Family Travel: Someone's Got To Do It

Paul Goldstein works for Exodus Travels, an adventure holiday company based in Balham, south London, which organises walking, mountain- biking and overland tours in 74 countries

What's your title?

I don't have a title and I don't believe in them. Titles are for people who have stringent career paths in front of them, which I don't have. But I work in sales and marketing, and I'm also a photographer.

How did you get the job?

I worked for 11 years to get this job in much more uninspiring travel companies. I cut my teeth in telephone sales, and after that I worked in operational roles and retail. Then I worked in Spain and France for two years for a package holiday company.

That was fine, I really enjoyed that. I think it's very important that people who are serious about travel work on both sides of the industry - not just in the UK, but also in a resort or in the Australian Outback or wherever.

However, I finally decided six or seven years ago that package holidays or antiseptic itineraries weren't for me.

Mainstream holiday companies are now offering all kinds of adventure holidays. Does that worry you?

Not in the slightest. It's the one area of travel that's growing. And, most importantly, the soft adventure travel market is really growing. We get people who go for a week walking in Tuscany. That may not sound very adventurous to you or I, but for many that's a quantum leap from the package holiday, and in three years' time they might go and do something in Nepal or Chile or wherever. So I'm not in the slightest concerned. As I've always said, in the travel industry anyone who's good won't be out of a job.

What's the most challenging holiday you sell?

It's got to be either one of the high-altitude walks in Pakistan or Nepal, up to 6,400 metres, or maybe even Aconcagua in South America which reaches 7,000 metres. That is hard, high-altitude walking. Alternatively, maybe one of the overland truck trips in China. I would say something like Tibet and Mongolia, the Roof of the World in China, where the nearest cellular phone is 500 miles away. Those are hard, and often I'll say that to people when they're thinking about it - and that normally swells them, they like that. It's quite a cunning sales tool.

There have been a number of recent tragedies involving adventure holidaymakers, though not clients of Exodus. Is this bad luck, or cutting corners?

I don't think it's cutting corners. When you go to the far-flung corners of the earth, there's a limit to how much organisation and control you can have. They are dreadful accidents, and obviously catastrophic for those involved, but it won't stop people travelling.

Exodus has placed an age limit of under 40 on some overland trips through Africa. How old are you, and will you be past it at 40?

In the past seven years I have rafted the Zambezi 25 times, bungy jumped 15, and run six marathons so, physically, I think I will be fine. However, the reason we have placed an age limit on seven of our 254 tours has nothing to do with the physical side of these trips - long, overland ones in Africa. The four-week African overland expeditions always attract people around the 20 to 35 category (97 per cent actually). We have the clients' interest at heart and don't want anyone feeling isolated - as has apparenly been the case in the past. I am 36, and if I was contemplating a long overland expedition in Africa in five years' time where I was 15 years senior to the next person on the trip, I would certainly feel uncomfortable and therefore look at the other 247 tours on offer.

Where is left in the world that you would like to organise holidays to that you don't at the moment?

It's very difficult, because the moment you start getting self-righteous with tourism and you think that "this is where people should be going", you're going to be out of business fairly quickly. We have our own favourites: the really remote areas of Africa I personally love. I would like to see more in places like Ethiopia, or some areas of South America - Bolivia has not really been harnessed at all. Some areas of Borneo, Sulawesi. I'd like to see travel anywhere where the locals will benefit. That sounds a bit twee, but so often these days Third World countries do not benefit from First World tourism, because all the money gets tied up in international hotel chains.

You're at a party, and someone finds out what you do. What's the question they invariably ask, and how do you answer?

"Where's your favourite area in the world?" And I can't answer it in one, but I'll say a few countries - Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Botswana, Sri Lanka and Peru.

When you have holidays yourself, when and where do you go?

Unfortunately it does often turn out to be a busman's holiday, but if I did have the choice it would probably be one of those countries I've just listed. But as long as it's well off the tourist track I'm happy.