This was also an era in which the travel trade in the UK operated entirely unfettered by the constraints of regulation. There was no need for an ATOL licence, bonding, and the other requirements for consumer protection later brought in across the EU. It was the perfect time to start a travel business. Better still, in many developing countries accommodation and travel arrangements, prior to governments recognising the milch cow and taxing it excessively, were extremely cheap, allowing us to put together some fabulous packages at very low prices. Even in Europe, prior to the introduction of the Euro, some countries offered especially good value. For a budding travel entrepreneur, the 1980s was a great time to launch a business. We were fortunate indeed.

However, in one area we were more blessed than any other. Many of our clients were 65+. They had lost their 20s to the Second World War. Now retired, they were determined to enjoy their Naturetrek holiday and have a great time, come what may. And challenges did come; challenges galore, for nothing then ran like clockwork as we expect it to today. Planes were frequently delayed, for days, weeks or indefinitely … or borrowed by dignitaries. Charter vessels often had engine problems and occasionally sank. Mountain roads were forever becoming impassable, whether on account of a fallen bridge, landslide, road accident or demonstration, and not cleared. Remote regions were forever being closed, without notice.

Obstacles arose relentlessly in those days, yet tour operating and tour leading were universally such fun – problems forever needing to be solved. Our clients of that time simply loved the adventures we had together, never batting an eyelid, just laughing off each unforeseen situation. They were a golden generation indeed … and we were blessed to have their patronage and honoured to enjoy their company on our fledgling Naturetrek holidays. 

Talking of relentless obstacles, the very first Naturetrek holiday, to Kashmir and Ladakh in July 1987, was one such example. First, we had no plane. The sole domestic carrier at that time, Indian Airlines, did have one for that summer’s schedule between Srinigar and Leh, a new Airbus no less; but they’d purchased it on the cheap, without seats, intending to fit it with Indian-made varieties for the summer run. Thus, although we sat for a hot summer’s day in Srinagar airport with tickets and the promise of a plane with seats; none came, nor looked likely. So, not wishing to be further delayed and to ensure a seamless tour, that afternoon David chose to hire three airport Ambassador taxis, with drivers willing to attempt the two-and-a-half-day drive on dirt roads to Leh. Nine new customers were squeezed in, together with a lot of luggage. Ahead lay one of the highest and most gruelling road journeys in the world, up a pass – the Zogi La – that no-one could yet be certain was passable, following heavy winter snows and a devastating avalanche the previous October that had consumed 1,500 vehicles and their occupants. The route offered no hotel nor restaurant suitable for travelling tourists, so two nights were spent on the flat roofs of willing wayside hosts who fed the adventurers on rice, dal and salt-tea. The drive was a dodgy one, through rivers, ice corridors and the carnage of scattered avalanche victims, slowly revealed by receding snowfields. Yet, we made it, and enjoyed a lovely trek in Ladakh. Another pass, however, now lay in store. The Jugemarec La needed to be crossed on foot to complete our second trek of the holiday, through Kashmir. It was not clear whether the pass was yet open, but rumour had it that locals had crossed it with laden baggage ponies the day before, so we would try the same. What was not mentioned was that one of those poor baggage animals had slipped on the ice and fallen to its death while crossing the pass, so our ponymen took care to cut steps across the most treacherous slopes to enable safe passage for customers and baggage ponies alike. The pass duly completed (though not one of a gravity David would ever permit a Naturetrek group to attempt again!), we had less success crossing swollen rivers which saw ponies lose their footing and most of our fresh food supplies washed down-river. Our loss was the local villagers’ gain as they eagerly sold us a goat and some chickens to keep us fed on trek. Thereon, it was plain sailing, a tour relished and long remembered by all. Indeed, you can read participant Gill Lee's detailed account of this first Naturetrek holiday here. 

