle. Sailed the Svalbard floe edge eleven seasons running.
02
Mateo Rivas
Patagonia & the Andes
Former Torres del Paine ranger. Knows which refugio actually answers the radio.
03
Pema Sherpa
Himalaya
Born in Khumjung. Has walked every valley on our Nepal routes in every season we sell.
04
Yusra Al-Balushi
Desert & reef
Navigated the Wahiba by compass before GPS. Still prefers the compass.
05
Claire Devereux
Alps & Pyrenees
Twenty-two seasons of hut-to-hut. Will talk you out of the crowded traverse every time.
06
Anders Holt
Japan & the Koreas
Walked the Kumano Kodo in every season. Books the ryokan the guidebooks never list.
Since 1998
How we got
this small
- 1998
Two desks in Bedford Row
Founded by a pair of expedition leaders who were tired of selling other people's itineraries.
- 2004
We stopped taking commission
Moved to a planning fee so a recommendation could never be bought. Revenue halved for two years.
- 2011
One planner per party
Dropped the account-manager model. The person who drafts the route now answers the phone.
- 2019
We began turning work away
Capped the studio at eleven planners rather than hire to meet demand. One enquiry in four since.
- 2026
Forty-one countries
212 journeys designed last year, 94% of parties travelling with us again.
Work with us
Meet the planner
Meet the planner
who will hold it
You are introduced to one planner at the outset, and they stay with the journey until you are home.
- Planners
- Eleven
- Countries
- Forty-one
- Working since
- 1998
46.5197° N · 6.6323° E
Enquiries
Tell us where
you'd rather be
Enquiries for 2027 are open until 31 October.
1 dayTo a written reply
2 hrsFirst call, no charge
1 in 4Enquiries accepted
0Commission taken
Where we are
Three rooms,
one number
London
Head studio · GMT12 Bedford Row, WC1R 4BD
+44 20 7946 0812
Punta Arenas
Southern desk · GMT−3Calle Errázuriz 840, Magallanes
+56 61 2 971 400
Kathmandu
Himalaya desk · GMT+5:45Jhamsikhel, Lalitpur 44700
+977 1 5432 118
Practicalities
Before you write
What should the first message include?
Rough dates, rough party, and one sentence on what you want the trip to feel like. That is genuinely enough to start.
Do you work with families?
Often. The youngest traveller we have taken above 4,000 m was nine. We will tell you honestly when a route is wrong for the age.
Is there a minimum spend?
No floor, but below about $6,000 per party we are rarely the right studio, and we will say so rather than take the fee.
Can we meet in person?
Yes — in London, or on a call at whatever hour suits your time zone. We do not mind the 5am ones.