Services
What you get on a TdA Tour
Tour d'Afrique is committed to providing a quality experience to our clients. Our tours provide a framework of services to keep you safe and healthy as you travel while allowing you the freedom to cycle and explore each day as you wish. These are not fully guided tours. Nor are they luxury tours, though the degree of luxury or comfort does depend on the tour in question (see how we rate and compare our tours). Most of our tours are expeditions that will require you to sometimes step out of your comfort zone and deal with a variety of challenges. This philosophy not only allows us to keep our tour cost reasonable (our tours cost less per day than almost any other organized tour currently available), but, more importantly it also adds an element of freedom and adventure that is often missing on other guided trips.
A good way to compare the tours by price, comfort level, difficulty, and other criteria is by using our TourFinder tool. Try it out!
Before the Tour
Once you register online you will begin receiving regular Rider Updates via email that are specific to your tour. These updates will walk you through getting proper equipment for the tour, training, visa requirement, packing tips, cultural tips… and everything else you need to know.
You can also check our Bicycle Shop Partnership page on this website to see if we have a partner shop in your area. These partners offer great discounts on the items you'll need for your big adventure with us.
We also have a Facebook page, where you will find a discussion forum hosted by one of our staff members. Riders can ask and discuss all sorts of issues relating to the tour. There is also a classifieds section on this page where you can shop for gear from former riders or sell the gear you no longer need.
Of course you can also email or call us at any time. The staff at Tour d'Afrique Ltd. have plenty of first hand experience organizing, leading, and participating in our tours, so don't hesitate to contact us if you have a question.
When you fly to the start of your expedition, we will have a big in-country briefing with the group one or two days before the tour commences. This gives you an opportunity to work out your final details, and meet the clients and staff who will join you on your adventure.
During the Tour
Our support on tour is designed to keep you safe, well fed, and provide the basic support you need to get from start to finish every day. The rest, for the most part, is up to you!
Here is a list of what services we provide (and don't provide) on tour:
Unique Experiences
Our tours traverse some of the least travelled and most remote areas of the world. We spend a lot of time and energy designing our tours to make them as interesting and rewarding as possible by making routes that go through both well-known tourist spots as well as areas where no cyclists have gone before! We place a lot of value on the individual’s right to explore and we encourage our clients to seek out unique experiences.
Experienced Staff
Our staff have vast and varied international experience on our tours and through their independent travels. As a result, they have the ability to resolve problems, deal with unexpected emergencies, and excel in challenging environments.
Great Food
We provide 3 meals each riding day, cooked by experienced chefs. We pride ourselves on hiring great chefs who create an amazing culinary experience. On our toughest tours, like the Vuelta Sudamericana we offer four meals per day – with the 4th meal being a salty protein rich afternoon soup. We do not provide food on rest days (and dinners coming into rest days). This allows you to have a chance to check out the local cuisine and a chance for our staff to reorganize and restock. For people with specific dietary restrictions, we try very hard to accommodate your needs in difficult environments with sometimes limited supplies available. Please let us know well in advance if you have certain items you can’t eat due to allergies (we’re talking allergies, not things you just don’t like).
Energy Bars and Drinks
On tours that travel through very remote areas we provide energy bars and drinks for you to carry with you on the bike and also set up 'refresh' points where necessary. We generally do not have these for our tours in Europe (Amber Route and Orient Express) as juices and other snacks are more readily available along the routes.
Vehicle Support
Each rider is provided with a space on our support trucks (or vans) to transport their gear. The trucks also carry up to 2000 liters of water (where necessary) and all the food and equipment for the tour. If for some reason you cannot ride your bike, the trucks can carry some passengers with bikes (the amount of passengers we can carry will vary from tour to tour, please check with our office). Our vehicle support system is not designed to carry a large number of people or carry people on a regular basis. The support is based on the assumption that everyone will attempt to cycle at least a portion of the day. There could be times where we help you to arrange local transport when we are full (this often ends up being part of the fun and adventure!).
