Podcast: Tom Barber, Cofounder of Original Travel
January 31, 2025 •Chris Simpson
Our latest Industry Leaders episode features Tom Barber, Cofounder of Original Travel. From the early days behind the launch of this unique travel business to adapting to industry shifts and embracing innovation, Tom shares the strategies that propelled Original Travel to the forefront of bespoke travel experiences. There are some wonderful destination ideas in there too!
Listen to the full episode below or search Industry Leaders wherever you get your podcast
You can also read the interview below:
Sorcha
Hello and welcome to the Industry Leaders podcast. I'm Sorcha O’Boyle and on the show with me today is Tom Barber, co-founder of the award-winning Original Travel, who I think may just have the best job in the world. Tom, it is great to have you here.
How are you?
Tom
I'm very well, thanks. Thank you for having me. It's a lovely opportunity to wax lyrical about, as you say, one of the great subject matters.
Sorcha
Absolutely, absolutely. So for anyone who's not familiar, what exactly is Original Travel and how did it come to be?
Tom
Technically speaking, we are a tour operator rather than just a travel company. And we opened our doors in 2003, so 22 years old now. It feels extraordinarily long time, but it's been amazing.
And yeah, we're going from strength to strength. Obviously, it's the sort of industry where you have some quite specific ups and downs and the pandemic was pretty brutal for all concerned, but it's very exciting times now.
Sorcha
Yeah, for sure. And your kind of starting point, I think, was the big short break. Can you tell me about what that was?
Tom
Yeah, sure. So we were slightly kind of classic - three people leaving jobs, starting a business in a spare bedroom. And we had been in the army, the city, and I was a journalist.
So three very different worlds, but realised pretty quickly that actually, I mean, we all had very complimentary skills and knew that we wanted to start a travel business. Didn't necessarily know what the niche was going to be, what the angle was going to be. And the city boy, Nick, was able to access a huge amount of amazing intel and analysis on the travel industry.
And pretty soon realised that there was an area that was absolutely ripe for what I guess you'd call nowadays disruption. At the time, that wasn't such a kind of thing. But the short break was something that people really hadn't done anything with for a long time.
And we realised that short breaks were something that would be absolutely ripe for disruption. At the time, it was something like, you know, you go to Bruges for a long weekend, or maybe about as radical as it got was a ski weekend, long weekend, something like that, but nothing beyond that. And we came along and we analysed everywhere that was within a seven hour flight of the UK, or overnight down to Southern Africa, because, well, minimal time zone difference, and came up with this portfolio of about 33 different, as we call them, big short breaks.
And it was completely revolutionary. It was things like going to Swedish Lapland and mushing your own team of Siberian Huskies and seeing the Northern Lights or flying down to South Africa and darting rhinos and relocating them as part of conservation programmes, and doing all of this in four or five days. The kind of principle behind it all was minimum time, maximum experience.
And it flew. It was a very good idea, if I say so myself, very well timed, very well pitched to a particular audience. And yeah, it was an instant success.
And I think journalists were, travel journalists, there hadn't been anything new in the industry for years. And suddenly there was a very good new idea. And so they were absolutely falling all over it, which was obviously made our lives a bit easier.
But I think another thing was that the audience was quite specific. And that was time poor, cash rich professionals who couldn't take a week off or two weeks off, particularly, and were slightly terrified they might not have a job to come back to if they did go away for two weeks. And so going away for a long weekend was a much more attractive proposition.
And all these trips had a real element of braggability to them. So, you know, you got back on, let's say, a Tuesday morning. And so next to you was like, what did you do at the weekend?
Well, I went rhino darting in South Africa. It's quite a good line.
Sorcha
Yeah, that's some brilliant word of mouth marketing right there. Like you must have just gotten, look, those networks must have come to you really quickly.
Tom
Totally. And weirdly, it was almost too successful a niche because a couple of years later, when we had started selling beyond just big short breaks, we used to get friends coming up and going, I've just done an amazing trip to Australia with XYZ other company. And I would say, why didn't you use us?
We sell the world now. And they were like, oh, I thought you just did short breaks. We had to do a bit of a re-education at that point.
We'd hired a whole bunch of sales people who were experts in other parts of the world that would be on the short break remit.
