Liddy Pleasants – the original Imaginative Traveller
“I have spent my entire adult life working in travel starting as a tour leader in the Middle East and working my way around the world. Ten years ago I returned to the UK to head up Imaginative Traveller’s operations department. More recently I spent much of 2011 cycling around South East Asia with my husband and two young children. We somehow managed to clock up 3,500 kilometres!
The one question that I always get asked is ‘What is your favourite destination?’ How on earth can you answer that?! How can you compare the sheer majesty of the sites in the Middle East to the clamour, colour and mayhem that is the Indian Subcontinent? Can anyone really expect you to agree that the wilds of the High Andes are preferable to the extraordinary wilderness of Mongolia, or that the terraced paddy fields of Vietnam are more enticing than the Mayan ruins peeping out of the jungle in Belize?
For the Imaginative Traveller tour programme for 2012/13 I was tasked with selecting the best trips from around the world, making sure that all the ingredients were just right – not just the price. It was such fun sourcing these trips, ensuring that they include those little extras and hidden gems that are so crucial to the Imaginative Traveller ethos. Features that Imaginative Traveller has become renowned for – unique homestays, distinctive activities, a variety of unusual accommodation and transportation, original itineraries and of course accompanied by our exceptional tour guides. And all offering superb value!
Imaginative Traveller tours allow you to get under the skin of a country and experience the world from a local perspective. It has become one of the UK’s best loved travel brands over the past twenty years of operation and I am proud to be part of it. I hope that you enjoy the selection and perhaps I’ll see you on the road!”
