KUDU Expeditions gone to the hay or here to stay ?

[stuxtttr]

Just nothiced that Lee of Kudu is selling off lots of expedition truck,bikes etc on ebay, it mentions that he has sold the company.

So before you comit to an expensive trip you should maybe check them out further.

I know there has been some nightmare experiences in the past with other companies where punters lost all their money.

I did check their website and all seems to be ok so maybe he has just sold the name to someone else.

It may be nothing but check it out before you pay out !

[Dick]

Just out of interest, what is he selling ?

I can't find any Ebay stuff of his

[stuxtttr]

Toyota Landcruiser all kitted out and then lots of spares etc.

[kuduexped]

Just to advise Kudu Expeditions are still up and running after I purchased the company from Lee Mears this year, Lee has successfully run the company for 5 years and it is my intention to take it on to another level, Kudu now has the support of Yamaha with a fleet of 660 Teneres ready for the 2011 season which is filling up fast.
I can't speak for other tour operatours but let me assure you that Kudu Expeditions has always abided by the Tour Operators Regulations and all monies are held safely in a Client Account.
Thank you all past present and future Kudu customers for your support we will be at the MCN Motorcycle show 3-6th Febuary 2011 Stand N223 please feel free to come along and have a chat.
Jeff Kill
Kudu Expeditions Director.

[lager88]

I recently completed a trip with the new Kudu. It was from London to Mongolia.

The group of travellers were great and the support team were excellent but the owner not so much.

I cannot recommend to anyone to use this company. I understand that under the previous owner it was slick operation but not anymore.

The new owner has no business being in the industry. None.

He had no idea of the distances. Most days they were wrong. The waypoints for the end of the day were wrong most days. He planned the trip using google earth! Seriously. He had not been there before.

A few times we were riding off-road until well past midnight. Very dangerous.

The food was appalling. His attitude was appalling. There were very few spares. He made a mess of visa dates for a few of the riders then blamed them. He was rude and truculent. Generally he was offensive.

There was no satelite phone!

He carried very limited spares. The support trucks were so slow the significantly held up the trip so much so we missed a few nights in hotels.
When after 5 days we did get to a city we stayed at this dump with one working shower between 18 very dirty riders.

I could go on and on but it just makes me angry thinking about the money I wasted.

Go with someone else.

Oh and I almost forgot. This a message for Yamaha who supplied the bikes. Mine did 12,000km from brand new on the original oil. The owner refused to change the oil on any of the bikes. He stated that they will last long enough and then he will get rid of them. Just keep that in mind if you are thinking of buying a Kudu bike. The engine will have been destroyed.

Regards

[LDRider]

I also took place on the above trip from London to Ulaanbaatar. Undoubtedly there were a number of issues with the logistic support on the trip but given the change in ownership I think that we were effectively used as guinea-pigs. Had this been fully disclosed up-front (and appropriate rebates allowed) then I think the owner would have come out of this much better. Choice of support vehicles and size of the group both contributed to the issues and should be checked-out by future potential participants.
Group riding always involves some compromises but ultimately if it had not been for Kudu I am unlikely to have made this particular trip.

• Am I glad I went on this trip? Absolutely.
• Was it the ride of a lifetime? Yes.
• Are all my motorcycling colleagues eaten-up by jealousy? You bet.
• Will the images I saw on the trip remain with me for the rest of my life? Oh yes.

Travelling across Siberian Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia is never going to be an exercise in luxury travel. These countries require hard-core riding and an willingness to react positively to events as they unfold. Let's face it even Ewen and Charlie-boy had their ups and downs despite their gold-plated logistic support. Quite frankly the ability to ride vast sections without the need to carry all the gear on the bikes was a real advantage to being able to enjoy the ride.

There is no doubt you can do this cheaper on your own but for me the safety-net provided was an acceptable trade-off.

It was far from perfect but it was still a blast.

[Walkabout]

There is a fascinating contrast between the last two posts about Kudu.
Having taken the very same trip, they have very different feelings, and conclusions, about the experience.

IMO this stems from the expectations of the participants; one man's meat is another mans' poison, in summary.
It reminds me of the second-hand information I have heard in conversations about Nick Sanders various "expeditions" - people seem to either love it or hate it, with no middle ground.

Maybe there is scope in the HUBB for considered feedback about organised tour operators? Could be based on fact or simply on the individuals' perceptions??

Oh yea, and they are both first time posts spread over a few months.

[motoreiter]

Tour operators have to cater to a clientele with an impossible wide range of tastes and appetite for "adventure". On any trip you can probably guarantee that half the people will be complaining about the crappy lodging, with the other half complaining that they are staying in hotels and not camping. I could never run one of these tours...

[Jackb]

Hi to anyone considering trip with Kudu Expeditions,

I'd like to post a review of the current Kudu Expeditions operation. I was on the 2013 Trans Africa (London to Cape Town, cancelled in Point Noire, Congo).

