From First Conversation to Departure

Every journey begins with a single message. A traveller fills out the Start Planning form on kadatravel.com, or writes directly to a Kada designer who has been recommended. Within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, a senior travel designer responds personally — not with a templated reply, but with a thoughtful first read of the inquiry.

The aim of this first conversation is not to sell a trip. It is to understand whether Kada is the right fit for the journey the traveller has in mind, and whether the traveller is the right fit for Kada's quiet, slow, deeply curated way of working.

Once both sides have decided to proceed, the discovery phase begins. The Kada designer schedules a longer conversation — by call or in writing, as the traveller prefers — to understand the people behind the trip. Travel dates, group composition, hotel category preferences, regions of interest, dietary considerations, mobility, non-negotiables, and the specific shape of the trip the traveller is imagining.

Kada also listens for what travellers do not say — the rhythm of how they describe a previous trip, the textures they admire, the kind of silence they want a journey to leave room for.

Within ten to fourteen days, Kada presents a first draft of the journey. This is not a brochure — it is a working document the traveller is meant to read carefully, mark up, and respond to. The draft includes the route, the hotels Kada recommends and why, the experiences proposed for each day, the rhythm Kada has designed into the itinerary, and an indicative investment based on the chosen hotel category and group size.

Most journeys go through two or three rounds of refinement. The traveller pushes back on one hotel and asks about another. A dinner is added, a morning is taken out. The Sacred Valley is extended by a night, the Amazon is shortened by one. Kada's designers thrive in this phase — it is where the journey becomes specific. Each refinement is documented in a versioned itinerary the traveller can see evolve.

When the traveller confirms the journey, Kada secures inventory — hotel suites, train seats, permits, named private guides. A fifty-percent deposit confirms the booking; the balance is due ninety days before departure. Sixty days out, Kada sends the Pre-Departure Briefing: passport reminders, vaccinations, altitude preparation, packing notes, the names and faces of the guides who will accompany the traveller. Two weeks before departure, dietary requirements are confirmed in writing with each property. A few days before departure, the Kada twenty-four-hour line is activated.

Every Kada traveller is met at Jorge Chávez airport before passport control. From that moment, the journey is accompanied: private guides who know the country deeply, drivers who know the roads, hotels that have already received the traveller's preferences in writing. Kada's twenty-four-hour line is open from arrival to departure.

After the return, Kada writes once. Not to sell another trip, but to ask honestly what worked and what did not. That conversation shapes how Kada designs the next journey.