After 5 Years of Patch Adventures... Here Are My Favourite Moments

On June 5, 2024, Patch Adventures turns 5 years old.

Yes! 5 years ago, we set the website live and started selling our first ever trips.

2019: Preparing to launch…

Mat and I both have a background in tourism marketing and for quite a few years, we operated our own tourism marketing consultancy.

June 2016. Mat and I got married in Spain. A destination wedding for a couple obsessed with travel.

It was a great business.

But, after so many years of working with tour operators around the world, we started to get a bit jealous of them! And not just jealous – we were developing a pretty amazing network of contacts of people in so many different countries. So, the idea came to us that we could start our own travel company.

But first, I needed to travel myself and visit the many people who would end up becoming some of our best friends…

Morocco was my first recce trip – for the first trip we ever launched. We’ve now run this trip a bunch of times and it gets better and better. This year’s groups have given it almost perfect ratings.

Morocco’s tourism industry is full of incredible women. On the left is Zina. She now works for Intrepid and has rapidly risen to become the GM of their EMEA team (*Europe, Middle East & Africa.)

My first visit to Iran was one of the most special travel moments of my life. This country has an ability to get its way into your heart…

Iran’s clothing restrictions seem difficult on the surface, but in reality it’s very easy. Just keep your knees and legs covered, plus wear a headscarf.

Designing our first Myanmar trip with Lisa O’Donnell. This was before the Myanmar civil war kicked off.

We even bought some magazine ads… (and yes, I look so young in this photo! Good lighting?)

2020: Our First Trips and Crisis

The first trip we ever launched was Morocco. But the first trip we ever ran was Myanmar. (The dates worked out better.)

In fact, the first two trips we ran were both to Myanmar… and to say it was a magical experience is an understatement.

I got to spend time with our first ever groups of Patchies; these incredible ladies who had put faith in us – a brand new company, with no reviews. We worked so hard to reward that faith.

Our first Myanmar trips went off so well

Our first group in Myanmar. This is one of the most special photos we’ve ever taken.. a dream becoming reality. Thank you for trusting us!

Preparing to run our first ever Myanmar trip in Yangon, at a beautiful local restaurant. At this stage, Lisa was our Myanmar expert. Soon, she would become so much more…

Our first ever review. I still remember this day. It’s hard to describe just how much this means.

We managed to run 5 trips before Covid struck, including an India Holi trip that was so much fun.

I love our Patchies!! Merrilyn (on the left) has become a huge supporter of the business. She’s now come twice to India with us.

2021: Can we not talk about it?

Covid was one of the worst periods of my life. We’re all sick of hearing about it, so I won’t go into it… but it was about as difficult as you can imagine.

During this time, to make things worse, I got sick with non-Covid related issues. As hard as I tried, I just couldn’t go on with the business on a full time basis.

What would I do? Who would help me?!

Well, it turns out that not all heroes wear capes.

In the space of just a few weeks, Mat went from helping me on a part time basis to running everything full time (this is despite already having a job!)

A man leading a women only travel business? Well, yes, it was unexpected.

But anyone who has interacted with Mat can know that he has a passion for women’s rights and women’s participation that is infectious. Somehow, despite pretty much working every single waking hour, he pulled it off…

Mat stepped in and carried the business. This is him doing some destination research of his own in Iran – once borders opened

Enjoying Melbourne during one of the few precious moments it was open. Luckily for us, we lived in an area with lots of local facilities which meant that we were able to enjoy a pretty good life during lockdowns.

When life gives you lemons, it’s time to make a very strong cocktail..

2022: We’re back…

After 2 years of waiting, the borders re-opened.

So, of course we went travelling. Almost the first thing we did was hop on a plane!

It felt so weird and foreign to be back at an airport. The whole terminal was full of people who had forgotten how to travel (not to mention employees who had forgotten how to run an airline) and delays were occurring everywhere.

We visited Norway, Sweden and Denmark. (The photo is from Norway.)

Post Covid, both Mat and I knew in our hearts that this is what we truly wanted to do.

If we could survive Covid, we could survive anything!

We still had more than 30 Patchies who had waited for literally TWO YEARS for their trips without cancelling. To me, this was just amazing .. so many people supported us emotionally which was great, for sure. But the support that mattered most was the financial support of those people who allowed us to keep their booking as a credit while we waited to re-open.

But, not everything was well.

We’d stayed in touch with Lisa (our Myanmar expert) and things were not looking good in Myanmar. The civil war was raging and we knew there was very little chance she’d be able to get back to Myanmar. She was on the verge of losing her career in travel and being locked out of the industry.

But, we know Lisa and how great she is, so we invited her out for coffee.. and… she accepted our invitation to join the team! Lisa is now our ‘Trip Design Lead’ and this is one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.

