Some people discover their passion later in life. I didn’t. From devouring Tintin comics as a child - where every page opened a door to somewhere new - to convincing my parents at sixteen for a high school exchange year in California’s Los Altos Hills. The world has always called. I lived it fully: as a cruise purser sailing the early Caribbean routes, solo travelling on round-the-world tickets, and later as a travel writer for a prestigious Dutch magazine - Meridian International as it was known then - chasing breathtaking destinations with photographers and a PowerBook the size of a suitcase.

Life unfolded as a family of five: three children and shared odysseys through the Sunda Islands, the Great Barrier Reef, and other far-flung paradises. Yet the wanderlust never faded.

Whether it was after a tennis match or in the supermarket, people started coming to me for advice on where to go. I then made it official, earned my qualifications, and became a travel designer.

Today I craft journeys for travellers who want more than a hotel room and a plane ticket. It could be a night in a Zambian treehouse watching elephants drink under the stars, a private after-hours visit to the pyramids of Giza with no one else in sight, a legendary train journey high trough the Andes, or a zipline arrival at a hidden lodge deep in the Cambodian jungle. Every itinerary I build carries a little of that childlike wonder from my Tintin days: the sense that somewhere, right now, an adventure is waiting, and that it's always worth going to find it.