Staff support
Depending on the group size and the tour needs, our staff will include: nurses, mechanics, communications officers, experienced tour directors, cooks, drivers and other general support staff to make your tour a success. With larger groups, we have more staff. Each year we hire fresh recruits along with returning staff with the experience to get the new staff trained and ready for teh adventures on the road. Our rider updates go into more detail about the roles of each staff member. The primary role of all staff members is your safety. Their combined skills will leave you feeling well taken care of and free to enjoy the adventure.
Meeting up with the Tour
We do not provide airport pick ups at the start of the tour or whenever you are joining along the route, but instead give you the details of where and when to meet the tour. We leave it up to you to find your way to us.
Route Knowledge
We spend a lot of time developing our cycle routes, and then constantly improving them year after year. Each day on tour we hold a rider meeting to give you route notes and/or sketch maps of the next day(s) travel. These meetings are also an opportunity to share tips and points of interest on the route.
Local Support
We often hire local guides to act as translators, help with difficult border crossings, and provide insight into the culture and history of each country. Whenever possible we also invite local cyclists to join us on tour (at no cost to them) so that clients get an opportunity to learn more about the people and the places they are cycling through. We arrange police escorts into some cities, and connect with local clubs, associations, and tourist bureaus to give our tours a unique local flavour and more importantly, local knowledge.
Accommodations
All tours include a night before the start and a night at the end of the tour in a hotel. Along the route, most of our tours offer camping and/or basic indoor accommodations. The Indian Adventure is our only 'no-camping' tour, meaning every night is some sort of hotel, guesthouse, or other indoor accommodation. Tour d’Afrique is all camping, and the rest of the tours are a mix of camping and basic indoor accommodations. Camping and basic indoor accommodations help to keep our tours economical. Camping also enhances the sense of adventure and creates a real sense of community on tour. Whenever a tour does include hotel stays we strive to find unique hotels and hostels that provide local colour, not five-star luxury suites.
Safety
Where necessary we hire security and /or police to escort us on tour and provide security at our campsites. Safety is always on the minds of the tour leaders. They use their experience and support staff to ensure that everything is being done to keep you safe. But, safety start with you. We expect all participants to adhere to any safety restrictions and accept that there is an element of risk involved in these tours. Reading your registration kit, Terms and Conditions, and many email Rider Updates prior to the tour will ensure that you arrive with a thorough understanding of what to expect on the journey ahead.
Giving Back
The Tour d'Afrique Foundation supports a variety of projects in Africa, India, and North America including a bicycle donation program. We also encourage and support our clients in their efforts to raise money for the TdA Foundation, or for the charity of their choice. For every client on any of our full tours, we donate one bicycle in their name! Our goal is to have a Foundation component on all of our tours by 2013.
After the Tour
TdA Jersey
Every tour participant receives a limited edition Tour d'Afrique jersey designed specifically for your tour.
Bike Boxes
We'll help you get a box at the end of the tour or the end of your section. There is no charge for the bike box, just be prepared to do some stuffing and taping!
Give us your Feedback - After every tour we send out a survey so you can share your thoughts on how to improve our tour. We value your opinions and the insight from your perspective on the tour.
Share your Story
Stay in touch with us and people in your group on our Facebook page. Let us know what you are up to and we'll share it in our newsletter. Contribute to the growing number of incredible videos our clients are posting on our YouTube channel. Follow our other tours via Twitter.
The People
The best part of our tours, by far, are the people you get to meet and the friends you make along the way. We are constantly trying to improve our use of social networks and tools to help former clients stay in touch and share their experiences.
Create Your Own Tour
Take what you've learned from your tour experience and create a DreamTour. Our DreamTours website will walk you through the process of creating a custom tour that you design. Once complete, we will approve it, post it to our website, and help you promote it. Once the tour meets the minimum number of participants required, we will schedule the tour and run it for you. You might even get to go for free!
So that's what we provide... the rest is up to you! See you soon.