I cannot recommend this company to anyone. Poorly organised and just as poorly executed. The website implies that they have experience in Africa and it did not take long to realise that was clearly not the case. Often the customers were left to organise things that Kudu had been paid to do. The current Kudu has never run this tour, a fact that was not mentioned when taking customers money....
The owner lied about customer numbers (only two, not four, or six), lied about experience in Africa on his website, lied on the website saying that the guides had experience with every mile we would travel.
Basically the trip was a race between major African cities and then trying to organise the next visa. We really did nothing touristy. Honestly, Africa for two and a half months and barely saw any wildlife. We never really left the beaten track, hardly camped and certainly did not experience the trip advertised on the Kudu website. It was probably 95% sealed roads and a lot of sitting around in capital cities.
Nothing was done by Kudu to ensure customers had a good experience. A four month trip through Africa should have been a trip of a lifetime but I really just feel shortchanged by an unscrupulous operator.
The trip was cancelled halfway through due to the incompetence of Kudu not organising visas for Angola and apparently there are 'no refunds available' though I am pursuing other options.
The only way operators like this can be drummed out of the industry is if customers stop using them. Kudu offers dreams, takes your money, barely tries to deliver, fails to compete the trip and then lies about refunds.
I hope this post is not removed as potential customers need to be warned what they are getting themselves into with Kudu.

[*Touring Ted*]

JackB.. Sorry to hear you have such a bad experience.

If you had read up on people's opinions and experiences of Overland travel on the Hubb you wouldn't of booked one in the first place.

You quite simply don't need a chaperone. Be your own boss. There are so many travellers about to make friends and ride with if you prefer company.

[roamingyak]

Originally Posted by Jackb

I'd like to post a review of the current Kudu Expeditions operation. I was on the 2013 Trans Africa (London to Cape Town, cancelled in Point Noire, Congo).

I'm not involved in anyway, I don't know any of these people or companies and am generally 'against' organised tours to places I like to travel to. I have spent a lot of time driving around Africa. My thoughts to your post are:

"Basically the trip was a race between major African cities and then trying to organise the next visa."
Yes, this is the west coast route if you only have a few months. People won't book on longer trips so tour operators have to make them shorter and shorter. It is not a tourist friendly area and a lot of time, effort, sweat, planning, pissing about and money goes into getting the next visa. Look at some of the detailed threads trying to plan it out:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...nfo-hows-68265

"We really did nothing touristy"
There is very little 'tourism' in West Africa or Central Africa. Were you expecting safari parks like in Kenya? AfricaDisney? It is a wonderful area to explore and enjoy just being there and seeing how things are. If you want to sit around complaining there is nothing famous to take a Facebook picture next to then you'll be happy. If you want to go and make friends with the woman selling carrots in the market and spend the morning talking to her and her customers then you'll be richer for the experience. What were your expectations of West Africa? Did you do any research of your own before you booked?

"Honestly, Africa for two and a half months and barely saw any wildlife."
Thats because you were in West & Central Africa where 99% of it has been killed already. Clearly expectations were not correct. If you had made it to Namibia, Botswana and SA then you would have had plenty of wildlife. Two and a half/four months is not much time on African time to cover that huge distance. Most independent people take 1 year down the West Coast.

"The trip was cancelled halfway through due to the incompetence of Kudu not organising visas for Angola"
Barring the likes of North Korea, Angola is probably the hardest country in the world to get any sort of visa for. Coming down the west coast this has been a serious problem for a few years. I very much doubt it was due to incompetence, most likely Angola not wanting tourists so making it virtually impossible to get a visa (my own experience *2). Read all the threads of misery in the African section, plenty of people stuck in Congo for months trying. Other overland trips were also stopped in Congo. I meet an overland driver being flown to rescue a truck stuck in Congo for quite a few months, clients had been flown to Namibia after 5 weeks of waiting.

Sometimes a tour company can't shield you from all of the realities of the trip you have paid to be sheltered from.

"The only way operators like this can be drummed out of the industry is if customers stop using them. Kudu offers dreams, takes your money, barely tries to deliver, fails to compete the trip and then lies about refunds."
I do hope so as well, but mainly because like many independent travellers in Africa I find it an unpleasant experience when a truck load of well meaning (mostly) but ignorant self important Facebook travellers turn up where I am staying and proceed to noisily take over and generally strut around like they own the place when they have no idea of the realities of where they are or how they got there or how to interact with locals and so forth...

(Thats a bit harsh, the one overland truck I meet coming down the west coast was full of nice people, many woman who didn't feel they could backpack solo etc and nice drivers etc.

But most overlanders groan when a overland truck pulls in due to the "I paid for this, I'm entitled to what my expectations are!!" attitude that fits so well with the realities of African over landing ;-)

[Jackb]

I hear where your coming from and it would be great to have to the time to organise and execute a trip privately. The fact is I purchased a product from Kudu that only vaguely met the product they advertised. The trip was cut short by Kudu and I'm out about £11k due to Kudu not honouring the refund they promised. I was sucked in by a glitzy website and feel like a fool. I'm just trying to inform others who may be looking to go the same way that this company is not professional or honourable.
P.s I'm not on Facebook. I've done plenty of solo travel but I looked at this trip and thought it'll be good for once to pay someone else to do the organising. Its certainly the last 'organised' trip I'll be on.

[*Touring Ted*]

Well as they're a UK company ??

You could simply take them to court. If a company offers something, takes your money and then doesn't deliver, then they are breaching their sale agreement.

However, I'm sure they had you sign a disclaimer in the event this happened ??


I don't think you could get anything back just because you didn't enjoy the trip, but if they promised to get you from A-B-C-D and you only to B, then that could be quite simple in the eyes of a small claims court.