GeoWorld Travel

After a few weeks off, we’re delighted to be starting our latest geological tour in… Iceland!🇮🇸 Our group met up this evening and, yet again, we are very fortunate that our tour has coincided with a volcanic eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula. James arrived in Iceland yesterday & managed to get a few spectacular shots of the volcano🌋 We can’t wait to start the tour proper tomorrow!

On Wednesday evening, we arrived back in Geneva having completed our ‘Alpine Adventure’ trip around the Swiss Alps🇨🇭. We were fortunate enough to see some absolutely breath-taking scenery and plenty of fascinating geology. It was a great pleasure to travel with a great group of people! Following on from our mid-trip post, here are 40 more captioned photos showing the highlights of the whole trip. Switzerland was as geologically interesting and beautiful as ever and we can’t wait to return in 2026!
If you would like to be with us on the 2026 trip, please make contact and we can ensure that you are the first to know when dates/prices are confirmed.

We are at the halfway point of our 'Alpine Adventure' trip to Switzerland! 🇨🇭 So far our group have journeyed from Geneva to Zermatt via Neuchâtel, Interlaken, Lucerne, Glarus and Fiesch. Today the group are enjoying spending time in the shadow of the Matterhorn, but they have already enjoyed some fabulous Alpine scenery and have seen plenty of Switzerland's wonderfully complex geology! Here are some photos from the first half of the trip. 📸

If you would like to join us in Switzerland, we will be returning in 2026. Please make contact if you would like to be informed when dates/prices are confirmed and booking is open.

https://youtu.be/JOgc8GtWswU

James Creswell- Isle of Skye volcanics James Creswell of GeoWorld Tours talks about the Paleogene volcanic rocks in the Isle of skye accessable by ferry

https://youtu.be/bi1aOCftaRA

James Creswell-Jurassic Dinosaur Tracks dinosaur tracks at Brothers Point Scotland

https://youtu.be/G4XWhm2tUiA?si=Tx1SlrzRUbV9WO6d

James Creswell: Scotland's billion year unconformity James Creswell of GeoWorld Travel talks about the billion year time gap between the billion year old Torridonian sandstone and 3 billion year old Lewissian g...

Our Scotland 2024 trip has begun! The first touring day was today, and the first stop was Siccar Point. Siccar Point is regarded by many as being the world's most important geosite because it is here in 1788 that James Hutton stared into the abyss of geological time and the science of geology was born.

Whilst we are looking forward to the start of our Scotland trip tomorrow, we also have a GeoWorld Travel group out in Namibia at the moment! The 2024 Northern Namibia trip concludes in Windhoek on Wednesday, but today the group are in the Etosha National Park, enjoying some wildlife alongside the geology! Here are a few photos shared by the group from the trip so far.
If you are interested in joining us in Namibia, the trip will be running again in 2025 (29th May - 11th June) and we will shortly be confirming the price and opening booking. If you are interested in the trip, then please let us know and we can contact you as soon as booking is open. Details of the trip are in the comments below.

📸As promised, here is Part Two of the trip album from our recent South Africa 🇿🇦 trip. The second part of the trip had more wonderful geology sites, including gold and diamond mines, and some of the world's oldest rocks in Barberton, but one of the non-geological highlights was a game drive in Kruger National Park - what a treat!
We will be returning to South Africa in March 2025 - the link to the itinerary can be found in the comments below. Booking will be open shortly, once the price has been finalised. If you are interested in joining us, do let us know, as places are already being reserved!

It's hard to believe that it's nearly two months since we got back from South Africa! 🇿🇦 It was a great trip taking us all the way from Cape Town to Johannesburg. Now that we have edited and sorted the photos, we are pleased to be able to share Part One of the fully-captioned trip album with you. We hope that you will agree it's a really stunning place with some fabulous geology. We will be sharing Part Two of the trip album in the next few days...

📸If these beautiful pictures spark your interest, then you might be interested to know that we will be returning to South Africa in March 2025. The itinerary is now published on our website and the link is in the comments below.

On Saturday we completed our 2024 England and Wales trip! After our previous, mid-trip post, we travelled further into Wales and visited many great geological sites in Wales and the Welsh borderlands. We visited the type areas for the Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian periods, we visited industrial World Heritage Sites and we enjoyed the wonderful mountainous scenery. There was even time to search for a few of our own trilobites! Here are the highlights of the second half of the trip.
If you would like to join us on future trips, please do get in touch. We hope to be able to announce dates for a repeat England/Wales trip in 2025 very shortly...

And just like that, we are halfway through our England & Wales trip! The group arrived in the picturesque town of Crickhowell this evening, ready to start exploring the geology of Wales in the morning! So far, the group has been treated to some fantastic geological sites (and, thankfully, some lovely spring weather!) Here are some photos of the highlights from the first five full touring days...

