Plants are at the center of most of the Earth's ecosystems, so wherever there are plants, there is biodiverse life and inexhaustible beauty. Admiring a country’s vegetation can help you learn about rich cultural and natural history in contexts that don’t involve being inside a museum or reading an encyclopedia. Holbrook knows garden tourism provides an opportunity for any nature lover to marvel at an endless variety of experiences, regardless of the designation a certain trip is given.

Hamilton Gardens, New Zealand

Sandy Schmidt, our garden tours director, has been carefully crafting itineraries to include a breadth of spots, activities, and lodging that showcase everything a destination has to offer beyond its beautiful flora. With more than 30 years of experience at Holbrook, Sandy has an incomparable depth of knowledge of Holbrook’s philosophy and mission to bring comprehensive and unforgettable adventures to travelers across the globe. This understanding and attention to detail has helped her develop well-paced expeditions that focus not only on the beauty of the plant world, but also on the value of holistic travel experiences that focus on nature and conservation.

Our staple garden tours feature itineraries in destinations considered biodiversity hotspots, which include sights and activities worth exploring no matter what special interest you had in mind when booking a trip. This variety is at the center of Sandy’s motivation when devising an itinerary, as she suggests, “good gardens have displays from the various regions of a country. So, in one fell swoop, you're learning what each region does. So if you don't have time, or money, or whatever, to get to every little corner of that country, you’ll see this is what grows there. And all of a sudden, you know that you don't have to be a plants person to think that's kind of interesting.”

Torres del Paine, Chile

When surveying our list of Trips to Plan under the Garden Tours designation, you can find notable destinations like Madagascar. This island nation provides inimitable experiences with wildlife through visits to natural reserves and national parks. Our Madagascar garden tour features a distinctive visit to the northern region of the country, where you can explore Montagne d'Ambre National Park and Montagne des Français Reserve. These two locations give travelers the chance to witness Madagascar’s extraordinary variety of endemic orchids and northern varieties of baobab trees unique to this specific region, but also Sanford's brown lemur and the Amber Mountain chameleon, species local to this area. There are also 75 bird species you can observe in this portion of the trip, including the Madagascar Ibis and the Malagasy Kingfisher, which is only a taste of the diverse offerings of this mindfully designed tour.

Antsiranana Bay, Madagascar

Another unmatched megadiverse destination on our Garden Tours list is Ecuador and its Galápagos Islands. Our 13-day adventure takes travelers on a journey through the cloud forests of the country’s Andes region and across to the volcanic terrains of the Galápagos Islands, before returning to the Pacific coast of mainland Ecuador to explore its tropical dry forest ecosystems and more. This trip includes visits to the cloud forests of Mindo, in the heart of the Ecuadorian Andes, where a few hundred species of birds live, many of which are endemics. There are even more opportunities to observe magnificent birds and endemic wildlife in the Galápagos Islands, including the Española Mockingbird, Galápagos Dove, Galápagos Hawk, Blue-footed Booby, and several of Darwin's finches. Other peculiar residents to meet are sea lions, hammerhead sharks, and green sea turtles, which you can encounter underwater during a snorkeling expedition. With such scenic locations and stunning wildlife, this sweeping route presents countless sights to capture with a camera, as do all options in our catalog.

Sesuvium edmonstonei, or Red Galápagos Carpet Weed, Galápagos Islands

One of the most special destinations we visit as part of our Garden Tours is Australia. This itinerary is unique to our gardens offerings and provides travelers with a chance to not only see the outstanding and diverse flora and fauna of this continent, including sites like the Great Barrier Reef and Blue Mountains National Park, but also the rich cultural history of its oldest inhabitants. There are many opportunities to learn about Aboriginal Australians and their history throughout every stop on this trip, as activities and locations have been consciously chosen to highlight the importance of their presence and heritage in the country’s past, present, and future. One of these activities includes a visit to Mossman Gorge, the traditional lands of the Kuku Yalanji people in Daintree National Park, where travelers can learn directly from this community about their culture, history, and traditions.

Mossman Gorge, Australia

These excursions are ideal illustrations of the diversity of locations and activities included in our gardens catalog. Plant lovers are nature lovers, and vice versa, as these two elements can’t be isolated from one another. Our resident garden lover Sandy perfectly puts it, “I love birds; I love mountains; I love oceans. I love insects, and chameleons, and all these different things that nature, and God, if you will, put on earth to delight in that are going to be out there in garden tours, because we're going to be out in nature and quietly, nicely, and calmly taking it all in. And if we're not doing that, we're doing something fun in a boat, or having a delicious dinner, hearing music, and learning about the culture; it depends on which country you're in, and what you're doing.”

We invite you to peruse our Garden Tours list and discover for yourself what other great activities beyond these aforementioned examples you can partake in during any of these journeys.