“Gap 360 Enabled me to have the best 2 weeks of my life. The tour i did was Thai Intro which is a tour ran by Intro Travel this company is brilliant and i had the best time with all of the people i met. Would recommend to anyone!!”
“Fantastic service - really helpful staff, very responsive to emails and great competitive prices. Really made tailoring my perfect trip an easy and enjoyable process!”
“This is a fantastic experience and I would highly recommend it to anyone, we were lucky to have an exceptionally knowledgeable tour guide who provided us with a lot of great information.
Bangkok is definitely an experience and you will have more than enough time to soak it in. Haggle for everything, especially in the markets and start your negotiations very low. A trick I learnt is when you hit the price you want to pay if it's still to low go to walk away, most sellers will come down to your price, if they don't then your price was too low. It becomes a bit of a game within the group for who can get what for the lowest price.
The elephant home was a true highlight to the trip. Being so close to such large, powerful and gentle creatures is a sight to behold. Enjoy every second of it because it is only 2 days of the tour. While the elephants were chained up at night this was explained to us that it was for the safety of the elephants who would raid local farms for food if they were left free. The home also told us they were saving money and working with gap 360 to build a suitable elephant enclosure to put these extremely powerful creatures in overnight. This is something that I fully support and will be looking to try and raise funds for myself.
The jungle trek is hard work but very rewarding when you get to the waterfall and to the final destination.
The islands are great:
The volunteer work on Koh Samui was fun and the dam building was highly rewarding work with a full explanations why we were doing it the night before. There is a lot to do on Koh Samui and you should definitely make the most of it.
On Koh Toa you will enjoy a fantastic pub crawl and if you don't pay the 1000 Bhart to do the ladyboy show in Bangkok don't worry the ladyboy cabaret show on Koh Toa is far more amusing and enjoyable. Snorkelling on Koh Toa is a must with some great sights and a lot of beautiful coral and aquatic life to enjoy.
The full moon party is possibly the best party I've been to in my life. If you get the chance to go then do it. You will have to realise that you will lose people, especially if you are in a big group so I would suggest invoking the buddy system so you're always with someone you know, however, when I was walking around on my own I did not feel in danger at any point.
If you're a boy I would suggest you ask if any other boys are in the group as these tours are very female dominated and we met a group of 22 with only one boy in the group.
The accommodation is basic but on the most part very good and the home stays were still pleasant experiences.
For the 22 day trip I was advised that £500 would be more than adequate to do all the extra activities and still have nights out and enjoy yourself. If you want to stick to this budget you will need to eat street food at times, however, the street food I had was probably some of the best food I ate on the holiday and is freshly prepared infront of you. However, if like our group you want to eat in fairly decent restaurants, go out and party most nights and still do the additional activities, which are well worth the money and experience (I would highly recommend white water rafting in Chaingmai and the snorkelling on Koh Toa) you may find this an unrealistic budget to stick to.
I have already recommended this experience to my friends and while I'm not on a gap year, I left uni years ago and I feel I'm probably now to old to "find myself" it was a truely brilliant time with great people and I won't hesitate to go back to Thailand or to book another trip with gap 360.”
“Overall really enjoyed my gap 360 experience, the tour guides were great and made the whole tour a lot better. They were so supportive and made sure everything ran smoothly, can't praise them enough. However you could do Thailand for a lot cheaper independently, if I was to go to Thailand again I'd just do it by myself.”