Sorcha
And a big part of how you guys work is, you know, kind of specialization and concierges. Can you tell me a little bit about how they work for your customers or for your clients?
Tom
Sure. So original is a word that will crop up an awful lot in this conversation and in everything we do. But our original services are one of the things we think sets us apart.
Obviously, destination expertise is fundamental, but original services are all the things that you get as standard on one of our trips. And probably the key one is concierges. So every destination we sell around the world, there is either a concierge or a team of concierges who are there on the end of a phone or WhatsApp that are at your disposal for the entire time you're in their destination.
Places that are very popular like Italy or the States or Japan, there's teams. So either regional or based in one particular city, but with a scope to sell the entire country, not sell, sorry, kind of help for the entire country. And they are a real point of difference because we actually always encourage our clients to challenge them.
They love a challenge, these guys and girls. And they are there just to take what should already be an amazing trip and just elevate it another level. Obviously, there's the kind of basic stuff like restaurant recommendations and making last minute bookings or that sort of thing.
But even making changes to the whole itinerary, if you suddenly decide that you're feeling spontaneous and you want to stay for longer, or you want to break it short and move on somewhere else, or someone's recommended this amazing other place that you've got to try and see, they can do all that, obviously, in cahoots with the team in London as well. They are just on site, they're all locals, so they know their destinations incredibly well. And they've just pulled amazing rabbits out of hats on a regular basis.
And they're super creative as well. So sort of things they can do are, we had a couple who were hugely into Bollywood, and they were going around one of the studios in Bombay, Mumbai, and the concierge had arranged that they would become extras in the Goddard scene in one of these movies that was being filmed, and then sent them the clip of it. So they've now got that for posterity.
And that's just the sort of thing that goes above and beyond. I think the key, though, is it's all about the profiling of the clients. We need to know that those clients love dance, or Bollywood, or whatever it is.
And then from there, the team in London and the concierge between them will come up with some kind of killer ideas.
Sorcha
Yeah, I mean, like people talk about personalisation, but this is like a different scale of personalisation entirely. How does that work? So if you're a concierge, I mean, I presume they do a phenomenal amount of research with the client beforehand.
So is that a phone call? Or how does that work?
Tom
Well, as we're now 22 years old, look at some of the profile notes in our booking system of people who we've been dealing with for 20 years, pages and pages. And it becomes a very virtuous circle, because the more information we know about them, the better we get at predicting what they will and won't like, and almost as importantly, what they won't like. And we steer them to what we know will work for them.
They have an amazing holiday, they're singing our praises, and it just becomes, like I said, a virtuous circle. But it's, yeah, it's incredibly important to ask the right questions about what they will and won't like. And then all of that information is fed to the concierges, and they can see the profile notes.
So it becomes a kind of conversation between the consultant who's booking the holiday and the concierge, and between them, they come up with every trip will have little sprinkled surprises and ideas and suggestions in it.
Sorcha
That's fantastic. It just sounds really, really, really brilliant. And you kind of mentioned Japan a couple of minutes ago.
Can I ask you, what is Kintsugi travel?
Tom
Kintsugi, we've probably talked about a couple of Japanese concepts that we love. So Kintsugi is the Japanese concept of taking broken crockery and repairing it, but perceiving the repaired piece as beautiful, if not even more beautiful than the original, because it's rendered unique, and it's often done with beautiful gold lacquerwork. And this piece, you know, even though you can tell it's obviously been broken at some point, has been repaired.
And the Japanese concept of Kintsugi is that that is as beautiful, if not more beautiful than the original. So we took that concept after the pandemic and applied it to travel, because in the build-up to the pandemic, we worried that as an industry, we were in the crosshairs a bit. There was a lot of chat about flight shaming, and people shouldn't be flying anywhere, but also over tourism.
And I'm not saying these things have disappeared, but the whole concept about Kintsugi travel was we were going to rebuild travel, and we were going to be the gold lacquer that pieced it back together, but in a more sustainable, more thoughtful manner. And so we've applied that across lots of different ways. And those ways are under-tourism, so obviously trying to be the antidote to over-tourism, where everybody flocks to the same places at the same time of year.
