twenty-seven trips, five rungs, one booking office near new orleans

Reserve a vacation package with a travel agent in New Orleans, sorted by how much of it you run yourself

Twenty-seven trips stand in the catalogue at $1,951 to $6,545 per person, and this office reserves any one of them with the company that operates it. They are arranged as one ladder, from trips where somebody meets your arrival and guides most days down to trips where the operator secures only the permit, the weekly boat and the one bed there is. Choose the rung that matches how much of the week you want to run yourself, and an answer comes back within one business day. It is a booking office and not a publication: it reserves trips, and it publishes nothing. The request form takes bookings 24 hours a day.

Send a booking requestThe Pine Gazette answers every request within one business day.

The catalogue here holds twenty-seven trips at $1,951 to $6,545 per person, and they run from a week in one river town to a month that finishes at a camp well past the last paved road. To reserve a vacation package with a travel agent in New Orleans, name the trip on the request a trip quote 24/7 and this office places the reservation with the company that operates it. That company writes to you with dates, an exact figure and its own terms, and the trip becomes yours at the moment you say yes to that letter.

Estuary mudflat with drainage channels branching across it

Sorted by how much of the trip you run yourself

A list sorted by continent is honest and close to useless. By the time somebody writes in, the where is mostly settled: a coast, a range of mountains, three weeks in February that have to be spent somewhere. What is almost never settled is how much of each day the traveller wants to hand to somebody else. That is the thing that decides whether a fortnight reads as a rest or as a second job, and it is the hardest thing to say out loud, because a catalogue arranged by country gives you no words for it.

So the twenty-seven sit in one chain of five rungs. On the first, somebody is waiting when you arrive, a guide is with you on most days and every transfer is held before you leave. On the fifth there is a permit, a ranger, a vessel that runs once a week under the operator's own licence and the single bed at the end of it, and the rest of the time is yours to fill or to waste. The middle three sit between those: a guide only on the days that need one, everything arranged in advance with nobody travelling beside you, and a base with a vehicle and an empty diary.

No rung is better than another, and this office says so out loud rather than leaving you to guess it. The fifth is not braver than the first and the first is not softer than the fifth; they are answers to two different questions about the same three weeks. A household of five with one week and two small children is usually better served near the top of the chain. The same household, four years on, often wants the middle of it. The five are set out side by side on the the five rungs side by side, and the whole chain in order, trip by trip, is on the the whole ladder, top to bottom.

Everything met and guided

Somebody is waiting at arrival, a guide is with the party most days, and every transfer and entry is held in advance.

Upper Mustang, NepalSomebody reserves this because they want to walk into a valley that cannot legally be entered alone, and they do not want to be the person assembling the permit, the crew and the road transport to get there.14 nights, from $4,405 per person The Bale Mountains, EthiopiaSomebody who wants the plateau at first light with a person beside them who knows which valley the wolves worked yesterday, and who has no interest in arguing over a vehicle in Goba at half past six in the morning.11 nights, from $5,429 per person Tusheti, GeorgiaA person booking this wants to be met at arrival and handed along, in order, to people who drive that road for a living, and to spend six clear days somewhere the wheeled route physically ends.9 nights, from $4,585 per person Karakalpakstan, UzbekistanSomebody booking this wants a landscape that changed inside one human lifetime, and wants another party to carry the permit, the fuel, the water cans and the decision about which track to take.10 nights, from $3,487 per person Tana Toraja, SulawesiSomebody booking this wants to be met at the arrivals door and then decide nothing for twelve days, in a place where the thing worth going for is a private family event you cannot walk into by yourself.12 nights, from $4,516 per person The Rupununi, GuyanaSomebody reserves this because they want the Rupununi without doing any of the arranging, since a third of what makes these thirteen days work happens over two way radio or through a person standing in the village.13 nights, from $6,545 per person

Guided in parts

A guide for the days that need one and nobody at all for the rest. Rooms and transfers are still arranged end to end.

