My husband and I spent twenty years living abroad. We raised our kids in places most people couldn't find on a map, and we traveled — constantly, curiously, and almost always on a budget.
We didn't have the funds for the big tours or the luxury packages. So we went the other way. While the crowds lined up for the famous things, we wandered down the streets nobody had named yet. We sat in restaurants with no English menu. We followed locals through markets and ended up in villages that weren't in any guidebook. And what we found, every single time, was something the tourist groups never got to see.
We watched those groups from the sidelines. The crowds moving together, the guides holding up flags, the pickpockets working the edges — because they always knew where the vulnerable travelers would be. And we thought: that's not travel. That's a performance of travel. It looks like the real thing from a distance, but it isn't.
The real thing was down the side road.
After a while, our friends started noticing. How do you find these places? How do you do what you do? We don't even know where to start. So we started building trips for them. And something clicked — there's a particular joy in the planning itself, in curating an experience you know is going to change the way someone sees the world. And then watching it actually happen, hearing people talk about what they'd just experienced, knowing that all those years of travel and knowledge and discovery were now extending beyond us — that our joy got to keep going because we were bringing other people into it. It turned out sharing it was even better than keeping it to ourselves.
We realized we had spent twenty years accidentally building a skill set that most people don't have. And we decided it was time to share it.
Along the way, we met Luke — someone who had grown up in Egypt with the same restless curiosity, the same instinct to go where nobody else was going, the same belief that the best travel is always the most human travel. We became instant friends. And then partners. And Side Road Travel was born.
This is not a travel company built by people who discovered travel on a business trip. It's built by people who have spent a lifetime choosing the side road — and who can't wait to show you what's down it.
I've never been interested in the status quo. Not in life, and certainly not in travel.
Some of my best moments of travel have happened when I got lost. And in the getting lost, I found something I never would have found otherwise. The gift is never on the main road. It's on the side roads — the unexpected turns, the unhurried wandering, the places most travelers drive right past. That's where culture reveals itself, and you discover what it's like to be human in a different part of the world.
And when you get close enough to actually feel it — not from a tour bus, not behind a crowd of strangers — something quietly shifts.
The world feels bigger. You feel more awake. And you come home carrying something you didn't have before.
That's the trip you've been imagining. The one that feels significant. The one that lights you up.
That trip exists. And I know exactly where it is.
Five countries lived in. Fifty-plus explored. A lifetime of choosing the side road and sharing it with others.
I can't wait to share it with you.
My wife and I have lived and traveled overseas, and those years abroad taught us that the best trips aren't about checking boxes, they're about genuine connections, unexpected moments, and stories you'll still be telling years later.
After spending time navigating unfamiliar cities and discovering hidden corners of the world together, I realized there's something magical about helping others do the same. I joined Side Road Travel because I'm passionate about creating itineraries that go deeper than the typical guidebook experience.
What I love most is working with adventurous travelers who want to eat where locals eat, wander off the main paths, and come back changed. Every trip I plan is built on one belief: the best experiences happen when you explore with someone who's walked that road before and genuinely cares about your journey.
We'd love to tell you about this year's trip and see if it's the right fit for you.
Let's find your side road