There is much more emphasis on community-based tourism, so offering clients the option to stay in locally-owned places, rather than big chains. Something we call Philan-tourism, which is where you actively choose to travel to a place because it's had a rough time of late. So be that a natural disaster, or a terrorist attack, or some economic upheaval, and actually just going to that place, you don't have to do anything specific when you're there, except spend your money, which you will be doing by your very presence.
And it's a kind of implicit support, I think really, moral support, really, as well as financial support for a destination that you have chosen to go to because they've had a tough time. There is flight-free travel, which obviously is incredibly important nowadays, and we were the first luxury tour operator to put together a portfolio of train-only itineraries. And then indigenous tourism, which is where there's much more emphasis on local communities, and indigenous communities who have basically been the guardians of some of these beautiful, wild destinations for generations, and have a much better understanding of these places and why and how they work than someone else.
So why don't we embrace those people? That one's slightly controversial because what we really, really want to avoid is any sort of zoo-like, you know, look, here's a Maasai warrior jumping up and down type vibes. So that's incumbent on us, but also it's what I'd like to think the experiences that we have curated for things like that are very, very special.
One example, my daughter and I went to Swedish Lapland last year and met a Sámi reindeer herdsman. And he wasn't this kind of Disney Sámi guy straight off of frozen Central Castle. He was perfectly happy to admit he'd worked as a consultant in Stockholm for five years and then was just like, forget it.
I can't stand this. I want to get back home. We had this really special half day with him.
He takes part in the last remaining migration in Europe, which is the Sámi reindeer herdsmen who take their herds down to the sea in summer. And just, he was incredible, just explaining all about the Sámi sensibilities and how they have quite an unhappy relationship with the government sometimes. And really, he was very, very open and there was no kind of whitewashing of anything.
It was fascinating. And then teaching my daughter that moss that grows on the silver birch trees is basically this kind of candy floss for reindeers. And so she was stripping it off and feeding it to his reindeers and everything.
It was magical.
Sorcha
That sounds really beautiful. And I suppose you, you know, those kind of relationships, I'm sure you do them in partnership with people who are living in those places. How do you come across someone like him who's herding his reindeer and giving them candy floss?
Tom
It's a very good question. And that is another reason for having concierges and teams of people on the ground. And we have concierge in every country, but in, again, some of the more popular destinations, we have people on the ground in all of these places and they are constantly feeding back information to us.
Our team of consultants are constantly revisiting their destinations because they're all specialists rather than generalists. And so they're building up their knowledge all the time.
Sorcha
And one of the things that you promised, which is I think really interesting is 100% carbon absorption, which is a massive undertaking and obviously a very complex thing to do. So how are you approaching that?
Tom
Good question. So there's a big difference between offsetting and absorption as well. And we make sure not to say offsetting.
That can mean that you're kind of kicking the can down or you're passing on the responsibility to someone else through carbon credits, that sort of thing. The absorption element is, well, we can happily boast that we say we want to do it because we actually own and fund some of these projects around the world. By far the best carbon absorption is through reforestation and very particularly through mangroves.
So mangroves are known as the best sequesters of carbon of all reforestation. And we have these projects around the world that fund. So we're not paying someone to go and do something.
They are ours. We are overseeing them on a regular basis as well. And actually the mission now is to be double, say 200% absorption on all travel.
And we do that because we've got calculations in place that work out, not just your flights, but also your ground transport as well. So be you going on a road trip or train, because obviously even train has some emissions and we can work it out and plant as many trees slash mangroves as is required to absorb that.
Sorcha
Right. And to what extent is sustainability a consideration for your clients when they come to you? Is it in kind of a wish list?
Tom
I think that's a very valid question because it's obviously top priority for some people, not a priority at all for others. And most people as in life are somewhere in the middle. There was a moment in the 2010s when it was becoming the absolutely key consideration.
No, so it must've been in 2008 or 2007. And then the financial crisis came along and suddenly I was like, you know what? It's about value rather than saving the planet at this point.
And it's now very, very much back on the agenda. There's a lot of accusations of greenwashing. But I actually think we've got to a stage where people assume that any travel company will be bending over backwards to do the right thing because we are part of the problem.
