BOOKING CONDITIONS

BOOKING CONDITIONS

How a Foxpels journey works

Last updated: March 2026

These Booking Conditions describe how a journey is delivered — what is included, how accommodation and transport are arranged, what you need to carry, and what happens on the ground. They form part of your contract with Earth Abroad Private Limited.

They sit alongside the Booking Terms and Conditions, which govern the contract itself — payment, liability, cancellation rights and remedies. Where these Booking Conditions and the Booking Terms and Conditions differ on any point, the Booking Terms and Conditions govern.

1. What a Foxpels journey is

1.1 Every journey is designed in-house and delivered through ground partners and direct community partnerships. We are principal on your contract; our partners are our suppliers, not yours.

1.2 Journeys are small. Group sizes are capped, and the caps are low by the standards of this industry, because the access that makes these journeys possible does not survive at scale.

1.3 Journeys are enquiry-led. Nothing books itself, and there is no journey we sell that a person has not shaped for you.

2. Fixed departures and custom builds

2.1 Fixed departures run on published dates at a published price, with a minimum of 6 and a maximum set by the line. You join a group of other travellers.

2.2 Custom builds are designed to your brief — your dates, your group, your pace — and quoted individually. Most of what we sell is a custom build, and a category with no fixed departure is an invitation to design one rather than a dead end.

2.3 Private charters take a journey on a sole-use basis for your own group. Priced per engagement.

3. Documentation you must carry

3.1 For international journeys: a machine-readable passport valid for at least six months beyond your return date, with sufficient undamaged blank pages for visas and stamps; the applicable visas; your air ticket; your insurance policy; and any health documentation the destination requires.

3.2 For domestic journeys: original government photo identity — Aadhaar, passport, driving licence or voter card. Several sites, protected areas and states require identity to be produced on entry, and some require a specific document type.

3.3 For restricted and protected areas: Inner Line Permits, Protected Area Permits and equivalent clearances are required in parts of the Himalaya, the Northeast and the islands. Where we obtain these for you, you must provide the documents we ask for by the date we ask for them. A permit application lodged late may not be processed in time, and the consequences fall on you.

3.4 Carry photocopies or digital copies of everything separately from the originals, and leave a set with someone at home.

3.5 Check every detail on every document we issue and on every visa or permit you receive. Where an error is ours, tell us and we will correct it. Where an error is the issuing authority's, we will help you pursue it, but we cannot compel a correction.

3.6 Foreign nationals joining domestic Indian journeys should note that permit requirements, entry fees at monuments and protected areas, and registration obligations differ from those applying to Indian nationals, and additional charges may apply.

4. Accommodation

4.1 Accommodation reflects the journey rather than a star rating. Depending on the itinerary you may stay in a heritage property, a small hotel, a homestay in a village house, a monastery guest room, a tented camp or a field station. Where a journey is built around a community, you stay with that community, and that is the point of it.

4.2 Named properties in an itinerary are indicative and subject to availability. We may substitute a property of equivalent standard and character, and will tell you when we do.

4.3 Rooms are twin or double occupancy as standard. Where a third person shares, the additional bed is often a mattress rather than a full bed. Single rooms are available at a single occupancy supplement, are frequently smaller, and in village homestays and remote properties may not be available at all.

4.4 Standard check-in is mid-afternoon and check-out mid-morning. Where a journey arrives early or departs late, we plan around it rather than assuming a room will be held.

4.5 In homestays, monastery accommodation and camps, expect shared bathrooms in some places, intermittent hot water and electricity, no lift, no room service, and no air conditioning. This is not a shortfall; it is the accommodation that exists where these journeys go, and we describe it accurately on the journey page so you can decide.

4.6 In tents, camps and properties in forest, coastal and desert settings, insects and the occasional small animal are a fact of the location rather than a sign of poor housekeeping.

4.7 Where a property requires a security deposit or a card imprint at check-in, that arrangement is between you and the property.

