Who we are, and what we are bad at
A small operator working in one country. Here is how the trips are put together, who puts them together, and the four kinds of work we do badly.
What we do
We plan and run trips in Laos. Not Southeast Asia, not Indochina, not the Mekong region - Laos, and only Laos. Everything on this website is a route we run ourselves with our own guides and drivers, rather than a product bought from a wholesaler and resold with a logo on it.
The trips are private departures on your dates, or small group departures capped at eight travellers. There are eight of them in the catalogue and roughly eight in ten of the trips we actually run are a modified version of one of those eight.
The four mechanisms
Rather than describe ourselves with adjectives, here are the four decisions that make our trips different from a cheaper quote. Each of them is something you can verify.
Eight, and then we close
A departure stops selling at eight travellers. Eight fits one vehicle with the back row free and one boat without anyone on the roof. Above that you need two of everything and the trip becomes logistics.
Guides on a fixed day rate
Lao, licensed, and paid whether you buy anything or not. It is the single mechanism that removes the reason commission stops exist.
No shopping stops
No gem shop, no silk factory, no whisky village bottle line, no coffee showroom. You will still meet weavers and coffee farmers; there will not be a till at the exit.
We name the bad months
Late February to April is burning season. We will move your dates or rebuild your itinerary rather than sell you a landscape trip into haze.
What we are bad at
Every operator page should have this section and almost none do. Four things we do badly enough that you should go elsewhere.
- Groups above eight. We will decline rather than split you into two vehicles and call it small-group travel. We are happy to tell you who handles groups of twelve to thirty properly, and we get nothing for the referral.
- Multi-country itineraries. We plan and run the Laos portion and we will help you time the borders, but we do not sell Vietnam, Cambodia or Thailand. Operators who sell four countries know one of them well.
- Luxury as a category. We book the best rooms available in each town, and in half the towns on our itineraries the best available room is a nice small hotel. If a uniform five-star trip is the requirement, Laos is not the country and we are not the operator.
- Last-minute high season. Asking us in late November for December dates in Luang Prabang usually means the twenty or so hotels that make the difference are already full, and we would rather say so than book you into the ones that are not.
Why there are no reviews on this site
Because you cannot check them. Testimonials on an operator's own website are selected by the operator, unverifiable by the reader and trivially fabricated, and we do not think putting five of them in a carousel tells you anything.
What we offer instead: ask us to put you in touch with two or three people from your own country who have taken the trip you are looking at, and talk to them directly without us in the conversation. Nobody who is confident in their trips should refuse that, and we have never had a traveller decline to be a reference.
We also do not publish awards we have not won, a founding year we cannot document, or a number of happy customers. If a figure appears anywhere on this site, we can show you where it comes from.
How the trips are actually put together
- We drive the routes ourselves before they go on this website, and again when something material changes - a road, a dam, a hotel changing hands.
- We use regional guides. A guide who grew up in Xieng Khouang knows things about the Plain of Jars that study does not replace, and the same is true in the Nam Ou valley and the south.
- We name every hotel in a quote. No "3-star or similar", because that phrase is what permits a substitution downwards after you have paid.
- We write down what is wrong with your request. Every quote we send contains a paragraph on what we think you have got wrong, which is usually the pace. Some people do not like it. It is still the most useful thing in the document.
The company
Beyond Laos is a small, independently owned tour operator working in Lao PDR. Our company details, licence and registration numbers appear in the footer of every page and on the booking terms, and we are happy to send documentation to anyone who asks before paying a deposit.
If you would like to talk to a person rather than fill in a form, the numbers and addresses are on the contact page, and a human answers them during Lao business hours and around the clock while you are travelling with us.
Ask us something difficult
Send the awkward question - about price, about a competitor's quote, about whether your dates are a mistake. That is the conversation we are good at.
Questions travellers ask most
Are you a Lao company?
Yes, licensed and registered in Lao PDR, with our guides and drivers employed or contracted here rather than subcontracted to a third party.
Our registration and licence numbers are in the footer and on the booking terms page.
Why should we not just book locally on arrival?
For a day trip from Luang Prabang, you can and it will be fine. For a multi-region trip in high season, the hotels and the good guides are taken, and you will be choosing from what is left.
The other difference is what happens when something goes wrong at 22:00 in a town you do not know.
Can we speak to previous travellers?
Yes. Ask, and we will connect you with two or three from your own country who took the trip you are considering. We stay out of the conversation.
It is a better test than any review page, and it is the reason we do not have one.
What happens if you cannot deliver something you sold us?
The fix happens first - our guides are authorised to spend money to solve a problem without calling the office - and the accounting happens afterwards.
If the trip was materially worse than what you bought, we refund the difference, calculated from supplier costs rather than the headline price.
Read next
Tell us what you want out of Laos
Dates, party size and the places you care about are enough to start. You get a draft route and an indicative price, not a brochure.