On one level, flights represent 3% of all emissions. So if you're selling flights, you are part of the problem. That's why absorption is unbelievably crucial.
I think there's a danger of being overly preachy about any of this stuff. I think you're better off saying here are some options. You make the decision.
You know, you're a grown up. As long as you have information from which to work from, then the decision is yours. And a classic case of that is we've just introduced this new carbon calculator.
So all our flight team have this new tool. It's proprietary. It's exclusive to us.
And we can then say to you, if you take this flight with this airline or this flight with this airline, there is a difference in carbon emissions from the two. And weirdly, given the size of the plane, the age of the plane, the makeup of the seating on that plane, you can have two direct flights from London to a particular destination that might have as much as 50% difference of carbon emissions just on that part alone. So if we can say to clients, well, you can take this flight or you can take this flight, this is the difference, then it's up to them to make the call.
Sorcha
And how have clients been responding to that so far?
Tom
They like it. Who wouldn't want that information to hand, knowledge is power and all that. And some people will say, well, I'll definitely take that option.
Others will be like, slightly worse timings. It doesn't fit with our schedule. We’ll, go with the other one.
The fact remains that all your carbon is being absorbed anyway, if you travel with us. So it's all checks and balances.
Sorcha
Yeah, for sure. I think travel is a really interesting industry. It's very much about how you make people feel.
That's the case for any kind of consumer facing brand, right? But particularly for travel, I think probably particularly for you guys, you know, given the kind of experience that you give to your clients. And I think something that comes across really, really strongly in everything that you've created and everything that I've seen is kind of the thoughtfulness and the considered nature of what you do in your branding.
And it really is very clear that you're tailor making everything to your clients, but you must learn a lot from your clients.
Tom
Yeah, very much. And even the same person will have different reasons for traveling each time. So just to go back to your original point about thoughtfulness, we feel an enormous pressure because the analogy I always use is let’s say you buy a car from someone or a tv or a bit of tech and it breaks, you send it back. You can’t send a holiday back. It is time that has gone and so it needs to be perfect and that’s a lot of pressure so back to what you were saying, finding as much as possible about the client likes and dislikes and what they want to get out of that specific trip I think is hugely important. All the team, be that the flight team or service team or sales consultants, they are all thinking about how they can make that the best trip imaginable. That all sounds lovely and thoughtful as you say but if that then means the client comes back and tells all their friends about how wonderful Original Travel are then we benefit from that as well. So it's not entirely altruistic.
Sorcha
Yeah, well, I mean, you're a business at the end of the day. But tell me about the best sabbatical ever.
Tom
That was epic. That was one of the most fun things to do. So we had a client who sold his business for multiple hundreds of millions and came to us with a very specific brief, which was, I've worked 12 years building this company.
I have barely travelled. I haven't got as many mates as I wish I'd had. I want to learn things.
I want to see the world. And I've got my own plane, by the way, so off you go! Well, we didn't go anywhere for a while because we took months and months to plan this.
But basically, we weaved together a suggested itinerary of what we thought were the 90 most amazing experiences around the world, and then how to put them together, because obviously, some of them are time specific and etc, etc. He was very, very keen to learn, pick up skills on route as well. So we weaved it all together.
And off he went. And we built a website for him that 50 of his mates had a login to and they could see where he had been already and where he was going to be. And the deal was that if they wanted to join him on any leg of the trip, they paid to get there.
But once they were there, they were his guests. And so we had people joining him throughout the trip. He had mates join him to go on this kind of awesome motorbike trip across Kazakhstan.
The absolute best bit for me was when he was in Ladakh, which is Himalayan India, but very Tibetan in feel. And we had him walking between Tibetan monasteries with a translator and a monk explaining the basic tenets of Tibetan Buddhism to him so that when he arrived at the monastery and stayed the night there and got involved in some of the religious aspects, he had a better understanding of what was going on each time and getting better and better along the way. Meanwhile, we had a team of spotters in another area of Ladakh looking for snow leopards.
And once they'd spotted one, we got in there by helicopter and shipped in a wildlife photographer, and we had them in a hide for three or four days photographing this snow leopard. And he was learning all about best practices of wildlife photography.
