About FirstHand Travel

Our Story

FirstHand Travel was created from a simple observation: planning a meaningful journey often requires more than searching websites and comparing prices.

The most rewarding travel experiences are rarely built around a single hotel, tour, or destination. They come from understanding how individual experiences fit together into a journey that reflects the traveller's interests, pace, and priorities.

FirstHand Travel combines practical travel planning with insights gained through our own travels, helping clients make informed decisions and travel with greater confidence.

First-Hand Experience

Travel has never been more accessible. With a few clicks, it's possible to research destinations, compare prices, and book almost every element of a journey online.

But great travel is about more than assembling bookings. It's about understanding how the pieces fit together.

On a recent Christmas Market trip to Europe, I noticed a distinct difference between travellers in one destination, compared to those in another. The first group followed the well-trodden path, while the second discovered a hidden gem and truly immersed themselves in the experience.

Neither approach is right or wrong. The important thing is knowing which experiences are likely to resonate with you.

That's where first-hand experience can make a difference. Through our own travels, research, and ongoing exploration, we help clients navigate the options, uncover opportunities they may not have considered, and design journeys that reflect their own interests, travel style, and priorities.

Travel By Design

We believe great journeys are created through understanding, refinement, and thoughtful planning rather than simply selecting products from a brochure. That's not to suggest that every moment of your trip should be mapped out. Some of the best travel memories arise from spontaneous moments.

The trick is to plan just enough to allow those moments to thrive.

To that end, we created a three stage travel planning process, with the principal aim of ensuring you get the trip you want:

• Discovery
  Getting to know and understanding your interests, priorities and travel style.
• Design
  Exploring possibilities and shaping the journey around your goals.
• Proposal
  Bringing the design together into a practical and bookable travel plan.

This is not "cookie-cutter" travel - it's bespoke, and it's focused on you.

Meet FirstHand Travel

When I was a child, our family of six roamed the countryside of Australia in a small caravan that these days would only accommodate two. We covered a lot of ground, had great experiences and created wonderful memories.

It had a profound effect on me that I didn't fully understand until later. Travelling was not for me.

But then, much later, when I began to explore the world as an adult, I got the bug back. It wasn't the absence of the caravan that rekindled my interest, it was the revelation that the journey begins long before you reach the destination.

I realised that planning was not only vitally important to the success of the trip, but that I also enjoyed it almost as much as going on the trip itself.

And so began my love affair with travel, and together with my partner Anuschka, we believe those experiences should be shared, to ensure yours are memorable too.

Along the way, my childhood interest in photography was also re-ignited, and many of the photos used on this website are the result. Hopefully that's a good thing.

Explore FirstHand Travel