Welcome to N.O.M.A.D.S.

New Opportunities for Mountaineering, Adventure and Desert Sports

Partners, Diana Taylor and Tony Howard

Nomads is a provider to the Tourist Industry of services and information, specialising in the exploration, development and promotion of adventure travel, climbing and trekking in the deserts and mountains of North Africa, the Middle East (particularly Jordan and Wadi Rum), also in India and other exotic places.

Our website also provides free information for travellers, climbers and trekkers interested in these areas.

Additionally, we are authors of, and contributors to, various climbing, trekking and travel guides and provide articles and photos for the press and outdoor media. We have also worked with TV and radio.

What we do

• Adventure Travel Consultants
• Exhibition support providers
• Guide book writers
• Authors & Photographers (Adventure & travel)
• Outdoor equipment consultants
• Lecturers
• Providers of information for climbers and trekkers

Following the discovery of Wadi Rum in Jordan, as a rock climbing and adventure tourism area by Tony Howard and Di Taylor in 1984, nomads was created to enable them to work formally with Jordan's Ministry of Tourism.

Their ensuing explorations and guidebooks made Rum, according to a leading British mountaineer, "one of the world's foremost desert climbing areas" and in the words of Jordan's Director of Tourism, "put Jordan's desert tourism on the map". Tony & Di were accompanied by Al Baker and Mick Shaw on their first visit to Wadi Rum. They were joined in following years by other climbing friends including French Guides Wilf Colonna, Bernard Domenech. The Wadi Rum Bedouin played a major role from the start and continue to do so as does Wilfried.

Working closely but informally with a group of similar minded professional climbers, cavers and mountain sports activists from across Europe we have since carried out work for other Tourism Ministries, Travel and Conservation organisations including projects for various TV and publishing companies as well as for H.M. Queen Noor, the Palestinian Authority Bethlehem 2000 Project, and the Oman, Egyptian and Nagaland Tourism Authorities. Recent projects in Jordan were sponsored by USAID/SIYAHA. We were also invited to become Team Members of The Abraham Path Initiative developing a trail through Al Ayoun in north Jordan "in the footsteps of Abraham" as part of a route from Turkey to Hebron in Palestine, via Syria and Jordan. The Ayoun Project is now run by the local community and our guide to Walks, Treks, Climbs & Caves in Al Ayoun is was published in 2012. This project continues in 2012 with extended trails for the Abraham Path, and ongoing work on a reinvigorated 1990s project of ours, the proposed country length Jordan Trail.

Countries with which we have been involved on a professional basis are Egypt, India (North East, including Nagaland and Bodoland etc), Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Madagascar, Morocco, Norway, Palestine, Oman and Yemen. Additionally, we have also contributed to guidebook work and publications on Algeria, Ethiopia, Iran, Sudan and the UK.

Mission