Great  leaders make great trips. Here’s what we look for— and make sure we find—in a GeoEx leader:

• Expertise about the place. We expect our leaders to share our love for our destinations and  communicate their enthusiasm and knowledge with their travel mates.
• Ability to get the trip from Points A to Z, and all stops in between. And the resourcefulness to solve unexpected glitches.
• Street- (and higher-) level know-how in dealing with different cultural norms and business practices.
• Good fellowship and the ability to relate. Trip leaders should be catalysts for our primary objective: having fun.

ASIA

We’ve got him up front here in our Asia section, but Vassi Koutsaftis has been leading trips around the planet for us for many years. He is one of GeoEx’s all-time aces, a guy at affable, story-telling ease in a Buenos Aires pub or a tent in the highest Himalaya.

Bob Jones is one of the West’s most astute, experienced, and scholarly Asia hands. Very few people know China and the Silk Road’s byways, history, and magic as well as Bob, who is an old friend and colleague and a great guy to travel with.

Carolyn McIntyre, who headed our Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian programs for many fruitful years, has exchanged her desk for the open road as a tour leader.

Rick Montgomery studied Mandarin at Beijing’s Foreign Language Institute and has visited 24 of China’s provinces. His work has been published in Outside, Travel & Leisure, and elsewhere, and he has led many trips throughout the Middle Kingdom and helped train local guides in “the ways of the American tourist.”

Our Mongolian partners, Bodio, Monkhtuya, and Ishee, in addition to managing the myriad details of our tours from the Altai Mountains to the Gobi, are also old and dear friends, great interpreters of their up-and-coming country.

Bill Jones, one of our most polymathic leaders, has led more than 100 trips across Asia and Europe. Bill has recently specialized in Southeast Asia and Bhutan, where he was given the honorific name Dorje Wanchuck by the oracle of Minji village.

Dr. Robert Thurman, one of the world’s ranking experts on Tibetan Buddhism, is the founder of Tibet Houseand a professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies at Columbia University.

Our senior leader in India, Neel Pratap, lives in Varanasi and has many years of experience introducing travelers to India, Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan.

Holder of graduate degrees in tourism and ancient Indian history, Yatish Ba Huguna, our trekking guru in India, has been leading treks and tours in India, Nepal, and Bhutan for more than 20 years.

Vishu Singh, who belongs to a noble Rajasthani family, was educated at the prestigious Mayo College of Ajmer before beginning his career as a trip leader.

Yam Gurung, one of our most experienced and popular trip leaders, has led countless adventures all over the Himalaya, from India to Bhutan, through Tibet, and along the Silk Road.

Kabir Heimsath, who holds an M.A. in religious studies with a focus on Tibetan Buddhism, has lived and led trips in India, Nepal, and Tibet, where he’s currently working on his Ph.D. from Oxford.

Karma Lotey and Karma Choden oversee every detail of GeoEx’s programs in Bhutan. Their inexhaustible energy and attention to detail are legendary.

Bart Jordans, who lived with his family in Bhutan from 1999 to 2004, has led more than 80 treks since the ’80s. He is the author of Bhutan: A Trekker’s Guide.

Legendary John Roskelley is one of America’s finest and most accomplished mountaineers. He made the first American ascents of K2, Makalu, Dhaulagiri, Nanda Devi, and Gaurishankar (the first three without oxygen).

Tshering Dorji, Sha Phurba , Ugyen Yoesar, Tsewang Rinchen, Namgey Dorji, Ratu, and Tandin Gyelts hen are just a few of our most senior and respected leaders in Bhutan. They have led many of our challenging treks as well as our touring trips for organizations such as the Harvard Museum of Natural History, the Textile Museum, Tibet House, and the World Wildlife Fund.

Sarah Timewell’s passion for travel was nurtured by a family of English adventurers in the classic tradition. She worked for nearly a decade in our San Francisco office, creating one of the industry’s finest programs in Southeast Asia and Arabia.

Fluent in Arabic, which she studied in Cairo and Tunis for a number of years, Sylvie Franquet has written voluminously on the Middle East for Fodor, and the Insight Guides to Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, the Nile, and Cairo.

Patti Seery’s on-the-ground knowledge of Indonesia runs deep. Founder of the National Museum of Jakarta’s travel program, she received a graduate degree in Southeast Asian textiles from India’s Baroda University.
 We’re honored to count Sona Hishi Sherpa as a great friend and one of our most popular leaders. A superb crosscultural guide and companion, this warmly elegant man is, quite simply, one of the great Sherpas of his—or any other—generation.

Holder of a degree in economics, our Japan maven Amy (Emiko) Sakaoka has worked with the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Milwaukee Museum, and the Asia Society in her homeland, and she brings a fine mix of companionship, passion, and expertise to her wide-ranging Japan tours.

A much-published food and travel writer (for the likes of Travel & Leisure, Fortune, the Los Angeles Times, and Lonely Planet), Andrew Bender holds a number of advanced degrees, is fluent in Japanese and French, gets around in German and Mandarin, and is, in short, a multifaceted leader in Japan.

Tese Wintz Neighbor, Senior Director of Professional Development for the World Affairs Council in Seattle, teaches, writes and leads tours to China and the Silk Road.

In the ’90s Susy Barry established the first international-level recruitment and training consultancy in Hanoi. She has studied at Chulalongkorn University and guided at Bangkok’s  National Museum.

