ABOUT AMELIA

The desert has always enthralled me. Aged 15, I joined a school theology trip led by an eccentric headmaster to the Sinai desert in Egypt. We rode camels with the Bedouin by day and slept under the stars at night. I was hooked. 

Thereafter, the desert and its peoples became an obsession and I returned time and again to the region over 10 successive years. I trained as a guide taking school groups, charities, and expeditions to the Sinai and Western deserts in Egypt before setting up Simoon Travel (simoon means a desert wind in Arabic) specialising in travel to Libya followed by Syria, Algeria and Iran. 

Simoon Travel was acquired by Original Travel in 2012 and I continued to travel across the Middle East whilst venturing into the Caucasus, East Africa and far-flung countries along the Silk Road. I took many small groups of intrepid travellers with me. Journeys for the curious satisfies a boundless curiosity for places off the beaten track. I design personalised private, luxury, and small group journeys with the discerning traveller in mind, hosting some of them personally. I’ve been living in Tbilisi, Georgia for the past two years and love to host journeys in this fascinating country and the wider region. I write for BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent, you can hear stories about Georgia HERE. I’m a certified Vinyasa and Yin yoga teacher, and excited to collaborate on a yoga journey up the Nile in November 2024, details can be found HERE