"Raleigh Coburn is one of the premier female guides in the United States. She speaks Nepali and is fluent in Spanish. I spent three weeks on an Everest Base Camp trek she led-summiting an 18,500-foot peak is one of the most memorable experiences I have had. With Raleigh, safety and cultural respect come first, but on her trips you can also expect to be physically challenged, awed by the beauty of the environment, educated on the flora and fauna of the local region, and provided with a level of service and support you would expect from a custom travel company."
- Rachel Loeb, New York
Lotus Expeditions' Owner, Raleigh Coburn
Lotus Expeditions is a custom adventure travel company committed to providing high-quality and unique cultural, trekking, mountain, river, sea and biking adventures in some of the most spectacular destinations on this planet, including Nepal, India, Peru, Africa, Tibet, the U.S. and Chile.
Whether in the high Himalaya, the central Andes, or the windswept plains of Patagonia, a Lotus Expeditions adventure combines travel through remote regions with the enrichment that comes from interaction with diverse cultures and people. Our trips and treks are fun, soulful, exhilarating, boundary pushing, and for some, life changing, as they open the eyes and the mind to a larger world.
Lotus Expeditions offers private, custom-tailored trips for families, friends, couples, honeymooners, single travelers, school and business groups, as well as open enrollment, limited to ten participants, on scheduled tours (please see our 2007 Expedition Schedule).
We believe that great leadership from skilled, professional guides is essential to creating an outstanding travel adventure experience based on careful logistical planning and superlative organization.
Lotus Expeditions guides are experts in their fields, and have lived, worked, and studied in our destination countries. Most of our local and international staff are fluent or conversational in several languages including English, Spanish, Nepali, Hindi, Urdu, and Tibetan, and many have worked for organizations such as Outward Bound, the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), and the Women's Wilderness Institute. Lotus Expeditions also works with experienced and knowledgeable local guides from the cities, mountains, towns and villages we visit.
Lotus Expeditions strives to improve upon every trip, to work with our clients to develop itineraries that exceed expectations, and to seek out new adventures to remote and beautiful places. We are further committed to responsible tourism and giving back to the communities and natural places we visit; thus, five percent of our profits will be donated to nonprofit organizations in these areas.
Headquartered in Ouray, Colorado, Lotus Expeditions was started by local resident Raleigh Coburn after many years of international travel and mountain guiding in Asia, Latin America, and the United States. Her professional career in adventure travel was born out of a passion for mountaineering and adventure that began in 1988 with a study-abroad trip to mainland Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. Since then, she has traveled, trekked, climbed, lived, worked, and studied in more than 30 countries.
"Adventure travel and trekking brings me closer to the land and its people. Walking and talking and living with local people over weeks or months grants an intimacy that other ways of travel cannot. These journeys have taken me to rarely visited vantage points and introduced me to different ways of living and viewing the world. It is this sort of travel that I hope to share through Lotus Expeditions."
- Raleigh Coburn