How We Work

Tailormade holidays are holidays made completely bespoke to you. We work with you, to truly understand what you would like from your trip. From the details of your hotel to the expertise of your private guide, every aspect of your holiday works towards bringing the destination to life in a way that means most to you.

It starts by getting paired with your travel specialist. Depending on what region you’d like to visit, a member of our team who’s an expert in the area will get in touch to begin the discovery call. This is where we learn about you, your interests, who will be travelling, what you like to do when you travel and your budget. From there, we start crafting your personalised trip.

You’ll still be a part of the planning journey, like choosing hotels or experiences, but we’ll provide you with the options best suited to your travel party, and options that are exclusive to Scott Dunn. Once we have the outline, we start adding in the tiny details. We will be with you every step of the way, from the pre-departure call to the moment you return home. All that is left to do as a guest is to pack your luggage and show up.

We have strong relationships with suppliers and work at a global scale which allows us to purchase flights, hotel rooms and other services effectively to ensure our guests get the strongest rates. Are you a fan of theology? We can pair you with a private tour of Athens with a theologian, so you not only get a history tour, but a bespoke view of this ancient city that’s tailored to your interests. Is there a specific animal you want to see on safari? We use lodges that employ the local communities who know the land inside and out, and all the animals and their quirks that come with it, giving you the best chance at a sighting.

This is all to say, a tailor-made holiday is really the only way to holiday for you.

To make the entire experience as seamless as possible we’ll arrange all transportation, air or ground. Including train, yacht, private jet or private ground transfers – we can handle it all.

Our prices do include flights; however, it is based on the average flight cost to that destination. So, it is possible the price will be more, or potentially less, at the time of booking due to flight costs changing almost daily.

For your protection, we strongly recommend that you purchase trip cancellation and travel accident insurance, as our services do not provide protection outright.

We ask our guests to inform us of any special dietary requirements or accessibility requirements as soon as possible so we can ensure these are considered when planning your trip, as well as passing these on to our local partners who will use these to ensure the smooth running of your trip.

Yes, our global offices and dedicated emergency phone number mean you can speak directly to a member of our team 24/7, no matter where you are in the world.

Yes, we work with a carefully curated network of local partners, and throughout your stay, you will be provided with contact details of the best people to get in touch with should you require any assistance at all. These may be Scott Dunn staff (in our exclusive Explorers resorts), hotels, or local tour guides (these will depend on each trip and will be outlined in your itinerary documentation).

Our guests’ safety is our number one priority. With this in mind, we work with travel specialist health and safety partners, Sanderson Phillips, ensuring safety is kept at the forefront of everything we do. We also have our own in-house Crisis Management Team, meaning we are there for you should anything ever happen whilst you’re travelling with us.

Our travel specialists are primarily experts in particular regions, like Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Polar regions. However, we do have a dedicated ski team that deals only with ski holidays and a resorts team that handles our Scott Dunn Explorers kids club bookings.

Within each region, our experts specialise in holiday types for those areas. For example, our Africa team are also safari specialists.

We recommend booking your holiday 6-12 months before you plan to travel, depending on the type of holiday you want.

For more resort-styled beach holidays, six months is a good amount of time, with some flexibility to book last minute depending on availability.

For more experiential holidays, such as wildlife and safaris, we recommend at least getting in touch 12 months before you plan to travel. In some cases, 9 months is enough time, depending on availability.

While we do not provide travel insurance, it is a condition of our booking that all guests secure travel insurance before their travel date. This ensures that in the case of any accidents, lost property, cancellations or other unforeseen circumstances, we’re able to support to the best of our ability.

Circumstances can change and cancellations / changes can happen. All your options in these situations are outlined in our Booking Conditions – should you ever have any questions about these or wish to discuss this further, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with your Travel Specialist.

1. Confirming your booking: Once you have decided to book your holiday, please read the Important Information and Booking Conditions. If we are booking flights as part of your itinerary, then full passport details are essential as we need these to confirm all air tickets. Your travel specialist will inform you of the deposit required to secure the holiday. Payment can be made by bank transfer, debit card, or credit card (Visa, Mastercard or American Express). On request, bank transfers can be accepted in Euros, US dollars and Swiss francs to our UK or European based bank accounts.
2. We will acknowledge your payment and book your holiday: Subject to availability and receipt of all applicable payments, we will book your arrangements, process the payment (full balance payment if booking within 3 calendar months of departure) and send a receipt confirmation. Once we have processed your initial payment, a contract between us will come into existence. If, for whatever reason, we are unable to book your holiday exactly as quoted (due to availability or other issues), we will discuss other options and provide a revised quote. If we are unable to provide a suitable alternative, your initial payment will be refunded in full.
3. Confirmation invoice: Once all elements of your booking have been confirmed, we will issue a confirmation invoice detailing all aspects of your holiday, including the itinerary, passenger details, outstanding balance and due date for the final payment. Once your confirmation invoice has been issued you may not able to make any changes without potentially incurring additional charges.
4. Final balance payment: Three calendar months before your holiday departs, the final balance is due. Payment can be made by way of bank transfer or debit card. Credit cards are accepted for final balances but a charge of 2-3% (depending on the card type) will be added to the invoice to cover the charges levied by credit card companies. We choose not to build this charge into our prices, as the majority of our guests pay by bank transfer or debit card and we believe that it would be unfair to indirectly charge them a levy.
5. Final travel documents: Approximately 2 weeks before you travel, your final documents will be sent to your email, unless otherwise discussed.