My passion for travel began in 1980 when I took my first ever flight to Sydney following my sister who had emigrated. I remember my first every flight on Qantas to Sydney cost £660 over 40 years ago and goes to show that the price of exploring the World hasn’t really increased.

A few years later I gave up a challenging career in banking to travel around Australia and South East Asia returning to the UK jobless, homeless, and penniless. However, my travels had ignited a passion and in 1989 I began my 30-year career in the travel industry with Travelbag specialising in putting together Australia and around the World itineraries. Working in travel enabled me to continue travelling the World on personal holidays as well as educational visits for work.

My career in travel progressed from commission-based sales roles through various middle-management roles to Director level responsibility. However ,  the challenge of commuting to London took its toll and in 2002 I created my own company focused on delivering training and consulting to the Travel Industry. Once again this gave me the opportunity to spread my wings including a six-week contract in Manila .

As well as delivering traditional classroom and office based training for the travel and tourism industry , a chance meeting with the California Tourist board encouraged me to create an online travel industry education platform in partnership with a talented Russian technology team – Equator Learning still exists today.

In summary there are many places I still need to visit ( but they need to be child friendly these days ) with Sri Lanka and Argentina top of that list.

Something that has a mix of beach , local town and experiential activities for adults and children – Somewhere where we need to speak to local language and live like a local