Our England & Wales tour is underway! James met the latest group of GeoWorld Travellers at a Heathrow Airport hotel yesterday and they set off this morning. First stop was the iconic site of Stonehenge, followed by a guided tour of the fantastic The Etches Collection museum, by Steve Etches himself. The day then concluded with a visit to Kimmeridge Beach on the Jurassic Coast before heading to tonight's hotel, a short distance from Corfe Castle. Tomorrow, the group will return to the Jurassic Coast for three more days exploring this most geologically interesting of World Heritage Sites. We look forward to sharing more photos and updates with you as the tour progresses!

The South Africa Pioneers trip is completed! Im at Johannesburg airport on my way home. Here are some pictures from the second half of the trip.

Guess where GeoWorld Travel is this week?! We're in....

🇿🇦SOUTH AFRICA!🇿🇦

Yes, James is leading a group of intrepid 'pioneers' (six previous GeoWorld Travel customers) on a trial run of our new tour to explore the world-class geology of this beautiful country. The tour started in Cape Town a week ago today and it ends in Johannesburg next Tuesday. We will be working on the final itinerary on James' return, taking into consideration the feedback from our pioneers, and we hope to have the trip ready for booking in just a few weeks' time! The 14-day tour is likely to be run in March 2025 - dates to be confirmed very soon. Our outline itinerary for the trial run tour can be seen on the link in the comments below. In the meantime though, here are some photos from the first half of the trip to whet your appetite! 📸 We think you'll agree that it's a pretty special geological destination!
If you would like to be notified of the details of the 2025 trip as soon as they are available, please make contact and we'll add you to the list.

This time last week, our tour of the Canary Islands came to an end. We spent seven fabulous days exploring geological sites on the islands of Tenerife, La Gomera and La Palma. We stood on top of Mount Teide, we went into a lava cave, we witnessed the destruction caused by the 2021 eruption on La Palma and we examined outcrops of pillow basalts from an emerging seamount! These were just a few highlights of a trip packed with fascinating geology and wonderful volcanic island scenery. Here are 50 of the best photos from the trip.
If you would like to join us in the Canary Islands, we will be returning in December 2025 - we hope to see you then!

We can hardly believe that the Canary Islands trip is over halfway through! There has been so much to see that time has really flown by and we have just two days left on La Palma before returning to Tenerife to conclude the tour on Tuesday! We have already had two days exploring on La Palma and we've had the opportunity to see the Tajogaite volcano, which erupted back in 2021, up close. Here are a few photos from the last couple of days.
If you would like to join us on our next trip to the Canary Islands, we will be returning in December 2025.

No sooner had we returned from Oman than we were off again! This time to the dramatic, volcanic Canary Islands. The GeoWorld Travel group arrived on Tenerife on Monday and the first full touring day yesterday saw a visit to the majestic Mount Teide, with some of the group even taking the hike right to the summit, at 3,715m above sea level. After visiting some more sites on Tenerife today, the group took the ferry over to the beautiful island of La Gomera. They started their exploration of the island's geology this afternoon and will continue tomorrow. Here are a few photos of the highlights of the first two days.

We've had a little time to catch our breath, unpack our suitcases and process our photos, so now it's time to share our favourite photos from the recent trip to Oman! As always, it's been so hard to edit the photos down as we saw so many great sites. Hopefully this selection of captioned photos will give you a good overview of the trip and a summary of the fabulous geology we saw.
Don't forget that if you are inspired by these photos and would like to join us in Oman, we will be back there in 2025 (21st - 30th January). A link to details of the trip is in the comments below.

And that's a wrap! Our first tour of 2024 completed! Our guests enjoyed a farewell meal in our hotel in Muscat this evening, as the 'Ocean Crust & Mountains of Mantle' tour of Oman officially finishes tomorrow morning. Some guests will be staying on to enjoy a city tour of Muscat, provided by our logistics partners Golden Highlands Tourism, whilst others will be making their way home. We will be sharing more fully-captioned photos in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, here are a couple of photos from the last few days.
Don't forget that if you would like to join us next year, we will be coming back to Oman in January 2025. Details of the trip are in the comments below.

Time flies when you're having fun looking at fabulous geological features! We're already halfway through our Oman trip and our group are having a great time exploring the wonderful geology that the country has to offer. Tonight the group is staying at the Wahiba Bedouin Camp and they are learning about the Bedouin culture. Here are a few captioned photos from the trip so far.

Our 2024 season has begun! James arrived in Muscat earlier today to meet our group for the 2024 'Ocean Crust & Mountains of Mantle' tour of Oman. We are looking forward to showcasing the wonderful geological sites that Oman has to offer. Our route will take us from Muscat, to Sohar, then to Nizwa, on to Sharqiya Sands (Wahiba Sands), and then over to the coast at Sur before returning to Muscat. Our guests will see exceptional examples of ophiolite, sheath folds, pillow basalts and snowball earth deposits, as well as the Moho and the stunning 'mother of all outcrops'. We will be sharing pictures from the trip in the coming days.
If you would like to join us in Oman, we will be returning next year from 21st-30th January 2025 and we still have places available - details in the comments below.
📸 Top: the 2023 group in front of the Moho in Wadi al Abjad
📸 Bottom: the 2023 group at the 'mother of all outcrops'

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Looking forward to 2024, we have another packed schedule and we are pleased to say that nearly all trips are already fully booked - thank you also to those of you who have booked to travel with us next year. Due to the popularity of our trips, we are releasing a number of dates for 2025 and these trips will shortly be open for booking:

Oman: 21st - 30th January 2025
Germany: 3rd - 11th April 2025
Scotland: 29th May - 6th June 2025
Northern Namibia: 29th May - 12th June 2025
Iceland: 24th June - 2nd July 2025
USA: 16th - 26th September 2025
Morocco: 10th - 20th November 2025
Canary Islands: 8th - 16th December 2025

We plan to add dates for trips in 2025 to South Africa, the Shetland Islands, Southern Namibia and Nepal as well.

