FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE TROPICAL BIRDING STAFF AND GUIDES HERE
A level of expertise is not needed to join our trips, but enthusiasm is
Our goal is to have as many people getting as much joy out of birding as possible. Although our guides can hold their own anywhere in the world, you will never feel intimidated by our guides or other clients. They all understand that the trip is about seeing birds and having a great time, not by showing how great we are to others.
Most of our trips are in the tropics
The world is filled with incredible birding destinations, so we have decided to concentrate on those areas that can be tricky for most people to visit alone. The tropics support 80% of the world’s bird species, and the diversity and numbers of birds can at times be overwhelming. Birding can be tough with many similar species in the same flock, and with others so secretive that they can only be located by voice. We have built up a storehouse of knowledge on where to find some of the world’s rarest birds, and our tours offer the finest birding on the planet. You will finish your trip not only with plenty of birds, but also with a real understanding for the areas you have visited. We also do many trips to other areas outside the tropics, but all these sites are ones where we think that we can really add value to your birding experience.
What makes TB Different? Let Winnie from Texas tell you!
We find the gems and polish them
Our focus is on finding talented people from extremely varied backgrounds who we train to be the best guides all over the world regardless of what they look like or what passport they carry. Once trained to become a Tropical Birding Leader, the guides all work in a variety of countries and most are able to lead on two or three continents. The egos are left elsewhere but the varied personalities and characters combine to form a guiding culture that is as at home in Africa as it is in the Americas. When you are with a Tropical Birding guide, you understand that the trip is about you seeing as many birds as possible while having a great time.
Even kids love us!
Guiding is not a part time job
Too many times have we come across groups with leaders who do not know the birds well enough. Doing this once a year as an alternative holiday is just not acceptable in most cases. People paying for the services of a tour leader deserve the expertise of a world-class professional. Our guides spend more time in the field than they do at home. In fact, for some of them, the field is home. Not only do they know the birds and the areas we visit as well as anyone else in the world, they also understand that it is your holiday, not theirs.
We live where the birds are
Satisfied clients often ask us why we have such reasonable prices. The answer is simple: our main offices are in Ecuador, Taiwan and South Africa, where we not only save on operational costs and negotiate preferential rates with local agents, but we are completely up to date with the logistics of local operations. By keeping our costs down we pass the savings on to you without any sacrifice in quality. This is something US and UK based operators simply cannot achieve. We have staff from six continents, and our full time leaders live in Africa, Australia, North America, South America, and Asia where they guide on a regular basis, giving them unsurpassed local knowledge in the areas they visit.
Families love us!
We are the company that actively supports bird conservation
We do not just give lip-service to protecting the threatened birds our livelihoods depend on; we are active in all aspects of bird conservation. This not only involves generation of funds for purchase of endangered habitats, but also includes consulting for conservation organizations, training guides, and establishing the avitourism industry in developing nations. One project that some of our staff members are near fanatical about is getting more people into casual birding. There are no short term payoffs to our guides for this, but we believe to our very core that getting more people into birding is the ultimate way to get more people to preserve these creatures.
We offer the best value birding tours on the market
We have managed to strike a balance by providing world-class tours without charging outrageous prices. While this is not the means by which we differentiate ourselves from the other operators, it is a pleasant side-effect of being the most efficient operator in our target destinations. A quick comparison with other companies will show that while we still stay at the best lodges and have top guides, we retain our more competitive prices.
We are an accountant’s nightmare
If bird tourism was only about profit or margins we would have never become the size we are. Much of the time Tropical Birding guides are off guiding free trips, short walks for beginners, giving free workshops on bird identification or presenting talks about working around the world. The idea of being able to do projects such as Birding High Island with Houston Audubon Society is far more of a draw card to keep our guides excited than just a pay check. We spend our spare time creating catalyst events where we try to introduce as many people as possible to this lifestyle we call birding.
Tropical Birding “frequent birder” program
If you take three Tropical Birding set-departure tours, you will receive a 10% discount on your next tour, up to a maximum of $400.
Please note: the 10% discount is based on the double-room price, and this offer does not apply to customized tours due to their special pricing.
