Dear Expeditions India Friends,
We hope this email finds you navigating smoothly during these challenging times. We apologize for our silence over the past few months. Like many of you, we have been focused on managing day to day, with our business shut and our young daughter out of school, while COVID-19 cases increase all around us. We have been all together at our home, where we are grateful to have a garden to play in and fresh air to breathe.
Like all of you, we have been waiting and watching as the situation unfolds. India now ranks second in the world in number of confirmed COVID-19 cases. We have watched as Uttarakhand government officials have made challenging decisions trying to balance the economic needs with the health and safety needs of their constituents. They finally decided to open up adventure sports, including rafting, in the state in the beginning of October, and tourists are flocking to Rishikesh.
We know that river trips naturally lend themselves to social distancing and that research has shown that COVID-19 transmission risk is low in the outdoors. Still, we have hesitated to open our doors until we felt confident that we could do our absolute best to mitigate COVID-19 risks of transmission to our clients, our staff, and to the communities we travel through. We have put together detailed COVID-19 Health and Safety Guidelines outlining our approach and are ready to open again under these policies. We are focusing on smaller trips, such as our Ganga Full Day or Ganga Three Day trips, as well as our Kayak Sessions, with fewer clients, less travel time, and strict hygiene practices in place.
Our doors open in mid-November. We know this is late in the season, and we also know that a lot of you are not ready to travel yet. Indeed, it's unlikely we'll see any of our international friends on the river for a long time. So for our friends from surrounding areas, and for those who have direct flights to Dehradun, you're invited to join us on the river. Since we are yearning to get back outside, we assume that most of you all are too. And let's not forget the multiple benefits of spending time outdoors, especially now! Crisp mountain air, fresh river water and soothing sunsets sound like the perfect antidote to a year like 2020.
We hope to open up more multi-day trips in Spring 2021. Until then, for many of us, it's time to "dream now and travel later". We will keep you posted as things progress. As this global pandemic stretches on much longer than many of us anticipated, we wish you all good health and as much fresh air and outdoor time as you can manage.
Anvesh and Ing-Marie
P.S. Access our full newsletter here.