We wanted to start our last post of 2023 with a huge THANK YOU!

Thank you to everyone who joined us on trips this year, thank you to everyone who has travelled with us in previous years, thank you to those of you who read our newsletters and thank you to those of you who engage with our social media posts. We truly appreciate the support of each and every one of you.

As we reflect on 2023, we are delighted to have delivered 12 geology-packed trips to a wide variety of locations, visiting a huge range of geological features.

We send you all our very best wishes for a happy and peaceful Christmas and a healthy and adventurous new year!

James, Abby & the team

📷 Iceberg arch im Scoresby Sund

As the year is approaching its end, James and Abby would like to share their personal GeoWorld Travel highlight moments. This is Abby's:

“As I spend a lot of time at the computer writing emails and booking hotels, it was great to get out and join no less than three GeoWorld Travel trips in 2023: Scotland, the USA and Germany. My highlight would have to be seeing the sunrise in Arches National Park on the USA tour. I’m most definitely not a morning person(!), but this was totally worth the early start! We drove into the park in the dark and parked up, walking up to a vantage point opposite Delicate Arch. The atmosphere was serene – a wonderful, rich silence in this most magnificent place with such stunning natural rock formations. As the sun made its way up, the light was changing all the time and we just sat and watched this amazing show put on for us by nature. This could be my new favourite breakfast location of all time!”

📷 1: Delicate Arch at dawn. Nearly 2,000 sandstone arches can be found within the Arches National Park as well as spires, hoodoos, fins, salt valleys, canyons, and graben valleys.

📷 2: Abby at Double Arch.

As our travel year has come to an end, we thought it would be fun to share with you a few GeoWorld Travel stats. This is what we look back on in 2023:

We spent 616 nights in hotels, as we visited 10 countries on 4 continents with 140 customers from 14 different nationalities. Of those, 52 guests were previous customers and 88 people chose to travel with us for the first (and hopefully not last!) time. Almost every second guest (47 %) was from the USA and the average age of all our guests was 64.

We offset 28 tonnes of carbon.

Abby sent 2229 (lovely) emails.

James took 4121 (incredible) photos.

We thank all of you and all our guests for your continued interest, support, and company!

As the year is approaching its end, James and Abby would like to share their personal GeoWorld Travel highlight moments. First up, James:

"My highlight of 2023 would definitely have to be taking a GeoWorld Travel group on an expedition cruise to Greenland for the first time in August. It was a real achievement for me to bring a group of my customers on to the voyage, as I had worked as an expedition guide on these ships for a number of years before setting up GeoWorld Travel. Of course, it was also an opportunity to showcase the wonderful geology of East Greenland to my GeoWorld Travel group. For me, this is my favourite destination to see geology anywhere on the planet. It was also the largest GeoWorld Travel group that I had taken on a trip, but we still enjoyed a close-knit group camaraderie! I hope to return to Greenland with another group in the not too distant future.”



📷 1: James points to bands of garnets and sheets of augen granite in Øfjord. 915 million years ago in the late stage of the Grenville Orogeny these rocks were partially melted.

📷 2: The GeoWorld Travel group stands on granite on Danmark Ø.

📷 3: Banded dolomites of the Ymer Ø Group in Segelsällskapet Fjord with Berzelius Bjerg in the background.

The Vatnajökull National Park in Iceland is designated as UNESCO World Heritage Site. At its center is the Vatnajökull ice cap, the second largest permanent ice cap in Europe (780,000 ha). 8 of the 10 volcanoes in the national park are subglacial. As such, the national park portrays the remarkable interplay of magma, lithosphere and tectonics, cryosphere and atmosphere, resulting in highly dynamic geological processes and diverse landscapes.

📷 Fjallsárlón glacier and glacial lagoon in the Vatnajökull National Park UNESCO World Heritage Site, Iceland

#

The Garajonay National Park is designated as UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its unique vegetation with rich forests that are relict ecosystems, living remnants of the old rainforests and warm temperate forests that occupied much of Europe and North Africa during the Tertiary. Rain from the west feeds numerous springs and streams that are responsible for the lush vegetation. The forest hosts a high number of endemic, often threatened, plant and animal species. Due to the high humidity, it oftentimes is foggy and appears mystical.

📷 Laurel Forest in Garajonay National Park UNESCO World Heritage Site, La Gomera, Canary Island