Much quicker than expected, David and Maryanne were finding that they needed to be office-based. Already by 1988, they had discovered that they couldn’t lead all the tours themselves as well as run a growing business. So David persuaded his birding friends and early travelling companions, Paul Jepson and Jonathan Eames, to share the leading of all Naturetrek’s predominantly Asian tours in those early years. Like David, Asia was ‘under their skin’ and both ultimately went on to illustrious careers in conservation, Paul heading to Indonesia to become founder of Burung Indonesia, BirdLife International’s partner in Indonesia, and ultimately an Oxford academic, while Jonathan chose to live in Vietnam where he set up BirdLife’s Vietnam Programme in 1993 and remains today as Programme Manager for BirdLife International Indochina (work for which he was awarded an OBE in 2019).

During those early years of Naturetrek, David and Maryanne operated tours exclusively to long-haul destinations, particularly to those in the Himalaya and the rest of the Indian subcontinent. However, there was trouble around the corner in the form of the first Gulf War; when Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Naturetrek bookings ceased. Nobody was prepared to book a holiday at this time, let alone one overflying the Gulf region! The fledgling business had come to a standstill, and David and Maryanne knew that they needed a European programme on which to fall back on at such times. So it was that, in June 1991, David and Maryanne, together with their one-year-old baby son, Thomas (born just hours before the first Rutland Birdfair, which David still managed to set up and run each day), headed to the French Pyrenees to see what the area had to offer. The following year, in June 1992, they returned to the Pyrenees, accompanied by botanist Martin Beaton and his wife Louise, to run two full groups back-to-back from a lovely family-run hotel in Gèdre that we still use to this day. Wallcreepers, Lammergeiers, Black Woodpeckers and Snowfinches were amongst a wealth of birds, and the abundance of flowers and butterflies was even more spectacular. It was the perfect destination for the all-round naturalist and paved the way for the extensive European programme of tours that we offer today to all corners of our home continent.

By 1991, although their futon bed on the floor in a corner of their bedroom-cum-Naturetrek office was comfortable enough, Maryanne had her hands full with a new-born son in an alien land and was beginning to find the sharing of the family’s tiny 3-room Victorian terrace with a red-hot phone, a dodgy second-hand typewriter and 200 boxes of brochures (which occupied all of the living room) quite challenging. Worse, an Amstrad had arrived, which David couldn’t work, but tour leader Paul Jepson and Maryanne could. In those days, indeed for 10 years or more, many group members were supplied with ‘trek packs’ (sleeping bag, sheet sleeping bag, down jackets, etc) which Maryanne lovingly washed and pressed between treks. Kitbags of luxury foodstuffs were also prepared for every tour and trek to such countries as Nepal and Bhutan, in which little could be purchased beyond such staples as rice and vegetables. All these kitbags were then squeezed into an elderly Volvo and taken to Heathrow or Gatwick where, throughout the first 10 years, David greeted every departing Naturetrek group, and assisted them with their check-in. A move to a new-build 4-bedroom house in the nearby village of Bighton – the new Naturetrek HQ – had become essential.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Naturetrek programmes in Europe and Africa were growing steadily, often focusing on areas that other tour operators did not visit. The overthrow of Nicolae Ceaușescu presented the opportunity for us to become the first wildlife tour operator to pioneer the rich rewards of the Danube Delta and the Carpathians, whilst Corsica and a magnificent hilltop retreat in the Spanish Pyrenees became firm favourites. Advantage was taken, too, of the fabulous flora and fauna of Sardinia and the rest of Italy which other operators had hitherto shunned. In Africa, Ethiopia became a much-loved addition to the fold, even during the years of civil war and famine in the north when we were almost the only visitors. We were beginning to thrive as pioneers of new wildlife tours to exciting new wildlife destinations hitherto unexplored. Bhutan, remote regions of India such as Arunachal Pradesh, and the Russian Far East were amongst other areas on which we focused. Indeed, for some years we even sold and operated a selection of holidays known as ‘Russian Nature Tours’, led by the eccentric Algirdas Knystautas – holidays that reached the parts that other holiday operators could not reach! … albeit sometimes using transport that was unacceptable, even by the standards of the time (the vehicle supplied in Lithuania which had a badly cracked windscreen and only two working gears being the final straw!). 

