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World Expeditionary Association (Wexas)

The World Expeditionary Association (Wexas) was founded in London by Dr Ian Wilson in September 1970 as a non-profit membership organization called the World Universities Expeditionary Association (WUNEXAS). The name of the association was shortened to Wexas in 1972.

The aim of Wexas was to provide low cost travel for student expeditions and to allocate a share of revenue towards funding expeditions organized by UK universities and schools. The former were generally scientific while the latter were adventure training expeditions, sometimes in association with the British Schools Exploring Society and the Brathay Outdoor Centre in the Lake District.

Dr Ian Wilson founded Wexas a year after leaving Oxford University. From its early days, continuing to this day, Wexas attracted the support of many prominent explorers and travellers. The founding Honorary President was the late General Sir John Hackett, principal of King’s College London and a distinguished scholar soldier who commanded the Rhineland Army after the Second World War. Soon there followed a string of honorary presidents famous for their exploits around the globe.

Former honorary presidents of Wexas:

Richard Leakey

Sir Chris Bonington

Sir Chay Blyth

Sir Peter Scott

Lord Hunt

Clare Francis

John Ridgway

James Michener

Lowell Thomas

Lord Wolfenden

Major General Lascelles

Baron Hugo van Lawick

Sir Alec Rose

Sir Wally Herbert

Sir Hereward Wake

Brigadier Worsley

Most of the above were members of the Honorary Board of Traveller magazine, published continuously by Wexas since 1970,

Current Honorary Presidents of Wexas:

Kate Adie

Mark Beaumont

Professor David Bellamy

Colonel John Blashford-Snell

Dr Jean-Michel Cousteau

William Dalrymple

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Robin Hanbury-Tenison

Dr Alasdair Harris

Fergal Keane

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston

Stewart McPherson

Sir Christopher Ondaatje

Sir Michael Palin

Professor John Prebble

Dr Christopher Roads

Jonathan Scott

John Simpson

Colin Thubron

Sir Crispin Tickell

Philanthropy

Over the course of its first twenty years, Wexas gave financial aid to over 200 British expeditions. The scientific reports acquired as a result were donated by Wexas to the Royal Geographical Society in the early Nineteen Nineties. Around the same time Wexas stopped making grants directly to expeditions and instead made an annual financial grant to the Royal Geographical Society which enabled the Society to make grants to scientific expeditions on behalf of Wexas.

In 2006 Wexas established the Wexas Travel Foundation, a registered UK charity (Number 1130335) to raise funds from staff events and from members of the association, matched by funds from the association, to help finance a number of Third World and global sustainability projects. The first three such projects to benefit were:

A school room for poor children in Kwa-Zulu Natal

A project in South America that aimed to prevent illegal destruction of the rainforest

The provision of temporary accommodation for schoolchildren in Nepal following the 2015 earthquake, and the subsequent building of permanent  accommodation

.Publications

Over the years the association has published several travel books, notably The Traveller’s Handbook, which went through a dozen UK editions and three US editions (as the International Traveller’s Handbook) between 1977 and 2009. A definitive book for serious travellers, the Handbook had around 120 specialist contributors and was often known as the traveller’s ‘bible’. The development of the Internet led Wexas in 2009 to the decision not to publish further editions of this 1200-page book.

Wexas travel titles:

500 Tips for the Long Haul Traveller (later renamed Trouble-Free Travel: An Insider’s Guide) (Wexas, London, 1982, ISBN 978-0905802015 ) author Ian Wilson under the pseudonym Richard Harrington

500 Destinations to Avoid and 500 to Visit (Wexas, London, 2000, ISBN 978-0905802992 ) author Ian Wilson

Wexas is also the publisher of Traveller (1984) (formerly called Expedition News (1970) and then Expedition(1973), the association’s flagship magazine and the oldest surviving travel magazine in the UK, having been published continuously since 1970.  Wexas owns the registered magazine trademark ‘Traveller’ in the UK, the USA and Canada.

Off The Beaten Track : a Wexas Travel Handbook (1977-1980, ISBN 978-0905064307 )

The Traveller’s Handbook (1982-2008, ISBN 978-0905802060 )

Around the World in Eighty Ways (1993, ISBN 978-0905802060 ) by various celebrity contributors

The Traveller’s Healthbook (1998, ISBN 978-0905802091 ) editor Jonathan Lorie

The Traveller’s Internet Guide (2001, ISBN 978-0905802138 ) editor Jonathan Lorie

Controversy

In 2004 Wexas was involved in controversy when Chairman Dr Ian Wilson organized a diving expedition to the Chagos archipelago (British Indian Ocean Territory) in the Indian Ocean. Access to Chagos is severely restricted by the British government, while the principal island of Diego Garcia is rented out to the USA as a military base. Wilson obtained permission to take 15 people by boat from Seychelles to Chagos with the indirect approval of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office through the intermediary of the Chagos Conservation Society. However, departure from Seychelles aboard the Indian Ocean Explorer was almost prevented by order of the Seychelles prime minister and only the intervention of UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw at the last moment made it possible for the expedition to depart. The plight of the Chagossian people, resettled in Mauritius and Seychelles in the 1960s to make way for the US base in Diego Garcia, continues to this day.

Wexas today

Wexas is a leading UK travel organization  with 110 staff. The association operates from its principal office on London’s South Bank and a subsidiary office in Bournemouth. Wexas was incorporated in 1982 and offers its members a variety of travel and travel insurance services. Dr Ian Wilson remains the chairman to this day.