Asia guided travel offers a multitude of nations, cultures and landscapes and a melting pot of experiences in the most laidback way. Everything’s pre-booked and pre-organised, leaving you to soak in the magic. Here’s your introduction to Asia guided holidays.
Exotic Asia guided holidays – Fall in love with the Asian vibe
Lush landscapes, vibrant cities, millennia of history and heritage, holidays to Asia open up the world’s biggest continent to visitors. Understand more about China’s ancient past and thrilling present. Marvel at the super-modern architecture and timeless sizzling deserts of Dubai. Discover Thailand’s extraordinarily beautiful islands, strung like jewels across calm azure seas. Asia is an epic land of mystery, one minute ultra modern and the next as old as time itself.
Saffron-robed monks and shining golden temples, exciting cuisine and fascinating cultures, sights and experiences to cherish, this is Asia. South East Asia, Central Asia and the Far East await you and the mystical Indian Subcontinent will entrance you.
11 extraordinary countries to explore across Asia
Qatar is searing hot in summer and the winters are gloriously warm. It’s exactly what you need when the winter over here’s settling in and every day feels gloomier and colder than the last. Thailand is loved for its stunning islands and beaches, bustling capital, temples, seafood and jungles. Vietnam blends amazing history with cutting edge modernity, a place whose architecture, natural charms and soaring peaks will blow your mind. And the Vietnamese beaches are awesome.
Japan’s cherry blossom season fills the heart with joy, a lovely sight, and the streets of Tokyo are alive with light and noise, throbbing with enormous crowds. Like the rest of Asia, the contemporary rubs shoulders with the ancient in Japan, a place that’s definitively, distinctly different from home, which adds extra flavour to your adventures.
The sophisticated United Arab Emirates isn’t all space-age skylines like something from the future. It offers world-class beaches, great diving and endless centuries of fascinating tradition. Indonesia is a melting pot of seventeen thousand islands, something for everyone from diving in Bali and wildlife watching in Ubud to hiking up volcanoes in Lombok. Then there’s India whose sheer size, variety and natural grandeur could keep you in thrall for a lifetime or two.
Jordan is an unusual choice and a place you’ll find inspiring with its vast red sandy deserts, forgotten cities and colourful towns. Think vibrant Bedouin tents, and the old city of Petra lying bone-dry and silent in the blazing sun. Maybe you’ll choose a city stopover in Singapore or Hong Kong, or go island hopping in Indonesia.
Sri Lanka’s beaches and tea plantations, epic national parks and varied wildlife are something you’ll never forget. The Maldives is the ultimate in picture postcard destinations, a place whose breathtakingly pretty atolls are stuffed with sea life. It’s rich in water-sports and conservation-inspired activities and the Maldives’ reputation for luxury spa-style pampering is legendary. Maybe you’ll head for Oman where there’s ancient history at every turn, fragrant markets where exotic spices and local foods are sold, crumbling fortresses and serene temples.
Think party destinations where people dance on the beaches until dawn. Remote places far off the beaten track. Hot green jungles and bizarre tower blocks so high the tops skim the clouds. Pitch dark night skies and simmering cities. Castaway islands and bobbing boats in glittering marinas. Elephant sanctuaries and train journeys through strange, weird and wonderful landscapes. Over-water accommodation and aquarium-clear oceans dotted with colourful fish. It’s all Asia, and there’s an enormous choice of guided Asia travel to ensure you make the most of it.
3 excellent Asia adventures
Hang Son Doong in Vietnam
Your only way in is with a company called Oxalis Adventure, and your only choice is a four day, three night expedition involving gruelling hiking, crossing underground rivers and pretty technical caving skills. It’s available from January to August.
This is Hang Son Doong, which translates as Mountain River Cave, right in the middle of the Phong Nha-Ke bang National Park. It’s the biggest cave on the planet and makes an aircraft hangar look tiny, an absolutely spectacular space. One of those sights that makes your hairs stand on end and your heart brim with awe, here you’ll feel really, really small, and you will love the feeling.
The cave was only discovered recently, in the 1990s, found by a hunter from a jungle village near the border with Laos who used to shelter from the weather in the region’s complex cave network. At over 3 miles long, 200m high and sometimes as wide as 150m, it is absolutely vast. The earth’s power and majesty sings loudly here.
Expect eerie formations of stalagmites that look like cacti, some as high as 80m. Look for huge ‘cave pearls’ as much as 10cm across, made by calcite-rich water dripping down for thousands of years, precipitating out to make smooth, gleaming pearl-like structures. Marvel at stunning rimstone pools, a sort of stone dam made from layers of rock holding crystal clear water. There are entire forests inside the cave and even pure, glass-cold cave rivers to swim in.
For those of you whose caving skills don’t meet the required level there are more magnificent caves to explore in Vietnam including Paradise Caves, Tu Lan Caves and Hang En Cave in Quang Binh Province, and Dau Go Caves in the Halong Bay area.
Mount Fuji in Japan
Fuji-san is one of Japan’s best-loved and most iconic attractions. It’s also revered as the inspiration for art, music, theatre, and a tough climb with views at the top you’ll never forget. Hundreds of thousands of people climb it every year, an ancient pilgrimages up this sacred volcano that last blew its top in 1707. It’s just as extraordinary from afar, glimmering on the horizon, a perfect cone shape like a child’s drawing of a volcano.
The hike to the top isn’t particularly pretty. The volcanic soil and rocks are barren and the slopes bare. It’s often cloudy at the top. But it’s an experience that’s more than the sum of the parts, rich in history and tradition. There’s a choice of routes from short climbs to an epic 12 mile hike from base to summit on the Old Yoshidaguchi Trail, from Fuji Sengen-jinja in the town of Fuji-Yoshida.
Early July to the end of August is the best time to climb, otherwise the conditions are too unpredictable for safety. Off-season it’s wise to start off at sunrise so you get back down by early afternoon. If you get stuck some of the mountain huts on the Yoshida Trail stay open into September.
As an experienced hiker you know the score: let people know where you’re going and when you expect to get back. Watch out for altitude sickness, which nobody knows they’ll get until they’re high enough to feel it. Some struggle, others are fine.
Victoria Peak in Hong Kong
The view from the top of Hong Kong’s Victoria Peak, at 552m above sea level, is breathtaking. As the highest point on Hong Kong Island it’s a tourist hotspot with its sweeping views of the seething city below, rich woodland and lovely, leisurely walks. There’s food and shopping up there too, if that’s what you fancy.
Take the 125 year old Peak Tram to the Peak Tower, go to Level 5 and it spits you out at Sky Terrace 428, exactly 428m up with vast 360 degree views across famous Hong Kong harbour and beyond to Kowloon.
The nearby Lions View Point Pavilion is also a goodie with its Chinese pagoda and many lion statues. Then you can take your adventure up Mt Austin Rd, a seriously steep stroll to gorgeous gardens that used to surround the governor’s summer lodge, burned down in World War Two. Finally, past the gardens, there’s yet another viewpoint to die for with glittering ocean and island views.
Is Asia on your agenda?
Explore these guided Asia travel treats and see which places, experiences and attractions fire your imagination. Because it’s all pre-arranged for you, you just sit back and enjoy the best bits of your destination without any stress.
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