“Exciting trip to China. Was well prepared by Gap 360 prior to arrival, partner was suitable and followed the itinerary reasonably well. Cheapest supplier of the trip.”
“I booked the Amazon Wildlife Rescue trip through Gap360. Having never travelled outside of Europe before, I was quite nervous about the trip, but the team were absolutely great in reassuring me that it was all going to go smoothly. They told me what I needed to pack, what to expect, and what I needed to prepare myself for, and were there every time I needed them for a question or problem. The project itself was absolutely magnificent. The staff at the centre became some of my greatest friends, and I met so many other incredible volunteers too. I couldn't recommend the project highly enough, I spent 4 weeks there and was in tears when I left as it had begun to feel more like home than home had. I'd do it all again tomorrow!”
“This company is amazing for first time travellers. I was so nervous about what would happen to me when I arrived, but all the staff were so informative and nice that it made the thing a lot easier. Booking all my activities and accommodation was easy too, all the reccomended hostels were always good and in a great location!”
“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!”
“I loved the gap 360 trip and our leader alissa was great. I would 100% do these trips again! There was only one thing that really left me upset and disappointed me and that was the animal welfare on gili t. I'm a huge animal lover and as soon as I got onto the island and saw the horses I wanted to leave and couldn't bare to watch the horses suffer ever day I was there. I found myself having to try and ignore what I was seeing because otherwise I would've just had to stay in the villa room every night. I saw the amazing things that bali intro has done, especially with the home stay visit that was part of the trip. If bali into could potentially start to look at trying to help out the animal welfare on the island it would make a big difference. I hated feeling part of the problem even though we didn't use the horses and only witnessed it. I spoke to a lot of other members on the trip and they all hated what was going on. Overall I had the best time ever on the bali intro trip and I am so glad I was able to be a part of it, I have absolutely no issues and think that it was great value for money. I just want to ask again if you as a company would be able to help in any way that would be great.”
“Just finished my 2 weeks of volunteering and cannot wait to go back. An absolutely amazing experience being able to be up close to many of South Africa's native wildlife. Helping to maintain the animals enclosures and building new accommodation, also being able to help maintain all the animals on a day to day basis. Would recommend this to everyone with a love for animals :D thank you to all the volunteers and coordinators for making my stay an unforgettable one”
“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 last two weeks were so amazing that the first day waking up at home was quite sad, I already miss my tour family, napping on the coach, seeing new cities and hearing different languages, tasting new foods from their birthplace and learning new histories! My tour leaders were amazing and my friends and I are closer than ever! Two weeks was not enough! But I will cherish them for the rest of my life without a doubt!”
“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.”
“I knew that I wanted to start seeing the world but was not sure where, when or how much I wanted to spend. I looked on the gap360 website and was instantly able to talk to a representative on the instant chat. From a five minute chat I knew that I wanted to go to Thailand and gap360 were able to accommodate this.
As soon as I had chosen a date to go, gap360 did the rest. They organised my flights, insurance options, helped me arrange further activities. The support they provided was very helpful and made organising and preparing for my trip a lot easier.
After booking my trip with gap360, I was relaxed that I was travelling on my own and soon became friends with many people on my buddy list.
The accommodation throughout was to a high standard, the food provided during the elephant camp and trekking was very good, traditional Thai food.
Overall, I thought the trip was a complete success and was organised to a very high standard. Thank you!”
“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”
“Gap 360 are perfect when its your first trip because they make everything much simpler and they always reply to questions no matter what they are about. The actual trip itself is amazing, its run by a couple and the other staff are all amazing at making you feel comfortable and I made such good friends. The volunteering experience makes you feel really good about yourself and you get so much hands on experience with so many animals, I would always recommended this trip! I cant wait to go back in the future!”
“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
“My representative at Gap 360 (Nicola) was superb throughout my whole experience. I did the Au Pair USA programme for 1 year and loved it! It didn't go completely smoothly for me (I changed to a different host family after 2 months of being in the US), but Nicola was really supportive and I was in contact with her throughout my stay in America. She also was able to answer all of my pre-departure questions or put me in contact with an au pair on the programme for me to ask questions. I would absolutely recommend this programme to anyone that wants to do it. For me, a year was enough time to be living under someone else's rules and bringing up their children in the way that they want them brought up, so bear that in mind before you go that you need to be flexible and able to take criticism.”
“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 wanted to say how amazing our guide Tham was, there was never a moment she wasn't willing to help! She deserves some recognition for how good she is as a guide!”