Other friends then joined the gang, amongst them Andy Clements (CEO of the British Trust for Ornithology from 2007 until December 2020), Tony Baker (long-time warden of RSPB Marshside) and Mark Cocker, prior to a career as acclaimed journalist, author and broadcaster, specialising in the environment, wildlife and conservation. The fledgling company’s passion for Himalayan natural history was becoming noticed, and before long Naturetrek was additionally running dedicated botanical treks in Nepal and Bhutan, led by such luminaries as Tony Schilling (the curator, at that time, of the RHS’s Wakehurst Place in Sussex who, in the 1960s, had created the National Botanic Gardens at Godaveri in Nepal) and Roy Lancaster, the much-loved early presenter of the BBC’s long-running series, Gardener’s World.

One key figure in Naturetrek’s development was not a tour leader. It was David’s dad. From the start, this taxation commissioner, accountant and tax specialist, took on the role of unsalaried proof-reader, book-keeper, financial adviser and general dogsbody – a loyal and meticulous servant of the company, always setting the highest of standards. His contribution for over 10 years was a godsend … and the standards he set remain aspired to today.

During this time, the company’s long-haul offerings were long indeed. Tours or treks of 24 or even 28 days would be taken by our clients as their primary annual holiday. But times were changing, a new generation of customers was looking for shorter and more frequent adventures overseas. So, taking advantage of some very cheap long-haul flights (then unencumbered by the exorbitant taxes that so inflate the cost of air travel today), the most active of birders were tempted with Naturetrek’s new ‘990s’  – a programme of locally-led, action-packed, all-inclusive long-haul holidays to some of the world’s top birding destinations for just £990! These holidays are still fondly remembered by many birders today.

The ’Naturetrek 990s’ also saw two pioneering new developments. First, David and Maryanne were determined to see Naturetrek holidays led by local naturalists … and in Nepal they had become friends with the very best. When David first led a tour (for Exodus) that included a stay at Gaida Wildlife Lodge in April 1984, two local boys impressed him. Both teenagers were Gaida staff members. One, Hem Sagar Baral, was a trainee naturalist guide; the other, Tika Ram Giri, was a ‘kitchen boy’ with no formal education. In due course, Hem, was to go on to a university degree, a PhD, and to become Nepal’s foremost conservationist – the CEO, first, of BirdLife Nepal, then of Himalayan Nature, and now ZSL’s country representative in Nepal. Tika, meanwhile, was to become Nepal’s most experienced and knowledgeable field ornithologist and naturalist, as well as the country’s top wildlife guide, leading more Naturetrek holidays than any other Naturetrek tour leader. They remain amongst David’s and Maryanne’s most cherished and longstanding friends today.

Nepal was Naturetrek’s top-selling destination through the 1990s, and we simultaneously pioneered the first-ever Tiger tours as we found ways in which to obtain regular sightings of a hitherto shy, elusive and unhabituated mammal. Indeed our ‘Just Tigers!’ holiday, still as popular as ever today, was the first-ever tour to India from overseas with an exclusive focus on Tigers, and a sightings success rate of 100% was achieved through very careful planning and use of the very best guides and leaders. We went on to pioneer the first-ever holidays to enable the reliable sighting and watching of European Brown Bears (in Finland), Wolves and Iberian Lynx (in Spain), and many others.

