A small catalogue
The trip you have to show up for
Deserts, deltas, winter plateaux and routes without a useful signal.
What is ATLAS51
We don't resell what's already on the booking sites.
A short catalogue of adventure trips, each led by someone who has spent years in one corner of the map. The terrain is real, the weather does not negotiate, and there is real risk in most of them.
Adults only. A few trips at a time, each one we would take ourselves.
Trip types
Four kinds of trip
- See the expeditions →
Expedition
A first, exploratory or uncharted route.
- See the journeys →
Journey
A route that has run before and can run again.
- Not in the current catalogue
Foundation
A short introduction, usually over a long weekend.
- See the courses →
Course
Skills-led travel, taught to a stated level.
The trips
Three routes worth opening
JourneyOkavango Delta, Botswana
Botswana: Kayak the Okavango
Botswana at water level: no roads, no fences, no phone signal, and hippos with opinions.
See the trip →12 days
From £3,000 GBP
ExpeditionPakaraima Mountains, Guyana
Guyana: Sky People
Deep into Guyana's interior towards Wokomung — carrying your own load, with no guaranteed summit.
See the trip →14 days
From £4,249 GBP
CourseFemundsmarka, Norway
Norway: The Femundsmarka
Nine days hauling a pulk across the frozen lakes of Femundsmarka, learning the systems polar expeditions actually run on.
See the trip →9 days
From £2,999 GBP
Because it's truly one of the planet's last wild winter frontiers. Because every Arctic expedition has to start somewhere with a heap of snow. Because it's an amazing place to learn real survival skills in a serious Arctic environment.
Field Note · Tommy
I'm having a bit of that
One untagged photograph, the best part of a year working out what it was, and then eight days of off-piste, cat-skiing, horses in six feet of snow and a bar in an abandoned fuel tank.
Find a trip three ways
By month, by terrain, by way
By month
When you can go
Most travellers start with a month — when they can get away, when work pauses, when the family will tolerate two weeks off-grid. The catalogue is listed this way so the trip that suits the gap finds you.
By way
How it moves
Because almost nobody goes this deep into the interior. Because this is a genuine lost-world expedition. Because exploration still exists here, and this time there may not be a route at all.
From the field
We woke with absolutely nobody else around, listening to hundreds of birds having what sounded like a massive row, watching the sunrise turn the water orange, and then went for a morning bush walk to see if we could spot the lions that had been roaring all night.
If you think that trekking through six feet of snow on horseback in the Kyrgyzstan mountains is easy, think again - but it’s also something I will never forget!
West Africa’s not polished. It’s messy, surprising, and unforgettable. The kind of trip where the stories matter more than the destination.
Who's on it
My name is Tommy and I had an incredibly boring day job…
ATLAS51 is led by Tommy, working closely with a trusted network of specialist operators and people on the ground. He has spent years on adventures like these and knows the teams behind them. He makes the final call on which trips belong in the catalogue.
Read Tommy's letter →Stories from the Field
A short letter, occasionally
New trips, operator interviews, the long view. Sent when there's something to say, not when the calendar says.
Brighton · London · further afield