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The Man Who Pays His Way: When the industry of human happiness turns sour, Lupine Travel soldiers on
Simon Calder Travel Correspondent Saturday 17 January 2026 18:41 GMT- Bookmark
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open image in galleryWhich way now? Simon Calder on the Yemeni island of Socotra in March 2020 – then, as now, on the Foreign Office no-go list (Vinay Kishore)
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“Our tours offer unique destinations at affordable prices” – so promises the Wigan-based company Lupine Travel, founded by Dylan Harris. For a snapshot of those destinations, you could always read Natalie Wilson’s article on countries on the Foreign Office no-go list. Haiti, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen …
An FCDO warning against travel means normal holiday insurance is invalidated. Even so, there is evidently an appetite for travel to these locations, and Dylan has been meeting it for the past 18 years. But the extraordinary shifts in geo-politics in the first half of January 2026 are unprecedented, he says.
“In the past, we might only have had one destination a year where things were uncertain, but we’ve never had anything like this.”
The company does not have clients in Iran at the moment, but it does have local operators.
“We’ve spoken to everybody we work with in Iran, and everyone is safe. But it’s still extremely worrying,” he says. "It’s terrifying, really.
“Our next trip to Iran is in April, and just a couple of days before the events there, we’d actually got all the visas approved.
"So there’s a lot of uncertainty about whether people want to go ahead, and we still don’t know ourselves. In these kinds of places, three or four months is a long time — a lot can change. So it’s very uncertain, as is much of the world at the moment.”
How’s this for an alluring travel prospect? Lupine Travel’s pitch for its Venezuela trip in June 2026 opens with: “Our tour begins in Caracas, where we will delve into the country’s volatile political history …”
The adventure was tempting enough to sell out completely. Then, as I wrote in this column last week, came the US operation of 3 January, in which more than 100 people died.
“It was a bit of a shock a couple of weeks ago, what happened,” says Dylan. “We’ve had to put our trips on hold. The situation on the ground is actually fine at the moment – everything’s stable – but it’s the uncertainty going forward that’s the biggest worry. Unfortunately, Donald Trump is so unpredictable that we just don’t know what’s going to happen from one day to the next.”
open image in galleryHappier times: Dylan Harris in Chuao, Venezuela (Dylan Harris)Other travel firms might simply refund customers and suggest they try again next year or next decade. Not Lupine.
“My Venezuela tour manager is going over in a couple of weeks just to get the lay of the land and see how things are going. We won’t make a decision about June straight away, but at least it will give us some early information.”
Other summer destinations are available – such as Greenland, possibly the next target for American boots on foreign ground. And in Africa, Sudan and the DR Congo “are completely off-limits". If even Lupine says somewhere is too risky, you really don’t want to go there.
Where, I wonder, is looking optimistic? “Central Asia at the moment, Algeria maybe – those are very popular right now and currently there are no issues whatsoever. But with the way the world is, I can’t really make any predictions.”
When Lupine Travel started, a big seller was Chernobyl – also off the agenda for now, as the industry of human happiness turns increasingly sour. Dylan is not, though, planning to stay in Wigan until the world sorts itself out. He has new frontiers to cross – literally – with a trip to Latin America.
“I’m leaving next week. Starting off with a couple of days in Haiti, then I’m going to Medellin [Colombia]. From there I’m going through the Darien Gap to Panama City.”
In case you are tempted, the Foreign Office would like you to know: “The ‘Darien Gap’ is a dangerous area renowned for the presence of several illegal armed groups, illegal migration and drugs trafficking. There’s no road crossing between Colombia and Panama. Avoid crossing between Panama and Colombia by land.”
Dylan Harris is undeterred: “I think I’ve found a safe way through it. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Simon Calder, also known as The Man Who Pays His Way, has been writing about travel for The Independent since 1994. In his weekly opinion column, he explores a key travel issue – and what it means for you.
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