Audley Travel

The USA’s largest state, Alaska is also its wildest corner. As you explore its vast national parks, you’re more likely to see grizzly bears than other visitors. Mountains rise like giant meringues over dense evergreen forests laced with hiking trails. And, along the island-strewn coastline, you can watch as humpback whales twist and twirl their huge bodies out of the water, blowing plumes of spray before disappearing again beneath the waves. Planning a trip to somewhere so untouched can seem daunting, but our specialists, having visited the region, can help tailor an Alaska holiday to your interests. Alongside the state’s natural world are towns and cities with a rich gold-mining past. Skagway could have been plucked from a history book with its brightly painted wooden buildings. From here, you can hop on the White Pass & Yukon Railroad, following in the footsteps of gold prospectors caught in the fever of the Klondike Gold Rush.

The wild heart of Africa, Zambia is a green oasis of national parks fed by rivers and wetlands that attract a huge variety of animals. Elephant, lion, wild dog and hyena are commonly spotted, and leopards cool off from the sun on the shady branches of trees. Before or after your safari in Zambia you can visit Victoria Falls, half of which lies within the country’s boundaries. Our specialists will use their own safari experiences in Zambia to plan your trip, whether you want to focus on searching for the Big Five or look for more unusual wildlife. Added to its game drives, Zambia is known as the home of the walking safari, and its guides are among the highest qualified in Africa. They’ll show you how to track animals, identify birds from their calls and discover the hidden world of insects as you walk through the bush.

A country by name, but a continent in scale, India in one word is diversity. To guide you where to go when faced with such rich variety, our India specialists use the experience of their own travels to create your tailor-made holiday to India. The north is banded by the snow-crowned peaks of the Himalaya. Moving south, you pass through Rajasthan, a microcosm of India with its forts, palaces and temples, as well as the Taj Mahal. Central India shelters leopards, elephants and the Bengal tiger. In India’s northeast corner, Calcutta still exudes its colonial heritage in a landscape of Bengali mansions and neo-Gothic architecture. West-coast Mumbai is an improbable proposition — a hub of manufacturing where you can wander among Art Deco architecture or through a teeming bazaar. Down in India’s south, cruising Kerala’s backwaters on a converted rice barge is a suitably relaxed way to embrace this region’s laid-back approach to life.