Sorcha
Wow, that is extraordinary.
Tom
At the end of it, he didn't finish the trip. He did about three quarters of it. And then he said, you know what, I miss work.
I've loved this trip, but I've got an idea for another business. And off he went to start another business. So it was this extraordinary nine months of his life.
Sorcha
I mean, that really is incredible. What an experience for him to have.
Tom
And I do genuinely think that you might get people writing and going, well, I actually went on a two year sabbatical and blah, blah, blah. But I would like to think that was all in the best sabbatical anyone's ever done.
Sorcha
Yeah, I mean, that sounds pretty life changing.
Tom
It really does.
Sorcha
Yeah. And your business, you're catering to a particular group, but how has the cost of living crisis affected you? How have you adapted the business?
Tom
It's been interesting. I mean, we are the canaries in the coal mine for everything, be that pandemics or ructions in any particular country around the world or region. Cost of living is the latest one that's come along and presented itself.
I always say on that, I think there's a perception that companies like us are expensive, but we offer truly tailor-made travel. It's precisely how much you want to spend on it. Now, I would never say that we could organise a trip for a grand, let's say, because we don't know the properties that would come in to fit a budget like that.
But you don't have to be staying in a swanky Amman or Four Seasons every night. Like I was referring to earlier, there are homestays in places that are 60 to 80 bucks or whatever, and you can have an unbelievably special stay there. That's up to you, I guess.
It is truly tailor-made. It doesn't have to cost the world. As an ex-journalist, I love a portmanteau word, and one of my favourites is a compromise.
So we say that you need to make a compromise sometimes, which is compromise on the quality – not the quality, sorry – the expensiveness of the property. And then you can spend more on the experiences that you're doing during the days between those places. And we're getting better and better at finding these places that are not expensive, but are truly wonderful and actually probably offer you a much better insight into a destination than the swanky hotel up the road that's owned by a Singaporean hedge fund.
Sorcha
Yeah, for sure. And you've said it yourself, the travel industry is generally the first warning signal when any kind of big global change happens. But it's an extremely adaptable industry.
It's a remarkably adaptable industry. What changes do you think are on the horizon? What are the things that you're kind of looking at?
Tom
I think the inevitable one is AI and trying to avoid thinking negatively about it for starters. We've all got to retain an open mind, I think. It might well be a danger for the lower end of the market and a real disruptor for online travel agents and anyone who's piling them high and selling them cheap.
I would like to think we will harness it, but you can't beat a conversation with someone who has been to a specific destination, experience the things you are talking about doing and wanting to do yourselves. I think that's priceless. And I don't think that can ever change.
It's interesting, we're starting to use AI a little bit for things like book recommendations for places, just to supplement the ones that we already know and have on the list. Just the other day, I thought, well, maybe let's add a few more. And every time we looked at a list churned out by ChatGPT or something, almost every single time one of a list of 10 books would be total fabrication.
And we thought it might be that someone in a book is writing a book and they've taken that information and plunked it in. So it's just a complete fabrication and just reminds you that it ain't perfect. And it's a long way from being perfect.
So even for some of that basic stuff, it's not necessarily a very good idea. And I think personally that our end of the market, we will be indispensable forevermore, as will anyone in any business where it's high touch, which is slightly kind of business chat, but high touch when we reckon it must be 20 or 30 moments of interaction between either the consultant or a service person or your concierge or person who meets you at the airport, because that's one of our original services.
You are met, if you're leaving from a UK airport, you are met by a member of our team at the airport, who will fast track you through check-in, take you to the lounge. Even if you're flying economy, you get access to a lounge. That's all part of the service.
And again, that's another person who's you're having an interaction with. So high touch businesses like us, AI can't do that.
Sorcha
Yeah. There are so many opportunities there for you guys to build relationships and learn about the client and add those little increments of value. Yeah, totally.
Yeah. And can you tell me a little bit about reconnecting travel? Because that's an interesting one.
Tom
That's a personal favorite of mine. So I grew up in London and basically pretty ignorant about the countryside. Now I live in rural Norfolk and still every day I'm learning something new.
So I just posted a very random Instagram post about we had some domestic geese and they all got gobbled by a fox. Other than one. And she, in winter, there's a stream at the end of the garden and she's made friends with the local family of swans.
