Sophie Barber
Sophie lived in Chile before joining us and has travelled extensively across Latin America, from Mexico to the furthest tip of Patagonia and beyond to Antarctica.
Sophie first visited Latin America on a year abroad in Santiago as part of her university degree, where she studied Spanish at a local university and spent the holidays backpacking around as much of South America as possible. After completing her degree in Spanish and French in the UK, she returned to Central America and travelled from Mexico to Panama overland.
Her love of travel then took her to China where she taught English for a year before returning to the UK to join our Tailor-made Holidays and Group Tour sales team. Her flair for translating clients’ individual preferences into exceptional, personalised travel experiences quickly came to the fore. One of our most popular, well-travelled and articulate Travel Experts, she is also Sales Manager of Tailor-made and Group Tour holidays. For Sophie, it is the mixture of wildlife (she has visited the Galapagos Islands three times! as well as Antarctica) and nature combined with local culture and heritage that continues to draw her back to Latin America, where there are very few countries she has yet to visit.
PersonAL favourites:
Place:
One of my favourite places is the Lemaire channel in Antarctica which is beautifully scenic in itself; however, the second time we passed through the channel we were surrounded by about 30 whales of 3 different species – minke, humpback and orca. It was incredible!
Hotel:
Explora Sacred Valley in Peru. Explora truly is out of the ordinary in every sense, from its fantastic location to the experience-driven ethos. The hotel has a menu of excursions for different lengths and abilities so there’s something for everyone and often we were the only tourists doing the excursions which was very special.
Excursion:
Trekking in El Chaltén is unforgettable. I went in April and knew the weather could be varied and on the second day woke up to torrential rain and howling winds so we decided to wait and set off after lunch when the rain wasn’t quite so bad. The higher we climbed on the trek the more snow there was but then, a few hours later, we were hiking in glorious sunshine with stunning views towards Fitzroy Mountain!
When at altitude, make sure you acclimatise slowly. It may sound obvious but it makes such a difference to your experience – don’t try to rush things even if there’s a lot you want to fit into the holiday!
For trekking in Patagonia and the Andes, pack layers of clothes as well as a good quality waterproof/windproof jacket. Many of the treks I’ve done over the years have such varied weather in just one day!
