Travel advisors and drivers
Go Local! Travel consists of a team of professionals and dedicated drivers with different nationalities, extensive experience in tourism and great engagement with the customer.
Who is Go Local! Travel
Go Local! Travel is a company that was conceived and set up in Ecuador by a Dutchman. You make your own trip and it can be as luxurious as you want. The idea of Go Local! Travel was created for practical reasons. Several Local development organizations have fantastic – and important plans, but no money to implement it. Several locally set up tourist locations have a nice place but no customers. While some expensive locations do have customers despite their location being worth the money. With Go Local! Travel we want the development organizations to find a source of income and that the nice places in Ecuador, Colombia or Peru get customers. The trips are composed with the help of locals and expats who have lived in Ecuador for a long time. We also have our own Co2 project and have developed a low impact route for each destination.
Pepin Grau
Founder of Go Local! Travel. Currently living in the Netherlands and has already seen a lot with various volunteering and organised tours in Ecuador. With Go Local! Travel hopes to have found an answer for this anthropologist to help the business community collaborate with development work. Pepijn is responsible for maintaining contacts with our locations, planning trips and marketing in Europe.
Meike Stieglis
Meike started traveling during her studies in Development studies. After six months of traveling and living in Central America, she became enthoust to Latin American culture and beautiful nature. She then made long journeys through Africa and the Middle East, but returned to the Latin American continent to work and live in Quito, Ecuador. There she explored every corner of the country! Now back in the Netherlands, but fortunately still closely involved in Latin America by Go Local Travel. For Go Local Travel she maintains the website and writes the personal guide books, the Local Planets.
Lex Drost
Lex is one of our drivers (and actually much more than that) and chances are he'll be waiting for you at the airport with a laugh to make the first kilometers in Ecuador. He doesn't remember where the Netherlands is, has been living in Ecuador with his family for more than 16 years. Lex knows the roads here and he will be able to show you what you need to do as a driver and guide.
Esther van Schaijk
project coordinator at Go Local Travel. Studied tourism and languages and travelled extensively to countries around the Mediterranean and North Africa. Her love for South America has always remained. She focuses mainly on our volunteer projects and special cultural destination. Like elderly care, orphans and nature. Her passion is to contribute to a better society so that people can enjoy this and make the world a little more beautiful.
Manuel Naranja
Manuel loved by everyone, brings people around the southern part of Ecuador. He is familiar with the best restaurants and nice places to stop. His patient nature comes in handy because you will never feel rushed in Manuel's car.
Hernan Villalba
This kind and enterprising man does his job from Quito. We can now call him a specialist in Mindo and has been in the jungle at Tena for a long time. Besides the fact that he drives people around enthusiastically, he and his wife also have his own hotel. This stands in a special street of the historical center. Hernan has extensive experience with international tourists.
Fredy Villares
Our Fredy is the man who takes care of the rides from Banos. For him Ecuador is only a small country and therefore has no difficulty to drive from North to South. So you can ask him a few questions about Ecuador. He's busy practicing his English. He has his European traits from Spain where he has lived for years. Now he and his wife and son are enjoying himself again in his own Ecuador.
Jaime Ortiz
When you travel further south of Ecuador you will surely meet this gentle man. Cuenca and surroundings he knows like his pocket and there he was also born and raised. In the meantime, the coast is no longer unknown because it can be found regularly in Guayaquil and Puerto Lopez.
Dario Changoluisa
In one of the highest places in the Andes you will meet this young gentleman. He knows the park Cotopaxi very well and was born and raised there. He not only shows you the area with a nice horse tour but comes by his car in all the surrounding areas.