Planning your trip

How to book?

First of all please contact us to confirm availability on any tour either by direct email to info@viranatura.com or using the form under 'Book Now' on the tour page.

Once we have confirmed places are available please download and complete the Application Form. This needs to be sent to us along with the deposit for the tour. Without both of these we cannot guarantee your place on the tour.

Please indicate your rooming preference and any dietary requirements at this time too.

Full Terms and Conditions can be viewed here.

General useful information

Every destination is different and so specific information relating to each tour will be sent out to you in good time to organise your trip. We are always happy to answer any questions before this. However, certain aspects remain fairly constant - see below.

Passports

You need a full passport valid for six months beyond your date of return.

Coronavirus

Coronavirus is with us now and we need to adjust some of our behaviours to help avoid the disease spreading further or faster. Rules and regulations are in constant flux and we’ll contact you before the start of the tour with full details of any restrictions, curfews and any actions that you might need to take, as well as specific advice needed for the tour.

We follow World Health Organisations advice on protecting yourself and others from the spread COVID-19. During the tour we’d like you to follow these guidelines as much as possible to ensure the safety of other tour members, your leaders and of course workers at the hotels.

You will find some changes in how both hotel and restaurant meals are taken reflecting the necessary social distancing rules. Where possible meals will be taken outside.

In all cases we must work within the rules of the country we are travelling in. These rules can change quickly, especially with regard to transport where some countries have very detailed guidelines/rules and others don’t. To keep it simple and to maintain social distancing as much as possible we will limit ourselves to a maximum of five customers in a nine seater minibus or three in a car.

Utmost care will be taken regarding hygiene during picnic provision and everyone must ensure they thoroughly clean their hands before eating.

Masks may be expected to be worn at times on tour depending on local regulations. This might be in the hotel or in the transport or in both and for now at least they are compulsory on airlines. It is important you bring a good supply of masks and hand sanitiser with you although we will have supplies of the latter.

Please do not share optics, field guides or any other equipment during a tour.

The WHO website states:

Regularly and thoroughly clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water. Why? Washing your hands with soap and water or using alcohol-based hand rub kills viruses that may be on your hands.

Maintain at least 1 metre (3 feet) distance between yourself and others. Why? When someone coughs, sneezes, or speaks they spray small liquid droplets from their nose or mouth which may contain virus. If you are too close, you can breathe in the droplets, including the COVID-19 virus if the person has the disease.

Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth. Why? Hands touch many surfaces and can pick up viruses. Once contaminated, hands can transfer the virus to your eyes, nose or mouth. From there, the virus can enter your body and infect you.

Make sure you, and the people around you, follow good respiratory hygiene. This means covering your mouth and nose with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Then dispose of the used tissue immediately and wash your hands. Why? Droplets spread virus. By following good respiratory hygiene, you protect the people around you from viruses such as cold, flu and COVID-19.

Start and finish

Our tours begin and end at the arrival and departure airports specified in the tour program. Any expenses incurred prior to or after this are your own responsibility.

Flights

Our tours do NOT include international (and connecting domestic) airfares to and from the start and end of the tours. These are your personal responsibility and they need to fit with the tour program. We do our best to be flexible with flights timings, but on occasion we will insist a specific flight is booked in order to make the tour run smoothly. For some tours we will also suggest suitable flights. We will provide necessary arrival and departure times for each tour.

Travel insurance

It is essential that you purchase suitable Travel Insurance, which includes adequate medical cover and for certain tours adequate cover for outdoor activities that include walking at high altitude. This is your responsibility. We now require you send us policy details before the start of the tour.

Collecting

The collection of live plants and bulbs, corms, etc is NOT PERMITTED. Not only does it violate the laws of many of countries we visit, but it puts the rest of the tour and the enjoyment of other guests in jeopardy. We will expel any guest from the tour who is found to be illegally collecting. Please see Terms & Conditions.

Itineraries

Detailed itineraries are available on our website. These offer an overview of the key locations and plants we hope to see during each day. However, at times the unpredictable happens and itineraries need to be changed, sometimes at short notice and we reserve the right to do this. We have considerable experience in running such tours and it is always done with the best interests of our guests and the tour in mind. Please also refer to our Terms and Conditions.

Accommodation

We prefer to use comfortable, smaller hotels and guesthouses, and where we can places with some local character. However, accommodation varies greatly across the range of tours we offer. Virtually all accommodation we use has en suite bathroom facilities. However, there are also instances where we have to share bathrooms in some of the more remote and less developed destinations. We will always inform you of this in the information we provide for each tour.

Single supplements & sharing

Regrettably, many hotels worldwide charge more per person for single occupancy of their rooms. Relatively few have specific single rooms. Unfortunately this means we have no choice but the levy a single supplement. If you are willing to share and we can find a room mate please indicate on your booking form. But, please remember it is not always possible to find someone suitable.

Clothing and footwear

We advise you to come prepared with layers of clothing including adequate warm clothing for time at higher passes as well as something wind and waterproof. It is best to bring everything along with you for the day, as excess clothing can be left in the cars if it’s not needed. But a wind/waterproof is not much use back at the hotel in bad weather!

Good strong footwear will be needed as excursions for wildflowers and the various mountain walks will involve uneven or rocky ground. Added to this are the areas of scree where some desirable plants grow. Walking sticks might be of use on any of this terrain. That said there is much to be found close to the road.

Walking

Whilst this varies in general there are seldom really long walks. However, some tours can be more active with several walks of 5 kilometres (3 miles) or more on moderate terrain sometimes with uphill grades. It is sometimes the case that not everyone can reach all of the flowers, but we believe we should still offer the opportunity to those that can reach them. Please understand and accept this if you are unable to undertake the more rigorous activities. There are invariably many flowers close at hand that don’t require much walking at all. Overall, you will still see a tremendous amount.

Money

For those needing cash to pay for personal items, drinks or any extras not included in the tour price we will include details on suitable currency and means of payment in the information we send out for each tour. However, in general ATMs are much more readily available almost everywhere and most cards can be used in them. This is the most convenient way of carrying your money.

Food and drink

For most tours all meals are included in the price. We define this as breakfast, lunch and dinner. We sometimes also offer snacks during the day and find what we offer is more than adequate. Please let us know if you have any particular dietary needs or would like to try any local speciality - we always try and incorporate such things where we can.

Alcoholic drinks and other drinks other than those provided as part of breakfast or during our picnic lunches are NOT included.

Electricity

We will provide information relating to each destination.

Books and maps

We will provide information on any recommended publications for each tour.

Photography

There will be abundant opportunity to photograph the flowers and other things we see. Bring all equipment with you and bring more memory cards than you think you need. Taking 2000-4000 images on a trip like this is not unusual!

Spare batteries, spare battery charger and spare camera – Imagine if the one battery you brought along fails or is lost, or the one battery charger breaks down? Or even the camera itself – have a spare just in case.

Useful things to bring

Bring all specialist travel and photographic equipment with you. In many destinations acquiring such things is both difficult and time-consuming if not impossible. In addition, you might want to include some or all of the following;

Torch - as power cuts aren’t unheard of
Medical kit - with any medicines you might need including broad-spectrum antibiotics, painkillers, Diamox (for altitude sickness). We will have a basic first aid kit with us, but cannot dispense any drugs.
Binoculars - useful for finding plants as well as wildlife
Umbrella – it might rain!
Good quality daypack - large enough to carry your daytime equipment
Walking sticks - if you need them for scree and wet slopes
Suncream – the sun is strong in many of the places we go
Sunglasses – especially at higher altitude
Penknife – at the very least it can open beer bottles