“I recently came back from doing the Thai adventure trip that ran from June 29th - July 27th. Booking with Gap360 was very easy and the staff are incredibly helpful, friendly and genuinely seem like they want to help. The flight team, I personally was served by Kali, was exceptional. Kali stayed on the phone with me and my travel buddy for ages and really helped us with our options and found the best flights for us. I always received a helpful reply to any questions that I sent to my travel coordinator and they really helped to put my mind at ease. I'm naturally an anxious person but booking with Gap360 took away all of the stress and worry that would normally come with doing a trip like this. Our transfer from the airport to our accomodation was very smooth and easy and we were very grateful to have someone there to meet us. The accommodation was in a very convenient place in Bangkok and breakfast was included for our stay which was also very convenient. Chang Mai was one of the highlights of my trip, however the trek was not. I found myself feeling very ill due to not being acclimatised yet and the trek being much longer and harder than expected. We were advised incorrectly for the trek as many people said they'd been told trainers would've been fine before the trip started, when in the actual circumstances they weren't. I took walking boots and would definitely reccomend taking them. The trek was mainly uphill and a lot longer than expected so make sure you have walking boots and lots of water! The coach journey between Bangkok and Chang Mai was fine as it was on a private coach with lots of stops. The journey between Bangkok and Koh Samui was horrendous as it was on a public coach and boat and took around 16 hours. The island itself was nice but the volunteering we took part in was pointless- building a dam was fun and rewarding but painting a wall for two days was not. We got to the community centre, painted the first coat, painted the second coat and then left after less than 2 hours and then did the same thing the next day. The trip to Koh Tao on the boat was very disorganised by the boat company and it took a long time to get everyone off of the boat and to collect bags. Koh Tao itself was amazing and definitely another highlight of my trip and I think time there should be extended. Koh Phangan didn't have anything going on there at all, the Full Moon Party was average. It was a good experience but I wouldn't go again. After the party, the island pretty much evacuated and became incredibly empty. There was not very much to do there other than sit by a beach/pool or drink. Koh Phangan didn't end the trip on a high and it really gave you the feeling that you had wasted your money doing four weeks instead of three. I would reccomend to others to do the 3 week option and travel to Koh Phangan to the full moon party independently, as its really easy to get the boat, before flying home so as not to waste your time/money for the rest of the week. The coach journey back to Bangkok from Koh Phangan was again a public coach and peoples bags were broken into and stolen from, something that is apparently common on coaches in Thailand. This really put a dampener on our last night as we felt completely let down. If possible, it may be a better idea to spend an extra £50 and get a flight between Bangkok and Koh Samui and then just get the boat between the two other islands. The trip other than the points I have highlighted has been fantastic and one of the best experiences I have had. Our guides, Pentor and Mod, were exceptional and really took care of us and showed us the best ways to have fun and I will miss them both a lot. The elephant sanctuary is an amazing experience and I would've loved to have spent longer there. I would definitely reccoment this trip to anyone.”
“The trip was very worth while. We were able to see the main sights of China in a relevatively quick time. Most of the activities were optional and therefore, more money is needed but they aren't too pricey. The tour guides were exceptional and very helpful - they even organised events for us that weren't on the iternery. Superb!”
“Everything was great in the build up to the trip. The transfer from the airport to the hotel was smooth. I found I had a lot of time to do my own thing. There could maybe be more to do on the city tour, I understand it is an external company that conduct the activities. The only thing I wasn't happy about was the hotel. The hotel is quite run down. So currently they are doing renovations which meant at half six every morning I was woken by noise that continued throughout the day. The hotel also had the bare minimum of facilities. Other than that I enjoyed the trip.”
“The Vietnam Intro with Gap360 was a very cultural experience. Travellers looking to be taken to live in homestays with the white Thai and muong tribes who are looking to stay on a mattress on the floor should book on to this tour. There are 2 separate nights spent staying with the vietnamise tribe people. This tour is an unforgettable cultural experience. The best part of this tour is to Halong Bay to monkey island. Monkey island is beatiful with palm trees, beach huts, fantastic food and monkeys can be found by kayaking to the beach around the corner (free kayaks from the hotel). Monkey island and Halonf bay are the best parts to Vietnam Intro trip. I think the trip could include Ho An so you would get to see more of Vietnam in the 11 days but apart from this a good trip overall.”
“My experience with GAdventures doing the Indochina Discovery for 30 days was a life changer. I have made great new friends and had the best time. However, I would like to get the bad things out the way first:
GAdventures messed up on the itinerary price list - a lot of the stuff that was supposed to be cheap had the price upped. I also printed it out the day I left so it should have been updated to the most recent price. They also annoyingly make it so when you arrive to all your hotels, you have to wait around 3-5 hours before you can check into your room, so our luggage is just packed around the lobby and you aren't able to refresh yourself or shower. Considering we're paying a lot of money to them for the trip, they could at least give us an early check in so that we're not waiting around. Also, some of the stuff that the trip says it's 'included' sometimes lies. You might have to pay some more money towards it or certain things that come with it, you have to pay separately (which isn't said in the itinerary at all). Some of the restaurants you go to can be a bit more expensive so budget your money well. I feel like I've spent £800 on this trip.
Also, I think this trip is fun but very tiring due to them cramming everything in such a short time period. If this trip was longer, it would be so much better than it already is.
Our CEO, considering the language barrier, was amazing. At first we struggled, but we pulled through together and got to know each other and understand each other. I'd like to thank Jamie for being so caring and always there to help organise optional activities, even if we wanted to do different things. She made this tour an experience to remember and was so kind enough to give permission to contact her for suggestions and recommendations if we ever came back to South East Asia. She also reminded and informed us everyday, 3 times, about what there was to do, what we would/could do tomorrow, and so on.
The people in my group were my family for a whole month, some left early and some joined half way or nearer to the end of the tour. I can honestly say I couldn't have had a different group - considering the different age groups, it didn't stop us from having a conversation or even partying.