And so she hangs out with them. And then in summer we get migratory grey lag geese coming in. And every year she mates one of them, has chicks, because it turns out, which I found out a couple of days ago, that domestic geese are direct descendants of grey lags.
So they are compatible. And her chicks, every year, her goslings can fly, unlike her.
Sorcha
Oh, that's amazing.
Tom
So there's all this stuff that I'm just learning about and it feels like I'm, it's a very long garbled answer to your question, but I'm reconnecting with the countryside, with nature, that, you know, when you live in London, you really don't see. So it just made me think that actually there's so much stuff like that, that we are losing skills, losing insight, losing understanding of traditional ways of doing things. And it's potentially open for kind of criticism of being a bit nostalgic and, you know, old school.
But if you go somewhere like Romania and there are parts of Transylvania, places that just feel unbelievably old. And if you go out with one of the local shepherds, he's got these huge, ferocious dogs because there are wolves and bears roaming around and you need these dogs to fight them off. And then just coming back into town with the shepherd and his herd and the cows just peel off into their homes.
They know where they live. And then the old granny will be sitting there on her little stool and she'll milk the cows. It feels like medieval times.
And just reconnecting with that, which would have been going on here two or three hundred years ago in the UK. And I think that's a very special moment, actually.
Sorcha
And are people seeking that out? Are people drawn to that?
Tom
Yeah. Again, it's not the overriding, you know, it's not the trend, but it is a trend for sure. And I think there is something very special about that.
You've got to seek it out. It's not everywhere. And I'm certainly not suggesting that to go back to the Maasai warrior that he puts his phone away.
I think you have to appreciate countries are what they are nowadays. But if you can find places where things are still done in a traditional manner, I think that can be quite special. So like the Hadabzi, I think I mispronounced that, tribe in Tanzania, they use, they're called bee guides, I think, the birds, and they have worked out a symbiotic relationship with the tribe people that they will fly to where they know there is honey.
And then the honey finders come, climb up, they've become immune to the stings of the bees, pull out the honey and take it back home. But they take the grubs out of the honey and out of the nest, and then the birds eat those. So it's become this kind of amazing symbiotic relationship.
Again, that's something, you know, I wouldn't have a clue how to get honey out of a honey nest without being stung to pieces. So that would be a good ancient skill to pick up potentially.
Sorcha
Yeah, for sure. And if you cast your mind back, where are some of the like, the really outstanding places that you've been?
Tom
We've talked about already, but Japan is the one I think, and it's super popular now, which is fabulous. Although, actually, there are times when it's subject to over tourism now, because there's a very obvious window that people want to go, which is Sakura, so cherry blossom. So you've got about six weeks when everybody wants to be there.
I would argue two things. One, it's a very big country, and there's plenty of places to appreciate cherry blossom. You don't have to be in Kyoto or Tokyo.
So either go elsewhere, or go different times of year. But it's epic. My wife and I went there 12 years ago, and we still talk about it all the time.
It's a must. Generally, everyone needs to go there. Italy, again, that's a bit of a cliche, but there's a reason it's incredibly popular.
And again, you can get off the beaten track extremely easily in Italy. Another one of our concepts, this is a new one, is we call it Secret Series. And it's about the concept of, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, you don't have to constantly be going to new places, but looking at the classics with a different perspective.
And one example would be Italy, and the Amalfi coast is overrun nowadays, unfortunately. But flying to Naples, so the same airport that you would use to get to Amalfi, and then head south and go down to a beautiful region called Cilento. And you'll find maybe a few discerning Italian tourists, obviously Italian locals, but I mean, a fraction of the hordes of camera-toting tourists you would find in Amalfi.
So, you get all the benefit of the wonders of Italy, the weather, the people, the culture, the food, the churches, the art, but none of the people. Other places I have, there's untold numbers of places that I have a very soft spot for. Somewhere like Guatemala in Central America, I absolutely adored.
Again, gets a fraction of the traffic that somewhere like Costa Rica does, but it's just stunningly beautiful and with astonishing culture as well. And some of the great Mayan ruins in places like Tikal as well.
