When Marketing Manager Jen and I set off for the Sunday Times Travel Magazine Readers' Awards ceremony in London's St Pancras last night, we had a funny feeling it might be a special night, but we were well and truly blown away when the company scooped the Best Specialist Tour Operator award.

This tops off an amazing, award-winning year for Journey Latin America: one which has seen us take home not only last night's coveted prize but also Best Independent Tour Operator at the British Travel Awards and Best Value Tour Operator at the Sunday Times Travel Magazine Value Awards.

We are immensely grateful to all our clients who took the time to...

Liz Harper of Footprint Travel Guides shares her tips and advice on the topic of family holidays. Liz writes for a number of national publications as well as blogging on all subjects at Travel Talk, and has travelled widely with her young daughter. Footprint’s new edition Travel with Kids, written by Will Gray, is available from February 2012.

Travelling with children is fabulously rewarding. Experiencing the cultures, people, sights and sounds of new places with kids in tow is something which will stay with the whole family for a lifetime. Even when retracing old steps, seeing sights through your children’s eyes is like seeing them for the first time all over again. I was lucky enough to travel extensively with my parents during my early years, and it is the memories of long haul stopovers, camping by the shores of Italian lakes, and baguettes at the top of mountains which are the strongest, and happiest when I look back on my childhood.

Of course travelling with your kids is different to your pre-parenting days but a little forward planning and a slight adjustment in terms of expectations and you’ll wonder what you’ve been waiting for...

Group Tours Consultant Joaquin Dedomenici looks forward to experiencing a classic Journey Latin America tour first hand. The much-anticipated journey will allow him to finally visit the last few corners of his home country of Argentina as well as the star attraction of neighbouring Chile.

I grew up in Argentina while the economy was booming and the peso was as strong as the US dollar: an era when travel for most of us was easy and affordable. With my appetite for travel and the support of my family I can say that I’ve been pretty much everywhere in Argentina except for the southern part of Patagonia, and to many places around the world. However the fact that I have never been to Torres del Paine (in Chilean Patagonia), Calafate or Ushuaia has always haunted me – that’s why I was so over the moon when I was offered the opportunity to join our famous Patagonian Odyssey tour...