HOLIDAY LAUNCH:SINGLE-PARENT families will have a new way of embarking on worldwide adventure tours next year.
Launching its 2009-10 brochure this week, adventure-tour specialist Explore announced new single-parent adventures, following research that showed that more than 30 per cent of adults on Explore's family adventures travel on their own: a mixture of solo parents, grandparents and single parents.
The tours will allow single or solo-travelling parents to spend time with other parents travelling alone in an informal atmosphere, while the children bond and enjoy themselves.
Five new destinations, including Gambia, Malawi and Slovakia, have also been added to Explore's family adventure brochure, plus 13 new itineraries, bringing the number of adventure tours to 430 in more than 135 countries.
Among the new treks for 2009 are Mount Damavand in Iran, Israel's Negev Desert, Kyoto and the Japanese Alps, and the Moroccan desert.
Explore Worldwide customers tend to be in their mid-40s, active and looking to learn while travelling. Adventure- holiday customers also tend to be quite culturally aware and very open to new experiences, according to a company spokeswoman.
"The Explore family-adventure customer is thirsty for discovery and looking for something other than the bucket-and-spade type of holiday, something where both they and their children will learn new experiences," she says