4.8 Damage to a room or its contents is settled by you directly, before departure. Tell the property and your journey lead immediately about any damage you find on arrival.

5. Transport on the ground

5.1 Vehicles are matched to the terrain, the group and the road. Depending on the journey this may be a coach, a mini coach, a tempo traveller, or individual four-wheel-drive vehicles.

5.2 In Ladakh, Spiti, Sikkim, the Northeast and the islands, small vehicles carrying five to six people are used because the terrain and vehicle availability allow nothing else, and the vehicle type may change day to day.

5.3 Seating in shared vehicles rotates. It is not allocated in advance and cannot be reserved.

5.4 There is no smoking and no alcohol in vehicles. Eat at stops rather than in transit — on mountain roads it matters more than it sounds.

5.5 Drivers work to statutory limits on daily and weekly driving hours and to mandatory rest periods. We do not ask them to exceed those limits, and neither should you.

5.6 Mechanical failure, road closure, landslide, protest, weather and traffic all occur on the routes we run. We will find the best available solution. Time lost to these does not give rise to a refund.

5.7 Where a journey includes a flight, train, ferry, helicopter or cruise segment, the carrier's own terms apply in addition to ours, and their schedules are outside our control.

6. Meals

6.1 Meals included are marked in each day of the itinerary.

6.2 On most journeys, meals are regional and eaten where the journey is — in a village house, at a family table, at a working kitchen. Menus are set rather than à la carte, and portions and courses vary with the place.

6.3 Tell us at booking about dietary requirements, allergies and food restrictions. We accommodate what we can. In remote locations and in community homes, the range of what is possible is genuinely narrow, and a specific requirement may not be met. Where that is likely, we will tell you before you book.

6.4 Carry your own supplementary snacks where you have a strict requirement, and carry any medication for a food allergy on your person at all times.

6.5 Meals not taken, for any reason, are not refunded or substituted.

6.6 Drinking water arrangements are stated per journey. Where a journey operates a refill system to avoid single-use plastic, carry a bottle.

7. The journey lead

7.1 Each journey has a named lead on the ground — a guide, a scholar, a community host or a Foxpels representative depending on the journey.

7.2 The lead manages the schedule, the access and the group's relationship with the people hosting it. On matters of safety, access and community protocol their instruction is binding.

7.3 The lead cannot alter the itinerary, room allocations, vehicle seating or access arrangements set by a community or authority.

7.4 Where something is wrong, tell the lead at the time. That is the fastest and often the only route to fixing it.

7.5 The lead is responsible for the group. They cannot remain behind with an individual traveller in an emergency, though they will make arrangements and stay in contact.

8. Timing and punctuality

8.1 Journeys run to a schedule that has been agreed with communities, permit authorities and ritual calendars. Some elements happen once, at a fixed hour, and cannot be repeated.

8.2 Be at the stated place at the stated time. Where you are not, the group proceeds and you rejoin at the next point at your own cost.

8.3 Where you miss a ritual, a ceremony or a scheduled access window through lateness, it is not rescheduled and not refunded.

9. Joining and leaving separately

9.1 You may join a fixed departure at the first destination and leave from the last, arranging your own flights and transfers. Tell us at the time of booking.

9.2 If you do, you are responsible for your own tickets, visas, insurance and transfers to and from the joining and leaving points, and for verifying the reporting time and place with us before you book them.

9.3 Book flexible or refundable tickets. Departure dates occasionally move, and a non-refundable ticket becomes your loss.

9.4 Share your ticket, visa and insurance copies and your local contact number with us before departure.

9.5 First and last day arrangements are the most likely to shift for operational reasons. Where they do, a separately-arriving traveller may miss an element, and no refund arises.

10. Extending or deviating

10.1 You may arrive early, stay on, or take a different route home. Tell us at the time of booking so that tickets, permits, insurance validity and accommodation can be arranged accordingly.