Lisa is such a special human being. She has so much passion for travel, but also people. As you all know by now, we run off the beaten path travel. What this means is that we are often working with a lot of locals who just don’t understand the expectations of Westerners or how to consistently deliver a great experience.

This is where Lisa is able to help. Because she has lived for many years in Myanmar, she has become an absolute expert at compassionately coaching local guides and has now used that skillset to teach and mentor people all over the world.

We also started growing the rest of the team, too. Louise – who so many of you have interacted with – also joined. Louise is so full of energy and infectious. We love her!

However, if you’re going to look for special moments, another highlight has to be running our first trips again… 2.5 years later!

Our first ever post Covid trip was to the Silk Road, followed by Iran.

It was absolutely worth the wait to see pics like these come through!

Iran is a place that reminds you of why you fell in love with travel in the first place.

We take this picture on every Iran trip.

2023: Let’s Do This Properly!

2023 was mind boggling. Mat and I decided to really go for it and grow the company.

This meant adding a new offering – Camino Women – which is a walking tour company for women. While we’ve got some classics such as Portugal and the Kokoda Trail, the main focus is to take our women to some of the most unique places. Did you know this year we’re running a hiking trip to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan? We’re so happy we did this as we’re seeing a new community of walkers coming together who are just so lovely.

For both Patch Adventures and Camino Women we try to offer trips that are completely unique. Sure, we’re not the only outfit visiting Morocco or India, but for many of our trips – such as Ladakh or Iran – we’re the only ‘women only’ tour company worldwide offering these adventures.

In other cases, we were the first – the Silk Road is a good example – but we’ve recently been followed by other operators.

With the company now stable and with a great team, it was finally Mat’s turn to work on his own project. As such, Magnificent Rail was born. This is a cultural rail tour project.

Di (on the left) and Kay (on the right) are our two most experienced Patchies. Both of them have booked a bunch of trips with us.. Di and Kay, you’re amazing and we love you.

Our first team meet-up in 2023.. by the end of the year, things had grown quite a lot!

Mongolia – one of our favourite pics from 2023

Our first Greece trip was a huge success.. such a lovely group of Patchies, many of whom have come back for more

And how could we forget Iran, our favourite country

Speaking of experienced Patchies, Gretta (on the right) is also a regular and an absolute keeper. Gretta, we’ve loved every moment of our interactions with you.

We also found the time for a Patchie meet up. It was a fun night and a roaring success! We loved sharing dinner with our Patchies

We’ve also kicked off a team outside Australia, too.

Because we’re an international business, it’s made sense for us to hire people in the European timezone as well.

We’ve now got a small but mighty crew spread around the Balkans and they’re just as much a part of our team as our more public-facing team members in Australia.

Mat with Anela and Ana from our team. Patchies who went to Tunisia will recognise Ana, who joined the group for a few days. Anela, on the left, is responsible for all the new experiences we’ve been able to dig up around the European region. If you’re booked onto the Balkans Rail trip, it’s Anela who you can thank for putting this amazing route together.

Welcome to 2024!

It’s now 2024. We’ve now taken literally hundreds of Patchies on trips around the world. We’ve also gotten so many kind, beautiful reviews.

The team has grown, too!

Currently it’s the perfect size .. so much so, that we’ve decided not to grow Patch or CaminoWomen any further for a while and just enjoy the progress we’ve made.

For our Australian Patch team, our Trip Manager crew is now made up of Alicia, Justin, Nicola and Ricki-Jane.

The CaminoWomen Trip Manager crew is now composed of Olivia and Sophie. (Stevie has stepped away from CaminoWomen to run her own fitness business and we wish her all the best!)

We also have wonderful team members Madi, Bree and Kat who take care of so many things in the background.

We could easily write a heart-felt tribute to each and every team member, but special shouts must go out to Alicia who joined our team and has done a mountain of work in getting our operations humming. We’re making far fewer mistakes and experiencing far fewer issues as a result.

The best team in travel! This is our Patch Adventures, Camino Women and Magnificent Rail teams all together.

This activity turned out to be more enjoyable than we expected!

Like I said, the Morocco trip is still going strong!

The India Holi trip continues to be one of our best and most life-changing experiences

And we continue to take guests where others fear to tread. This group didn’t let the headlines get in the way of what turned out to be an incredible trip

So.. what’s next?

So, where were we at? We have:

Built a community of hundreds of Patchies
Grown the best team in travel – full of humans with beautiful hearts
Survived Covid
Travelled the world

And lived to tell the tale!

What’s next?

Well, we actually have a big announcement coming soon.. and it’s so huge that it will distract from the entire point of this post.

Let’s just say, with Mat running the company on a day-to-day basis, I’ve been very active on new projects for you all. Can’t wait to share that with you!

But in the meantime, here’s our current women-only trip calendar.

~ Rebeca.