Ted Callahan has been a trek, river, and mountain guide for the past 13 years in Nepal, Chile, Argentina, Patagonia, Tibet, and China. He’s working on his doctorate in anthropology and speaks Chinese, Spanish, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Farsi, Russian, and Nepalese.

RUSSIA and TURKEY

Leyla Topal, a talented and knowledgeable guide hailing from the Mediterranean town of Bodrum where she found her love for Mediterranean cooking, photography, sailing, archaeology, and ornithology.

Serdar Balin is an avid art collector, history buff, and always up for a good hike. His worldly travels haven taken him far and wide living in places such as Libya, Moscow, and London.

Levent Evkuran’s roots are in Istanbul where he was born, raised, and educated in Economics and History.  His deep love for his country, its history, and archaeology brought him to the guiding profession where he excels on an array of topics.

Masha Nordbye, a TV producer, director, and writer, has more than 50 trips to Russia and Central Asia under her belt. She is the author of the Odyssey Guide to Moscow, St. Petersburg, and The Golden Ring.

Oguz Kaya is an upbeat and knowledgeable travel companion, bringing the vast history of Turkey alive and treating each guest to a wide array of local cuisine and an insider’s look at the life of a Turk.

AFRICA

Our chief climbing guide on Kilimanjaro, Victor Kinyonga started out as a secondary school teacher  before becoming a mountain and safari guide in 1991. Very few of our worldwide roster of guides are more liked, trusted, and admired than Victor, who has the knack of making his hundredth climb of the great peak as fresh as his first.

Allan Phillemon has been exploring Kilimanjaro since he was a lad. Well versed in Western ways (he lived in the USA for a few years), he began guiding in 1990 and formed African Outdoor Expeditions, with whom we work in taking people to and up the magical peak via less trod routes.

Jacks on (Sigilu Ole) Looseyia, one of our hosts at Rekero Tented Camp in Kenya, has been described by a writer from the Irish Times as a fellow “who can name every bird, animal, insect, and plant in Swahili, Maa, English, and Latin.”

Luca Belpietro has been intimately involved with Africa since his first trips as a boy in the late ’60s. Following his bliss as few are able to do, Luca and his wife, Antonella Bonomi, have partnered with the Maasai to create exquisite Campi ya Kanzi, a small, unpretentiously luxurious lodge that many, including the writer of this catalog, consider Africa’s finest, friendliest, and most interesting.

One of the Association of Professional Safari Guides’ most popular guides, Joe Charleson was born in Kenya and recently returned home after a stint in Botswana. A young man renowned for his charm and verve, Joe has few peers when it comes to knowledge of the above Carolyn McIntyre top right Dr. Robert Thurman bush.

Judi He Lmholz lives on the banks of the Zambezi with her husband, Arthur, their family of rottweilers, dachshunds, crocodiles, and the country’s largest chicken population.  An international business consultant, safari and rafting guide, location scout, and environmentalist, Judi is indeed a Renaissance woman.

Born and raised in Morocco, Khalid Mouzaki traveled to fabled Bordeaux, France for university before returning home to coastal Casablanca. As a guide for Geographic Expeditions since 1999, he continues to share his passion for the Moroccan culture, its cities, sea, and Sahara.

Worku Sharew traveled far afield for his studies: Gondar to Gojam, Gojam to Annapolis, Maryland, but eventually he returned to his beloved birthplace in Ethiopia. Today he calls the country’s capital, Addis Ababa, home and when not guiding for Geographic Expeditions, Worku is an avid writer and editor. 
After gaining experience as a guide along Tanzania's Northern Circuit, Brad Hansen launched his own safari company and with a practiced eye for the magnificent, he’s a popular companion to prominent National Geographic filmmakers.

From a young age Thuto Moutloatsi developed a keen appreciation for the wilds of Botswana following, quite literally, in his father’s footsteps and into a career in tourism and conservation. A passionate explorer and generous storyteller, Thuto is a natural ambassador to his homeland.

“I was really born in the bush,” Brooks Kamanakao says of his birthplace – the small village of Motopi on the banks of the once cascading Boteti River. Brooks shares with us his insider’s perspective on the Botswana ecosystem – from its birding boon to the vivid cosmos overhead.

AMERICAS 

During the past 20 years Janko Gorse has established himself as Patagonia’s premier guide. We’re a company of Patagoniaphiles ourselves, and we’re lucky to have a guy like him down there, leading trips and passing along his stupendous enthusiasm and knowledge.

Poet, artist, cultural enthusiast, and avid outdoorsman Jose Antonio Gonzalez lives in Antigua, Guatemala, and is intimately familiar with just about every Central American corner.

Merlin Lipshitz is one of Patagonia’s great climbers, having summited Fitz Roy and the ultra-daunting Cerro Torre, along with most of the region’s peaks. He has expeditioned many times on the Patagonian Ice Cap and is one of our favorite, most qualified, and most trustworthy Patagonia guys.

Efraín “Effy” Valles of Cusco has led treks, rambles, and in-depth explorations of the Inca heartland for many years and is acclaimed as one of its most passionate and knowledgeable partisans.

A member of a legendary family of trekking and river guides, Zacharias de Ugarte brims with enthusiasm for all things Peruvian and is an avid birder and botanist in addition to being a peerless introducer of his native land.

Alex Rodríguez, native of Colombia’s coffee-growing region, is a favorite of our travelers to the country; the most frequent feedback we get about “Big Alex” is that “he felt like family.”