Expertise & Experience

Why choose us? With a combined 25 years tour leading & training experience for some of the world’s biggest tour companies, the team at Compass Expeditions has an unmatched depth of experience and a network of contacts around the world.

Slower paced itineraries

Forget dawn departures and massive 500-mile days, we give each day the attention it deserves with ample opportunity to stop and “smell the roses”. Our tours are not endurance events or mad dashes between overnight stops.

Hand-picked accommodation

Ranging from 3 to 5 star, we stay in unique lodges, ger camps & hotels on all our tours. Our accommodations are chosen for their uniqueness, location and where possible are family owned and run. Our accommodation choices enrich your travel experience and are what turns a great trip into an incredible one.

Food

When you book a tour with us we include more than just a welcome and farewell meal. On all our rides we include breakfast every day and picnic or restaurant lunches on all travelling days. The picnic lunches we prepare on the spot, we don’t pre-make sandwiches and let them fester inside a hot topbox until lunchtime or corral you into a local truckstop. On most tours we include the majority of dinners at carefully chosen restaurants, an important consideration when comparing tour companies.

Cultural experiences – we delve a little deeper

Our rides don’t just rush to top sights and major cities, we really explore the lands we are travelling in and take in those unforgettable views. We don’t simply race from point A to B and wherever possible we support local communities.

Authentic local experiences

Our tours include a plethora of local experiences, sometimes well off the “tourist trail”, witness the dying tradition of eagle hunting in Kyrgyzstan or stay at a ger camp on the vast Mongolian Steppe.

Value for money

We thoroughly research trips and unique itineraries in incredible locations. We invite people to look at the competition to see what’s “not included” and pay particular attention to actual tour length and not having the final night’s accommodation included.

Our bikes

Where possible we endeavour to get the latest model BMWs and take a great deal of care when selecting bike suppliers.

However, working in remote destinations sometimes makes finding decent bikes extremely difficult, in this case, such as Mongolia in 2019, we purchased 8 used BMW F800 GS motorcycles and shipped them to Mongolia, then sent our BMW qualified mechanic to Ulaan Baatar to train our local supplier, all to ensure good bike supply.

Our itineraries

We do not research our tours online like most tour companies – every route is pre ridden / driven, every hotel visited, every restaurant eaten in and every excursion experienced before anything is ever released for sale…it’s a tough job but someone has to do it!

Our guides

Our guides are the face of Compass Expeditions and they are tasked with ultimately providing our clients the very best experience. All our guides are highly trained, spending a week in a classroom followed by months on the road before being put into a lead ride role position. Our guides consistently receive incredibly high praise from satisfied clients and, in our view, are the very best in the industry.

Group sizes

We keep our groups small (typically 15-20) despite some tours being sold out years in advance. The exception to this rule is on our celebrity motorcycle rides – the Simon Pavey events where its 7 riders per instructor and the Charley Boorman events where each bike is fitted with a GPS allowing riders to ride away from the group if desired. We guarantee to run any tour with 6 or more clients participating.

Solo travel

If you are ready to explore, but none of your friends are, don’t worry more than 60% or our clients are single travellers. Avoid paying single supplements, unless you want your own private room, all our tour costs are priced on a twin share basis, you won’t be financially penalised for choosing to travel solo.

Motorcycle tour support

Every motorcycle tour is supported by our superb support vehicles, all of which come equipped with a mobile kitchen for those great picnic lunches that we have become known for. Our support vehicles have a capacity for 4 non riding clients.

All our tour leaders are first aid trained and we have an extensive medical kit, personally put together for Compass Expeditions by a remote area paramedic, in all our support vehicles. We also carry satellite phones on every tour and a Delorme InReach communication device on our major expeditions. We really do provide true support.

World class people and experience

Most of the Compass Expeditions team come from a tour guiding background, leading tours and training new staff for some of the world’s biggest tour companies for over 25 years, we know what it takes to run first class tours.  

So much so, that Charley Boorman has asked Compass Expeditions to run his Australian tour and pre-Covid his worldwide offering. Ten-time Dakar competitor Simon Pavey works only with Compass Expeditions to provide logistics and planning for his Australian training course and tours Extreme adventure company Max Adventures, who led actor Ralph Fiennes to the North pole, approached us to assist in his Road of Bones expedition.

It is this experience and unmatched network of contacts, a network that can only be developed over decades, that will ensure real value for money and a truly unique experience… the ultimate adventure.