So I do recommend GAdventures to do a travelling tour or even as a starter before you go off on your own/in a group to travel and explore more.”
“Very enjoyable experience. Had a great time and met some great people. Things to improve on potentially are:
1) Making the max group size smaller so max 20? Some group dinners and stuff we did as a group took far longer because there were just so many people
2) The hostel in Koh Samui wasn't in a very good location so we had to take taxis everywhere which is ok but starts to get very expensive”
“I enjoyed my Thai Adventure trip thoroughly I learnt a lot and the places we visited were amazing. There a few places that were missed out which would be nice to have visted whilst we were close by for example, when in Chang Mai I would have liked to have visited Pi.
There we also bits that i didnt enjoy the main part being the Elephant 'Sanctuary'. The elephants were treated awfully and were tied up with short chains with no water, some were even repetitively swaying back and forth due to captivity. The Mahouts tried to suggest that elephant was dancing becauser it was happy, in my eyes this is a sign of distress and torture! We were then told to ride the elephants which is also something that shouldn't be allowed seeing as the animals backs aren't strong enough to carry a person let alone more than one! On the second day we went on the Elephant trekking where the animals were forced to wear these huge bench chairs on their backs and carry us and trek for 45 minutes in the blistering heat and up steep hills. On a few occasions the animals would stop to get their breaths back and the Mahout would pull on their ears with ropes that were attached by hooks into the Elephants skin. I even saw one of the Mahouts strike one with a thick piece of wood on the top of his head for misbehaving.
I came away from this experience so upset, miserable and disheartened that people can even treat animals this way! The Sanctuary was mis sold to us via Gap360 and you should look into the way trips are run and animals are cared for. When we returned back to Chang Mai there were leaflets for real Elephant sanctuaries that stated 'NO RIDING' on them. I suggest that going forward you use a sanctuary that is willing to look after and save the Elephants from places like this!!
Other than the elephant 'sanctuary' I would recommend this trip to others, there are a few places where there can be improvements and some of the hotels we stayed in weren't clean or nice places to stay and there were a lot of hidden costs for taxis which should have been included in the original cost of the trip.
I hope you take my feedback into consideration and very much look forward to hearing from you.
Many Thanks,
Christie Wright”
Hi Christie,
We’re really pleased to hear that you had an amazing time in Thailand!
With regard to the elephant experience days this is not a sanctuary but at a park that cares for rescued and rehabilitated elephants. We have been working very hard with the elephant owners at the park for some time to create and enable a more positive and elephant-focused (rather than traveller-focused) interaction programme. This hasn't always been easy - it's not easy to change activities which have been on-going for centuries - but we have recently changed the elephant experience within the Thai Adventure programme.
You’ll be pleased to hear that from the 1st April of this year, none of our trips include riding elephants. The experience is all around education - travellers will learn about the history of the elephant in Thailand, with the opportunity to spend time with the elephants; to walk and swim alongside them (rather than ride them), to bathe them and to assist the mahouts in feeding them. At night, travellers sleep in simple mahout huts and fall asleep to the sounds of elephants outside their doors!
By showing that this form of experience is the way forward and that travellers can actively enjoy a non-riding experience, this hopefully will encourage surrounding elephant camps and owners to slowly change their ways too. We understand that there is certainly a long way to go, but our changes will be a significant step on a long journey ahead.
We appreciate your comments about the elephant experience, and your other points about your trip. We always value customer feedback, and we will be sharing your comments with our team in Thailand.
Thanks again,
Gap 360
“They were so helpful with inexperienced traveler's like me, there was always someone to call or email with any questions. I had the best time and I will definitely be booking with them again!!”
“I've travelled with Gap360 once before, and have just booked a trip to travel again! They are so lovely here, and willing to help with every step of your journey. They make you feel like there are no stupid questions, and help you feel safe and happy going off abroad!”
“The Gap360 team was very friendly and willing to help! Jon was knowledgeable and answered all of my questions. The website itself is very enticing and immediately roped me in. However, I wish it had more in depth information about the programs; specifically in terms of job acquisition, what kind of jobs are available, and information on housing options.”
“Bunny Run was a great tour guide, very helpful and keen to ensure that we had a good time. It was a good trip, think it had a god variety of activities and enjoyed myself so thanks!”
“The trip was everything I wanted and more. All the hostels were in good condition and everything worked out just perfectly. The gap 360 team we helpful and answerd all my queries and would recommend Darwin to Alice springs trek to anyone I had an absolutly amazing time! Only thing I will say is that there were no vegetarian food options on the plane as they would have had to have been requested seperatly in advance...this was not done by gap 360 so in pretty much a 24 hour flight I had barely anything to eat”