10.2 Deviations and extensions carry additional cost, are subject to availability, and are arranged as a separate custom build where they involve more than an extra night.

10.3 Any deviation you arrange yourself is yours to manage, including rejoining the group.

11. Optional activities

11.1 Some journeys offer optional activities that are not included in the price.

11.2 Where you take an optional activity arranged by a third party on the ground, you contract with that provider, their terms and their safety standards apply, and any waiver you sign with them is effective.

11.3 Satisfy yourself that you are fit for any optional activity and that your insurance covers it. Adventure activities are excluded from many standard policies.

12. Baggage and belongings

12.1 Travel light. On several journeys you will carry your own bag over uneven ground, up stairs, and into houses without lifts.

12.2 Carriers set baggage limits and enforce them. Excess baggage charges are yours.

12.3 Your belongings are your responsibility throughout. Do not leave documents, money, cameras or devices unattended. Where something is lost or stolen, report it to the police and to your insurer; your journey lead will help you do so.

12.4 Where an item is left behind and later found, we will help arrange its return at your cost.

13. Shopping and craft

13.1 Many journeys visit working craft households and cooperatives. Buying is welcome, never expected, and never a condition of access.

13.2 We do not receive commission from any shop, cooperative or vendor visited on a Foxpels journey, and we do not take groups to shops that pay for footfall.

13.3 Check quality, price, export restrictions and customs limits before buying, particularly for antiques, textiles, and anything derived from a protected species — which we would ask you not to buy at all.

14. Being a good visitor

14.1 The access these journeys carry exists because of relationships built slowly, and it can be lost quickly.

14.2 Ask before photographing a person. Accept a refusal without negotiating it.

14.3 Dress as advised for the place. In several of them the advice is not about modesty in the abstract but about a specific religious or ritual requirement.

14.4 Do not give money, sweets or gifts directly to children. Where you want to contribute, ask the journey lead about the route the community has asked us to use.

14.5 Follow the community's own rules on where you may go, when, and with whom. Some spaces are closed to visitors, some are closed to particular visitors, and no explanation is owed to you.

14.6 Ask about what you are seeing. Curiosity is welcome. Photographing someone's life without speaking to them is not.

15. Environmental practice

15.1 Carry out what you carry in. Several places we visit have no waste infrastructure at all.

15.2 Water is scarce in a number of destinations we work in, seriously so in the high desert. Use it as the household hosting you uses it.

15.3 Offsets are applied as standard on Foxpels-designed journeys and offered as an opt-in on other product. Where a journey carries an offset, the journey page says so.

16. Health and safety on the ground

16.1 Carry a personal medical kit, sufficient prescription medication for the whole journey plus a margin, and a copy of your prescription.

16.2 On high-altitude journeys, follow the acclimatisation schedule exactly. It is built into the itinerary and it is not padding. Report headache, breathlessness or nausea to the journey lead immediately rather than waiting to see whether it passes.

16.3 Medical facilities in several destinations are basic, and evacuation may take many hours or be weather-dependent. This is the reason insurance with evacuation cover is mandatory.

16.4 Follow safety instructions from the journey lead, guides and drivers.

17. What is usually included

Stated per journey on your quote. As a general position, a Foxpels journey price includes:

• Accommodation as described in the itinerary
• Meals as marked in the itinerary
• Ground transport within the itinerary
• Entry fees, permits and access charges for included sites
• The journey lead, and local guides where stated
• Community fees, host payments and practitioner fees
• Cultural orientation briefing
• Carbon offset on Foxpels-designed journeys

18. What is usually excluded

• Flights and long-distance travel to and from the joining point
• Visas, passports and associated costs
• Travel insurance, which is mandatory
• Medical costs, vaccinations and evacuation
• Meals and drinks not specified
• Personal expenditure, laundry, telephone, internet and shopping
• Tips beyond those stated as included
• Optional activities and upgrades
• Single occupancy supplement where applicable
• Government taxes, payable in addition
• Anything not listed as included on your quote