Until this time, David and Maryanne had been assisted nobly in their office-cum-home by neighbours, relatives and birdwatching friends. Volunteers and part-timers alike. But, by 1994, Maryanne’s dining and sitting rooms were becoming buried beneath David’s papers and brochures (she’ll say nothing has changed today!) and, worse, the number of Amstrads was on the rise. It was time for a full-time employee and a proper office. A room was duly rented in ‘The Cadcam Centre’, the converted dairy of what had previously, and much more fittingly, been known as ‘Woodlark Farm’, just a hundred yards from David and Maryanne’s house in Bighton. Debbie Ward, a friend of David’s family in nearby Bentworth, had recently returned from a period of extended travels in Australia and elsewhere and became Naturetrek’s first full-time employee, her secretarial background and meticulous attention to detail a bonus for the next 15 years, and still today. Joining the team then, during school and then university holidays at least, was Guy Thompson. David, who was forever bumping into a teenaged Thompson at nearby Alresford Pond where they both enjoyed their birding, had been quick to offer part-time work to this able and talented student who would ultimately go on to become Chief Operating Officer at English Nature (on the back of the training he received at Naturetrek, we always presumed!).

It was to this first office that today’s company stalwarts, Paul Stanbury (1996), Gini Whitlock (1997) and Andy Tucker (1998), found their way. David desperately needed help from some young heads. The new Dell computers that had usurped the Amstrads were causing him strife – not to mention the new-fangled printers, emails and a fax machine that were now muscling their way in … and Paul’s and Andy’s experience of North and South America, respectively, enabled a broadening of Naturetrek’s horizons.

In those pre-internet days, marketing was delightfully straightforward. An annual brochure was essential, perhaps a newsletter or two, plus the necessary magazine advertising, while any Naturetrek coverage in a weekend travel supplement would generate an avalanche of messages on the answerphone by Monday morning. Always enjoyed, the Rutland Birdfair provided a wonderful opportunity to meet both existing and prospective customers alike, and annual outings to present slideshows in such cities as Chester, Oxford, Winchester and York were (and still are) always capped with a curry (all the better if Nepalese!). Everything was relatively easy to track, making marketing analysis simple. One thing hasn’t changed though. In those early days Naturetrek benefitted enormously from word-of-mouth recommendations. It continues to do so, and the company is indebted to the many magnificent ‘Naturetrek ambassadors’ amongst you!

By late 2022, despite there being further challenges to overcome due to the staff shortages in the travel industry at airports, airlines and the UK passport office, the business was well and truly back on its feet. Our clients certainly rewarded us with their trust post-pandemic with record numbers of bookings being recorded in 2023. Thank you all!

In November 2023 we took the first step in an exciting new partnership when Tom Mills, the son of David and Maryanne and a Naturetrek director, signed off Naturetrek's purchase of the 120-acre 'Macchietelle estate' in the Italian Apennines from the Manna family. The family could not have been more supportive of our goal – to pass the land, by way of an initial 30-year stewardship agreement – to the Italian conservation charities Salviamo L’Orso (Save the Bear) and IntraMontes. Their first task was to apply, without delay, to the local authority to ban hunting from our new reserve and put in place a system of anti-poaching surveillance. David and Tom travelled out to explore the reserve in May 2024, together with our partners and friends at Salviamo L'Orso, Rewilding Appenines and Intramontes, and were delighted by sightings of numerous Wild Boar and Roe Deer, two Crested Porcupines, two Pine Martens, a Badger and a Wild Cat, the latter rarely encountered in the Appenines. There were also greeted by an Appenine Wolf on arrival – the first of five Wolf encounters during their week's stay!

It is our hope that the Naturetrek Macchietelle Reserve will support Salviamo L’Orso’s goal of building protected corridors between the two national parks and three regional parks/reserves of the Apennines, and to extend all these protected areas for the benefit of the endangered Marsican Brown Bear (Ursus arctos marsicanus), a distinctive subspecies of which just 60 individuals remain. Indeed, it is now David and Maryanne’s wish that such projects become the primary target for Naturetrek support and investment. In these fast-changing times, our support for nature restoration and conservation is imperative, and we intend to use our profits to purchase land to be managed by wildlife and conservation charities for the benefit of our natural world. Watch this space! It should be an exciting one.