Mara first visited Nepal in 2003 to conduct research for NASA on the effects of oxygen deprivation on the brain, and ended up spending the next 10 years running logistics for Everest expeditions. Today, she continues to organize and lead trips for adventure seekers all around the world: in the Andes, Alps, and the Himalaya.
Andrea Vidler is cofounder of LocalAventura, a marketplace focused on connecting travelers to providers of local, authentic experiences in Latin America. In this podcast interview Andrea talks about how LocalAventura is approaching this market opportunity.
Douglas Maclagan visited Nepal in the nineties for a vacation and ended up staying. He got involved with social work, setting up children's daycare health centers that were eventually implemented in all of Nepal. To finance his efforts he started a series of hospitality projects, culminating in the Pavilions Himalayas, a high end, eco resort near the lake town of Pokhara.
Ngima Dorji Sherpa runs his travel company Nepal Myths and Mountain Trails out of Kathmandu, Nepal. Ngima was born in a remote village called Pangom, in the Everest Region of Nepal. As a young boy he started work as a porter, carrying heavy loads for trekkers, and then worked his way up to become a guide, before he started his own adventure travel company in 1997.
A pioneer in sustainable development, Ben Ayers came to Nepal as a college student in 1998 and has been living and working there ever since. In 2006, he joined the dZi Foundation, which runs grassroots projects in eastern Nepal focused on long-term development through the employment rural communities.