How to Book with Us
How to book an Andean Trails holiday
We’re here to help you plan and book your holiday to South America.
Don’t worry about the practical steps, our guide here will walk you through the Andean Trails booking process.
How to book with Andean Trails – a brief overview
- Get in touch by email or on call +44 (0)131 4677086.
- Plan and discuss your itinerary
- Book the holiday
- Pay a deposit
- We send you a confirmation email
- Final payment due 8 to 16 weeks before departure
- Travel Instructions emailed to you (2-3 weeks before departure)
- Go on holiday
- Welcome home email
- Go back to stage 1
More information
1. Get in touch
It seems obvious but it’s always advisable to contact us by email or on +44 (0)131 4677086 before making a booking online.
We may need to check for spaces for your chosen dates on your preferred Galapagos cruise boat, or that there are still Inca Trail permits available.
At any stage of the booking process you can get in touch to ask questions, make amendments to bookings or talk through the trip.
2. Plan your trip
We’re experts at tailor made and group holidays and we love talking to people about our trips, destination countries and hotel options.
Providing lots of options, prices and details to outline itineraries is our speciality and we’re more than happy to look at as many ideas as you wish. Most quotes come with a detailed itinerary so you can get a real feel for what you are booking.
This process – which can be complicate and lengthy, depending on numbers of countries and sites you wish to visit, group size etc – usually involves several emails, a phone call or two or face to face chats in our office.
Sometimes it’s a good idea to get hotels/flights/Galapagos boats on hold to make sure that availability doesn’t disappear.
3. Booking
Hoorah!
Through your ideas, dreams and work and our advice you’ve settled on the itinerary for your trip and are ready to book.
Flights will need to be paid for in full to issue them and we ask for a 30% non-refundable deposit as well as a completed booking form for all passengers.
We accept card payments in GBP sterling and in USD, plus bank transfers in many currencies from USD to Rand to AUSD and more (contact us for a full list).
4. Confirmation email
After the payment and booking form has been received, we reserve all services for you and send you a confirmation email.
This reconfirms all services included and not included and is accompanied by an invoice, detailed itinerary, kit list and extra information about the countries you’ll be visiting.
Bookings by UK customers with flights are ATOL protected and you will also receive an ATOL receipt.
5. Balance due
The final balance of your trip is due 8 to 12 weeks before departure depending on the tour you booked. You can pay it off earlier if you wish and we generally send a reminder near the payment deadline.
6. Travel Information document
Some 2-3 weeks before you travel we’ll email you a final word document full of important information to print off and take away with you.
Names, addresses and contact numbers for our representatives/hotels/guides are contained within these instructions, as well as timings, logistics and arrival advice for some countries.
Any who have booked flights will find their e-ticket numbers/locator codes and final flight times here too. Flight times can change in South America and it’s always worth double checking on departure day.
We recommend that you save a copy in your email account just in case you lose the paper copy while travelling.
Please contact us with any doubts or questions you may have once you’ve had a good read through the instructions.
7. HOLIDAY!
Check-in, fly off and enjoy!
8. Welcome back home
Once you’re back home we drop you a quick email to see how everything has gone.
We love to hear about your adventures and all feedback, good or bad, to help us to improve, as well as see any top snaps or videos of your dream trip to South America.
9. Go back to stage 1
We’re sure you’ll want to go back – so drop us a line!
Testimonials
M. Cook and D. Heyburn, UK. Jan 2025, Paine Circuit Self-Guided.
My friend & I recently did the 8 day O Trek self guided which was organized by Andean Trails. We are so pleased we paid the extra to have all the camps set up & food included rather than carrying all our camping equipment & food. The camps were run by two different companies. One company looked after Seron, Frances & Central where we had tents on stilts. These came with a very comfortable mattress that filled the whole tent, sleeping bags & pillows. The other company looked after Dickson, Los Perros, Gray & Paine Grande where the tents were on the ground with individual mattresses & sleeping bags. I was very impressed with the tents on stilts & found them to be more comfortable & spacious.
The included food was very good & sometimes excellent! We appreciated having a welcome drink which we had before our three course dinner, either a glass of wine or a pisco sour! Very civilized especially as we were in the mountains.
We received plenty of information from Kathy at Andean Trails before the trek began & we received all our vouchers for the transfers into & out of the park & the camps. It was all very well organized.
We also received a welcome pack at the bus station in Puerto Natales which included a sleeping sheet liner, a large travel towel & a water bottle. I had brought my own but I need not have done although it was handy having two water bottles. I filled one with water & one with a fruit tea.
I have wanted to go trekking in Torres del Paine for many years & choose to do it as part of my 60th birthday celebration whilst I'm still fit & able! We are very pleased we choose the O Trek rather than the W Trek as we explored the whole circuit & the first four days from Central to Gray were much quieter & we made friends with some lovely people from all around the world. It was very special. The trek from Gray to Paine Grande was the busiest day on the trail as many people doing the W Trek were doing a day walk there & back. We were also there during peak time. We started the trek on 26th January.
We were very lucky with the weather. We only had one day of rain although it was on the longest day when we trekked over the John Gardner Pass from Los Perros to Gray. We were able to dry our wet clothes by pegging them up in the back porch of our tent & they dried overnight thanks to the wind!
My friend & I enjoyed taking our time every day except on the longest day as we had to be at El Paso ranger hut by 14.00 plus it was raining! We took our time to enjoy the scenery, take photos & we made our packed lunches last most of the day!
We also appreciated having a hot shower every evening except at Los Perros camp which is the most basic camp. Originally we were advised there would be no food provided there but we were offered a simple dinner which consisted of rehydrated food. It was better than nothing!!
It would have been good to have had an extra night at Frances then we could have had a more leisurely trek up to the Mirador Britanico although it would have been backtracking but it was less than 2kms to the Valle del Frances.
The last trek up to Mirador Base Torres was quite emotional. We saw many of the friends we had made on the O Trek plus it was goodbye to an Amazing Memorable Adventure. Thank you Andean Trails for your organization. We have been recommending you to all our friends!
M. Cook and D. Heyburn. Jan 2025, Paine Circuit Self-Guided. UK
» Paine O Circuit Full Trek: Self-Guided
Deb O. and Lisa B., USA, Self-guided Tailormade Patagonia, Feb 2025. There were so many highlights! The summits and glacier excursions were magnificent. We were blessed with great weather most of the time. Having our own guide in Chalten was great and our guide was fantastic! There were a lot of details to this trip and they all came together nicely. The accommodations were very good. Very clean -no complaints. Guides were wonderful. Food was amazing -everything homemade. I think we benefited the local people. We acknowledged their services with appropriate tips and we patronized many local establishments while there. I can’t think of anything right now that I would do differently! Patagonia has been a “bucket list” trip for me. I will turn 60 and retire this year so it was my treat to myself. It was everything I hoped it would be. I hope it doesn’t change with the ever increasing tourism. It’s such a special place. They are very proud of their heritage and it deserves to be preserved. We found Andean Trails online and the e reviews were good and prices reasonable. It was a leap of faith that paid off. Thank you so much for bringing this experience to me.
» Patagonia Highlights Trekking Trip
View All 
