Doing Our Best

This week it's become official, I'm a co-founder of a travel company! Some would say after 15 years of running photo tours maybe this is no surprise, and indeed the foundation of both travel experiences is "Go Slow" in order to make the most of your journey.

My philosophy in business has been to "keep it small". I work in very small teams, I don't hire dozens of staff for a studio and my biggest and most successful partnership was when I married Shellie Froidevaux. My photo tours have always been operated to the smallest possible scale too, with genuinely small groups and working with very small local operators. That intimate connection with my teams from Nepal to Norway has been the foundation of my tours and workshops. Small is good.

"Be Your Best Tours" is a big deal for me, albeit on a very small scale. With the help of my amazing wife Shellie we're building a small set of pure travel experiences. No more than a handful of trips each year; large enough to build a business but small enough to enjoy it. Harmony, but with a touch of Himalayas! we want to share the very best of our travel experience, to create your very best travel experience. We'll do our best to help you be yours.

Sometimes that means gentle walks in nature, without backpacks of course, with a nice room and hot meals at the end of every day. Sometimes that means immersing into the local gourmet culture, with a few light walks to burn off the rice. Sometimes that means blessings from a monk, glimpsing a wild tiger in the jungle, or just standing beneath an aurora as it showers down above you. Our tour designs are a direct reflection of what we love about this planet.

I've enjoyed my time travelling with a camera, and I want others to enjoy these places and share the moments of discovery while walking trails in the Lower Mustang, or attending festivals in Central Bhutan, or watching the Northern Lights over Norway. A joy shared is a joy doubled.

Please pop over to the website, beyourbest.tours, and take a look :)

PS, update from March 31, 2022. We've just come back from Nepal and running our very first Be Your Best Tours journey. See all the updates from a wonderful journey on our Instagram account.

instagram.com/beyourbest.tours/

Nordlys in Norway

It's been a year since last I was standing underneath an aurora, looking straight up to the sky above as it danced around my head. I'm hoping the global covid situation will allow us to return to Norway in February, but in the meantime I can travel back in time through the photos and a special podcast episode we recorded on tour.

Fiona and Sharon in Norway

The best thing about getting feedback from my travellers is the way it lets me re-live the moments from a journey. The 2020 Arctic Norway trip was really special because we had such a lovely group of people and so many great experiences. The weather was some of the least helpful we've ever had on a tour, and yet we still got exactly what we came for. The Aurora Borealis.

The Absolute Best Lens in Nepal

Very rarely a new lens comes along that changes how I think about photography. This is one of those lenses. My priority for glass is always quality over convenience, but this time you get enough of both to make it a hard one to walk past. The newly released "DG Vario-Summilux 10-25mm f/1.7 ASPH" by Panasonic+Leica is not only a great lens for MFT systems, but may well be good enough to tempt full frame owners to look seriously at adopting the smaller mirrorless format of the Lumix G series.