Sorcha
Oh yeah, amazing.
Tom
We might have to do a separate podcast if we're going to talk about it.
Sorcha
I was actually just thinking, I feel like we could do like an audio version of a travel book, and you can just list all the amazing things. Yeah, and I'll just sit here Googling them.
Perfect. So, overtourism obviously is a massive topic and it's putting incredible strain on particular places like Barcelona. You know, it's a kind of a big one that's been trying to address it.
How do you think travellers or tourists can go to these places, but in a responsible way?
Tom
I think a lot of responsibility lies with us, the travel companies, to suggest alternatives. If you don't know that there's other places that offer pretty much the same wonderful experiences, but with, again, a fraction of the people, then you are just going to go to.
Unfortunately, there is an element of, you know, well, gosh, I've seen it on Instagram, I must go and take my selfie stick. Some people will always want to do that. But I would say there's just as many, if not more people who are desperate to avoid that sort of scenario.
And it's not fun when you are surrounded by people. I did a really special trip last year around the Cyclades Islands, mainly the ones that you haven't even heard of, let alone kind of are on the radar a bit. And then we ended up in Mykonos because we were flying home from Mykonos.
And these cruise ships, kind of eight storey tall, casting a shadow over the houses on the quayside and disgorging thousands and thousands of people. That was a genuinely unpleasant experience. I think once people have experienced that once, hopefully they'll be like, well, I don't really want to do that again.
So hopefully once bitten. And then it's like I said, it's incumbent on us to suggest other places or other times to visit that place. You know, going back to the Japan thing, it is a spectacularly wonderful destination.
All year round, you don't have to be there with millions of other people in Kyoto and that very specific arch window.
Sorcha
Yes, I know the one you're talking about. And I guess, so kind of looking forward then, are there places that you're travelling to soon that you haven't been to before that you're looking forward to?
Tom
Yeah, I kind of get these little gnawing obsessions. And two years ago was what's now being known more and more as Green Spain. So that northern coast, Basque country's been on the radar for a while now.
And, you know, there's spectacular food, very idiosyncratic culture, amazing, amazing place, but everything west of that. So going down coast to Asturias and Galicia is magical. Good Irish vibes, funnily enough.
Sorcha
Yes, very Celtic.
Tom
Yeah, literally as well. I mean, because, you know, these are the last little outposts of Celts, but green, green, green, for a reason. It's called Green Spain because it does rain.
There's no getting away from that. But unbelievably beautiful, incredible beaches, Picos de Europa, mountains, some incredible cities of which, oh, I'm completely losing my marbles. Santiago is just beautiful, medieval city, Santiago de Compostela.
Beautiful walks, as you can imagine, because obviously that's the finest pilgrimage region in Europe. Just, it blew me away. Food, sensational.
And we have been pushing it quite hard as an alternative to hot Spain, I guess, dry Spain. And people are loving it because it's not overwhelmed. It's not unbelievably hot in summer and it's completely beautiful.
So sorry, again, I've gone off topic. So this year's version of that is I'm going to do a road trip between Naples and Rome. Because it's a bit that people don't really get, barely even have heard of it.
It's actually called Latina, the particular region. And it has some of the finest mozzarella cheese producers in Italy. Amazing walking in national parks, a stretch of the Via Appia, the original Roman road that's in perfect condition.
All the cobbles still as they were 2000 years ago. Some beautiful beaches. It's where you access the Pontine Islands, so Ponza and these other islands.
And it's just not on the radar at all. So I'm going to go and explore that and hopefully it will be as wonderful as Green Spain. And then we can just start diverting people away from the obvious spots and into these other corners.
Sorcha
Fantastic. Well, you've painted a picture and I know you're going to get that mozzarella. So Tom, thank you so much.
I really, really enjoyed chatting with you.
Tom
It's been an absolute pleasure. And yeah, I mean, there's no greater subject to talk about, frankly.
Sorcha
No, you're a dead right. So thank you very much. Thank you.
That was Tom Barber from Original Travel. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Industry Leaders podcast. And don't forget, you can catch up on all of our previous episodes wherever you get your podcasts.
That's it for now. So from me, Sorcha O’Boyle and all of us at more2 – take care and bye bye!