Kyushu, JapanSomebody reserving this wants the four awkward days handled and the rest of the twelve left alone, in a place where bathing runs on house rules and getting them wrong in front of a room of strangers is the part they would rather not risk.12 nights, from $4,574 per person The Aeolian Islands, ItalySomebody booking this wants the two awkward pieces, the crossings and the volcano evening, taken out of their hands, and the other days left blank.10 nights, from $3,603 per person The southern Dodecanese, GreeceA person booking this wants the two hard days solved by somebody who knows where the path goes, and the other nine to belong entirely to them.11 nights, from $3,632 per person The Apuseni, RomaniaSomebody booking this wants the underground days run by a person who does that for a living, and the rest of the week left completely alone.9 nights, from $3,661 per person The Kvarner islands, CroatiaSomebody booking this wants the boat day and the beds settled by a person who does that for a living, then wants the other eight mornings to start whenever they start.10 nights, from $3,690 per person Sheki and the Greater CaucasusSomebody reserving this wants a person who knows the ground on the days where knowing it changes the outcome, and five days when nobody tells them what time to be downstairs.9 nights, from $3,719 per person

Arranged, but nobody travels with you

Every room, train, boat and entry is booked before departure. No guide anywhere, and nothing to work out on the ground.

Friesland, the NetherlandsSomebody booking this wants the week settled and the days open, a bed waiting in each town and nobody expecting them anywhere at nine in the morning.8 nights, from $3,748 per person The west coast of JutlandSomebody books this because they want the nine nights already solved on paper and then to be left alone with a wind, a tide table and a bicycle.9 nights, from $3,777 per person The Collio, FriuliSomebody reserves this because they want nine doors already open at named hours with growers who take visitors only by arrangement, and then want to be left alone with a map.8 nights, from $3,806 per person The Sierra de Gata, SpainSomebody books this because they want all nine days to be theirs from breakfast onward, without losing the first two of them working out how to reach a village of eight hundred people that has two buses a week.9 nights, from $3,835 per person The Pelion, GreeceA person reserving this wants the beds, the seats and the water day settled on paper first, and then ten days in which nobody tells them when to be downstairs.10 nights, from $2,864 per person

A base and a vehicle

The office books the base, the car and the one or two things that have to be held ahead. The days themselves are empty.

The Causses and the TarnSomebody booking this wants a kitchen, a set of keys and nine mornings in which nobody has already decided what the day is.9 nights, from $2,893 per person The Mecklenburg lakesA person asking for this wants a house key, a set of car keys and a mooring line, and then to decide over breakfast whether the day goes north to open water or south into the locks.8 nights, from $2,922 per person The Burren, County ClareSomebody booking this wants a bed that stays put and a set of car keys, and wants to decide at the breakfast table whether the day belongs to the coast road or the high pavement.7 nights, from $1,951 per person The Cambrian mountains, WalesSomebody books this because they want to stand in a kitchen at half past eight with a map and the weather and choose, rather than be told at breakfast where the group is going.8 nights, from $2,980 per person The Adirondack High PeaksSomebody booking this wants a bed and a set of keys already arranged so that at half past five in the morning the only open question is which trailhead the car points at.7 nights, from $2,463 per person

Only the hard parts

A permit, a ranger, a boat with one sailing a week, the single bed there is. Everything else is the traveller's own.

Vesteralen, NorwaySomebody reserving this wants six days on which nothing can reach them and no hour of the day belongs to a stranger with a clipboard.9 nights, from $3,108 per person Aysen, Chilean PatagoniaSomebody reserving this wants the three things that cannot be arranged from a laptop at one in the morning, and wants the other nine days left blank.12 nights, from $3,067 per person Altai Tavan Bogd, MongoliaSomebody books this because the permit, the vehicle and the horses are the three things in that valley that cannot be sorted out after arrival, and they want the rest of the eleven nights left open.11 nights, from $1,960 per person The Kaokoveld, NamibiaSomebody books this because they want the valley to themselves at six in the morning, with nobody to wait for and nobody to follow.12 nights, from $2,845 per person The Pamir, TajikistanSomebody booking this wants the two things that stop a Pamir trip before it starts, a regional permit and a driver who knows which river crossing is running this week, and then wants to be left alone with the rest of it.13 nights, from $2,415 per person

What the figures cover

Prices here are per person, they belong to the operating company, and that company sets them and confirms them in writing before anything is held: $1,951 at one end of the chain and $6,545 at the other. What sits inside a figure changes as you move down the rungs, and most of that change is people. A guide beside you for eleven days is eleven days of somebody's working life, and it is charged as such. A trip with nobody in that role carries no charge for it, and the ground you cover may be identical.

