Explora Announced Their 2027 Expedition Lineup With a Rare Machu Picchu Route Once Kept for Only Elite Explorers
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Explora has unveiled its 2027 expedition lineup, and the offerings showcase exactly why the company has been named World’s Leading Expedition Company six years in a row. Next year Explora will offer four small-group journeys reaching from Iceland’s winter interior to the glaciers of Peru and the far southern tip of Chile. Each trip is capped at eight travelers, led by both a team leader and a guide, and built around the slow, place-focused approach that has defined the company since it was founded in 1993.
Two of the four itineraries take place in Iceland — including a first-ever winter route that no other full-service operator currently offers. The other two go deep into South America, one into the Peruvian highlands toward Machu Picchu by way of the Vilcabamba range, and one through the “Land of Fire” at the bottom of the world.
Gonzalo Undurraga, Explora’s CEO, says the company’s guiding principle hasn’t shifted since it was founded. “For thirty years we’ve built everything around one idea: connecting our travelers with the place at a slow, reflective pace,” Undurraga told Travel by LA Times Studios in an email interview. “We were doing slow travel long before it became a ‘trend.’ Where a lot of adventure trips can rush you from one sight to the next, we’d rather move slowly enough that you stop feeling like a spectator and start to feel like you are part of the place around you.”
What makes Explora’s model distinct, he says, goes beyond the remote locations. “What truly sets an Explora Expedition apart is access. Not just physically reaching remote places, but connecting with them in a meaningful way.”
The company, a family-owned B Corp, also counts conservation as a founding principle rather than an add-on. “We’re not just showing you a place,” Undurraga says. “We’re hoping you’ll come to care for it, to become a protector of the land.”
Each expedition travels with both a team leader and a guide, which allows the group to split into smaller sub-groups on days when it suits the pace or fitness levels of different travelers. Where a guide positions themselves relative to the group, Undurraga says, sets the tone for everything else.
“Our guides don’t walk in front of you,” he explains. “They walk beside you, openly sharing what they know, and that one distinction shapes the whole feel of the trip.” He describes the role as one that resists a single label: “a curious guide, a warm host, and a passionate guardian — and on an expedition, all three live in one person.”
Iceland Winter Expedition
This is Explora’s first winter itinerary anywhere in Iceland, and the company says it’s the only route of its kind offered by a full-service operator. Departing from Reykjavík, the journey moves through Þingvellir National Park and the Golden Circle before heading to the south coast’s black-sand beaches and the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon.
The centerpiece is a guided ice hike on Vatnajökull — Europe’s largest glacier — which requires no prior experience. The itinerary also includes snowmobiling beneath Eyjafjallajökull, a visit to the Lava Center, and time at the Sky Lagoon. Northern Lights sightings are considered likely on each departure.
Iceland Summer Expedition
The summer version takes a different route entirely, heading inland into Iceland’s volcanic interior. The itinerary spans the Þórsmörk valley, the rhyolite mountains and geothermal fields of Landmannalaugar, the Southern Fjallabak highlands, and the remote Langisjór lake, with Vatnajökull also on the route.
Travel moves between hikes and overland drives through a landscape defined by glaciers, canyons, waterfalls, and active geothermal terrain. Nights are split between small boutique hotels, countryside guest houses, and hotels in Reykjavík.
Sacred Mountains Expedition — Peru
Designed for experienced trekkers, this journey uses Explora’s Valle Sagrado lodge as a base before going fully nomadic and camp-supported. The first days are spent acclimatizing with shorter hikes in Peru’s Sacred Valley; the route then climbs through cloud forest and above the tree line into the Vilcabamba range, with the peak of Apu Salkantay as the high point.
After a day in Ollantaytambo, travelers board the Vistadome train to the Inca Trail and make the final approach to Machu Picchu on foot via Wiñay Wayna and Inti Punku, the Sun Gate. The group arrives at the site from above, the original way it was meant to be approached.
This is not the standard entrance to Machu Picchu. It’s one of the lesser-traveled paths, which fits the Explora model. Undurraga describes the territories his expeditions reach as places “that were once the domain of seasoned explorers and professional adventurers — places that demanded real experience, risk tolerance, and technical preparation.”
The goal, he says, was “to make that depth of experience available to a broader traveler. Not by simplifying the journey, but by surrounding it with the right expertise.”
Tierra del Fuego Expedition — Chile
This trip is seven days at the bottom of the world, starting in Punta Arenas and crossing the Strait of Magellan into Tierra del Fuego. Early days take in a king penguin colony, working estancias, and the forests of Karukinka Park. The middle of the journey navigates the Patagonian fjords before a full day inside Yendegaia National Park — a protected area closed to the general public, but accessible to Explora through its established relationships in the region. The trip is suitable for all fitness levels and ends with a small-plane flight back to Punta Arenas.
On what happens to a group of eight strangers over the course of journeys like this, Undurraga says the remoteness tends to do most of the work.
“You’d be surprised how much one of these expeditions bonds a group,” he explains. “You’re out in a remote landscape, far from the usual comforts and routines, and something about that strips away the small talk and lets the walls come down on their own. You’re all sharing the same experience and going through it together -- this does more for connection than any introduction ever could.”
Explora’s 2027 expedition season is open for booking at explora.com. All four journeys are capped at eight travelers.
