Our Origin Story

It was 2004, and our Founder, Amanda Jamieson, was still at university studying psychology. She needed a part-time job, and with her love of travel, she found an opening for an office assistant at a local travel company. By that time, she’d been fortunate enough to have traveled a fair bit and she’d worked in an office before, so she thought it’d be a perfect fit while Amanda finished her degree. Little did she know, her life (and career path) was about to change forever.

Amanda was going to be an assistant to the South American travel specialist. She’d spent six weeks in Ecuador during a summer in high school and had been to the Galapagos Islands and the Amazon while there, so she had some personal knowledge to assist her. However, the week she started, the African specialist decided to leave. Since Africa wasn’t a booming destination at the time, it was decided the South America specialist would assist with Africa, with Amanda’s help of course. The South American specialist loved South America and didn’t have a strong desire to learn a new region, but Amanda certainly did. Now to be perfectly honest with you, she didn’t know Mali from Botswana or Tanzania from Tunisia, she embarrassingly couldn’t have even named those countries off the top of her head, let alone told you anything about them, but she slowly started taking everything over. She had a row of Lonely Planet books at her desk and began teaching herself all she could about Africa. Suddenly, Amanda was selling all corners of the continent and grew to be a full-time employee. No longer was she an assistant, but the official Africa Travel Specialist. While she ended up completing her psychology degree, Amanda had fallen in love with travel planning and more than anything, helping people explore the world, and there was no looking back!

For Amanda, those first four years as an Africa Travel Specialist were amazing, every day was a challenge of learning, growing, and traveling. And it was early in her travel career when she realized she could make a difference in people’s lives through travel. She was working with a grandmother to plan a multi-generational trip to Tanzania. Amanda spent hours getting to know her, learning about her family, and what they were looking for so that she could plan the perfect trip for them. She did her research and worked with local partners to ensure they would all have a great trip, all 12 of them. It was the most complex group she’d worked with at that point and an extensive itinerary. Amanda was proud of what she’d put together but was still nervous to hear about it when they got home. Well, the grandmother returned, and they had an amazing call. Not only did they have a wonderful trip and all bonded together, but the grandchildren were so moved by the cultural experiences with a local community, that they decided to forgo Christmas presents that year, and instead, send presents to the children they met. Amanda might have been in tears hearing about how powerful and transformative an experience they had because she helped make that happen. It was then Amanda truly fell in love with her career and realized the impact she could have on helping people, and in a small way the world, through travel.

Not every traveler is going to have such a profound experience, but even the little connections we can make, introducing them to a local guide, a new culinary delight, or an exciting active experience, each of those small moments can have an impact. Even all these years later, Amanda knows that she’s helping turn a fun vacation into an unforgettable adventure, and that’s why she still and will continue to do what we do!

Over the next 16 years, Amanda’s focus grew beyond Africa to all corners of the world. She lived in both Scotland and New Zealand, worked for a rafting company, various tour operators specializing in nature and adventure travel, and she spent some time working in international travel design. It was a diverse insight into the travel industry and the various roles available within it. All this experience helped her to realize her true passion is custom travel design. And while it was an absolute pleasure working for various companies over the past 19 years, she decided it was the right time to venture out on her own. Amanda was ready to allow her own vision of luxury adventure travel to become a reality because we don’t believe you should have to sacrifice the overnight comforts to be adventurous. And thus, the creation of Adventure More!