21 July 2026

Chawton-based wildlife holiday operator, Naturetrek, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. 2026 marks four decades since the company’s beginnings in 1986, when Founder Owners David and Maryanne Mills wrote the first Naturetrek brochure by candlelight from a simple Berber dwelling in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains - one of the first destinations that the company offered - and started selling overseas wildlife treks from their tiny terraced house in Alresford. 

Today, Naturetrek is the UK’s leading operator of wildlife holidays, and its collection includes over 700 wildlife tours, cruises, short breaks and day trips to more than 100 countries, including 13 within Hampshire. It has pioneered numerous significant wildlife tour opportunities, amongst them the first ever Tiger-watching holidays (in India) over 35 years ago! 

Naturetrek has operated from Hampshire for 40 years, moving around the county from Alresford to Bighton, then Cheriton, and now Chawton, where it is based in Mingledown Barn, a beautiful barn conversion surrounded by 12 acres of rewilded scrub and grassland, once owned by Jane Austen's brother Edward and now enjoyed by Naturetrek's 40-strong team who benefit from the wealth of doorstep wildlife through the year. 

Naturetrek is proud to have placed responsible wildlife travel at the heart of its business since it began in 1986, and it firmly believes that ecotourism and wildlife travel can be important forces for good. Still fully independent and owned by the Mills family, its foremost mission is investing profits from 40 years of operating wildlife holidays into nature restoration and conservation projects. Naturetrek’s contributions to conservation causes now total over £4.3m, and include donations and investments that have enabled the creation of new Naturetrek wildlife reserves in Ecuador, Italy, and Scotland, in partnership with renowned national conservation organisations, to protect habitats and species in perpetuity, working with local communities.

Naturetrek is a multi-award-winning business, the recipient of the British Travel Awards Best Travel Company for Wildlife & Nature Holidays (Gold) for six years running from 2019-2025 and recipient of AITO's prestigious 'Tour Operator of the Year' Gold Award for 2025. It has also has received recognition for its work in sustainability by The International Centre For Responsible Tourism (ICRT), receiving a Gold at the ICRT Europe Awards and Silver at the ICRT Global Awards in 2025 as well as a Silver at the ICRT Latin America Awards in 2026, all recognising the company’s ongoing commitment to protecting endangered species and habitats through the creation of the Naturetrek Reserves in Italy, Ecuador and Scotland. Naturetrek also received a place on Wanderlust Magazine’s respected 2026 ‘Green List’, a celebration of sustainability in travel which recognises tour operators and destinations that show travel can be a force for good. 

Naturetrek is celebrating its birthday milestone throughout the year: in May, it operated an exclusively chartered 40th Anniversary Cruise around the British Isles on which highlights included Orcas, White-tailed and Golden Eagles, Otters and towering cliffs teeming with Puffins and other nesting seabirds on the most remote of all our islands, including a sun-blessed landing on St Kilda in the north Atlantic. Over the summer, the team has made visits to the reserves in Italy and Scotland; and in November, there will be a celebratory Wildlife Festival at the Napo Wildlife Centre in the Ecuadorian Amazon, together with the opportunity to visit one of the Naturetrek Reserves in the Andes. 

Andy Tucker, Naturetrek’s Managing Director, says: “It’s rare in the UK for a specialist tour operator to reach 40 years of age; even more so to remain independent, family-owned and in charge of its own destiny. I am immensely proud to lead a dynamic, talented and hard-working team of 40 staff at HQ (as well as our network of brilliant naturalists and travel partners around the world), all committed to building on the vision and entrepreneurialism of founders David and Maryanne Mills and to continue the legacy of a strong focus on innovation and top quality customer service which is so valued by our customers.” 
 
For more information about Naturetrek, its tour collection and conservation work, please visit naturetrek.co.uk. 

ENDS

Notes to editors:

About Naturetrek: Established in 1986, Naturetrek has 40 years’ experience in operating group and tailored wildlife holidays, offering the largest selection of professionally organised, expert-led wildlife holidays and tours in the world. Naturetrek’s team of wildlife enthusiasts and dedicated travel professionals is passionate about organising outstanding, competitively priced and responsible wildlife holidays, short breaks and day trips around the world. To speak to the experts for more information on any of Naturetrek’s wildlife itineraries, or to request a copy of the latest brochure, call 01962 733051 or visit www.naturetrek.co.uk.

Sustainable Tourism at Naturetrek: Naturetrek is a tour company run by naturalists for naturalists, all committed to ensuring the long-term protection of species and habitats. It remains a family-owned business and actively invests its profits in purchasing land to be managed by wildlife and conservation charities for the benefit of the natural world. In 2000, Naturetrek was one of the very first British tour operators to encourage its clients to contribute towards off-setting their carbon emissions. Since 2007, Naturetrek has made contributions for every flight that it books, donating £15 for every person booking a long-haul holiday and £5 for each short-haul traveller to its local conservation partners. To date this has raised over £625,000 and funded Naturetrek’s very own ‘carbon retention’ project, building up the ‘Naturetrek Reserves’ in collaboration with its Ecuadorian partner, Fundación EcoMinga. The project has created an invaluable wildlife corridor between the national parks of Llanganates and Sangay National Parks on the eastern slopes of the Ecuadorian Andes in an area now covering 2,181 acres and saving a valuable habitat and its endangered wildlife from deforestation, as well as preventing the release of an estimated 105,000 – 210,000 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. In 2023, Naturetrek purchased the 120-acre ‘Macchietelle estate’ in Italy's central Apennines, which it has passed by way of a 30-year stewardship agreement to the Italian conservation charities Salviamo L’Orso (Save the Bear) & IntraMontes. In August 2025, Naturetrek completed the purchase of the 3,609-acre Stuckindroin estate in Scotland where, working with an experienced wildlife conservation organisation, it will be part of a 200-year project to restore the native Scottish rainforest and other nature-rich habitats across the Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park.

Press: For further information, high res images, video assets or press trip enquiries, please contact Lizzie Cooper (lcoopertravelpr@gmail.com) or Kerrie Porteous (kerrie@naturetrek.co.uk).