Which company sends the invoice, and which one answers for the days

Every trip in the chain is operated by a company that is not this one. That company holds the licences and the ground permits, employs the guides, owns or hires the vehicles, and answers for what happens once the trip starts. When you accept the terms it sends you, it bills you directly, and every figure you pay goes to it. This office is paid afterwards, by that company, as a commission once you are home again. You are asked for nothing at any stage: no deposit, no balance, no card number, and no card details are kept here in any form.

Two things follow from that, and both are worth saying flatly. Your own travel to the starting point is your own arrangement, made wherever you like; this office neither obtains it nor offers it. Sea legs inside a trip are carried by the operator under its own licence and appears in that company's terms, not in anything you agree to here. And this is a booking office, not a publication: it reserves trips that other companies run, and it tells you what each one involves.

Upper Mustang, Nepalfrom $4,405 per person

The Aeolian Islands, Italyfrom $3,603 per person

The west coast of Jutlandfrom $3,777 per person

The Burren, County Clarefrom $1,951 per person

Vesteralen, Norwayfrom $3,108 per person

The Kaokoveld, Namibiafrom $2,845 per person

The one part of a trip that sits below every rung

The ladder describes how much of a trip this office runs for you, from meeting you at the airport down to holding only the permit. The flight sits below all five: nobody here books it, on any rung, and no figure on this site contains one. Two airports and two dates go to the firm that does price it, and before anything is sent the box tells you how your own dates measure against the twenty seven trips here.

Press that and the question leaves this office and does not come back. It lands with a booking company, a different business altogether, met through a host answering to a name borrowed from this domain. Every figure it shows belongs to it and is current to the minute. Anything reserved is reserved in its system. Where payment is required it is taken over there, this site owning no field able to hold card digits at all. The ticket is issued under its rules and under nothing published here. Buy something and part of a margin priced well before your visit comes back to this office out of their side, leaving your own total exactly where it stood. What the box measures, and what it only estimates.

From a request to a held reservation

The form at the foot of this page takes booking requests the request form on this page takes bookings 24/7, and every request is answered within one business day. Tell us the trip or the rung, the month, how many people are travelling, and the one thing that would spoil the week if it went wrong. What comes back is a written answer from a person: whether those dates exist this season, what the operating company charges for them, what the figure covers, and what it leaves you to buy once you are on the ground.

Nothing is held until that answer is in front of you and you have agreed to it in writing. The full sequence, and the exact point at which a reservation becomes firm, is set out on the how a request becomes a reservation. What each operating company allows if your plans change, and how its terms reach you before you commit to them, is on the the cancellation terms in full. Questions that come in more than once are answered on the the questions this office is asked most.

Black volcanic sand mixed with small pumice fragments

The office and where it stands

Pine Gazette Bookings LLC works from 2450 Severn Avenue, Suite 312 in Metairie, Louisiana, and takes requests from across the New Orleans metro and from anywhere else that finds it. The company is filed with Louisiana Secretary of State. A note sent to bookings@thepinegazette.com reaches the same people as the telephone printed below, and corrections@thepinegazette.com reaches the person who corrects anything on this site that is wrong.

Where to find a person

Pine Gazette Bookings LLC2450 Severn Avenue, Suite 312Metairie, LA 70001+1 (504) 832-6194bookings@thepinegazette.com

Serving travellers across the New Orleans metro. There are no posted opening times to catch; every request is answered within one business day, and it never telephones or texts anybody first.

If you already know which rung you want, say so in the first line and the answer comes back faster. If you do not, describe the three weeks you have and this office will name the two or three of the twenty-seven that fit them, and say which rung each one stands on.

Send a booking request

This form takes booking requests 24 hours a day. A person reads it and answers within one business day. Sending it is not a reservation, it costs nothing, and this office will not telephone or text you unless you ask it to.