About Us
Pacific Discovery has grown from a love of travel…the delight in casting off into the unknown, not knowing what the next moment may bring…new places, cultures, landscapes, cities, fantastic adventures, wonderful friendships, and a desire to share all of this with others.
We have developed our itineraries to give you a very personal and insightful experience into the heart of each country, and a chance to discover the magic for yourself. We are delighted to invite you to travel with us on a unique, interpretive and very personal adventure.
We Offer You
- Refreshing travel that you can feel great about
- A very personalised experience
- Unique itineraries
- Interpretation and local knowledge
- Ethical and responsible sustainable travel
- Opportunities for rewarding cultural exchange
- Flexibility
- Great value for money
- Professionalism and integrity
Our Story
Rachel Sanson and Scott Burnett founded Pacific Discovery. We met in 1996 while working for environmental organisation Greenpeace - it was love at first sight. Utilising experience gained through working in environmental and outdoor education, teaching, tourism and extensive travel, we envisioned a way to offer outstanding programs and tours that was responsible, ethical and ensured a better outcome for communities visited and a lower impact on the environment. We established Pacific Discovery in 2001. Initially based in Oregon, we returned home to New Zealand in 2005 to raise our family.
Since 2001 we have offered our trips under two banners:
- Experiential education programs for US university students as Pacific Discovery .
- Small group tours, in collaboration with Jennie and Roger Wilson (Rachel's family), as Gecko Trails.
As we've grown, we have wanted to share developments at Pacific Discovery with our Gecko Trails clients and vice versa, and have realised that we needed to merge our identies. Plus, too much of our energy was going into maintaining dual websites and publications.
In 2009 Gecko Trails will be brought under the Pacific Discovery banner.
Essentially, the only change is that our trips are going to be even better – by simplifying our structure we can now focus on what we really love – developing and running fantastic trips!
Peace Of Mind
Pacific Discovery is a registered New Zealand educational travel company. We are committed to providing a superb experience, upholding high standards of professionalism, and ensuring our clients' comfort and wellbeing are foremost.
We maintain:
Additionally:
Did You Know?
~ Annually we run a number of custom educational and volunteer tours for high school and university groups. Contact us if you are interested in an insightful educational tour for your students.
~ National Geographic Adventure nominated Pacific Discovery among the ‘top 100 travel companies on earth' in 2008 and again for 2009.
~ Pacific Discovery partners with Volunteer Service Abroad New Zealand (VSA) to offer 2-3 week volunteer tours known as ‘Addventure VSA' trips.
~ Rachel Sanson and Scott Burnett founded Pacific Discovery and are the only full-time employees. We do it all…from answering your phone and email enquiries, to researching, developing and running our programs and tours. We even manage to get out on the road and lead trips from time to time. This means you have a very personalised experience and are at all times dealing directly with the founders of Pacific Discovery. However, we also rely on an incredible team of program and trip leaders.
Acknowledgements
Pacific Discovery is the vision of Scott Burnett and Rachel Sanson but we have had an enormous amount of support, mentoring and encouragement from a great many people. It's been a real team effort.
We'd like to thank: Jennie and Roger Wilson, who continue to be immensely supportive and have led and helped develop many wonderful trips; Roger Sanson for his fantastic support, encouragement, and superb proof-reading; Glen Burnett for maintaining our website for very little compensation (we owe you!); John and Diane McKinnon of Footprints Tours, Hugh and Biddy Canard, Kaye and Wilfried Muller, for their amazing mentoring and support; Sue Lai at Avia Travel for her patience and professionalism; Melissa Raftery, Dave Wright, Crockett Roberts, Katie Parker, Saul Ceron; The Meas family in Takeo; Dr. Kathie Carpenter, Dr. Katharine McKinnon, Rick Burton, Dr. Catherine Hawkins, The late Dr. John Fisher, and the late Dr. John Baldwin, for seeing the merit in what we are doing; Mary Greenland, Rachel Hawthorne, Celia McKechnie and Shelly D'Arcy, for trusting us with your students; Shona Jennings, Jo Prescott and Debbie Snelson, at Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA), for embracing the concept that became Addventure VSA and working hard to help us bring it to fruition; Helen Walsh, Judith Miller, Marie Nicholls and Stephanie Edwards, at Books for Cambodia; Dene Harrison, Roger Gaskell, Ross Maley, Rudi Tetteroo, John Wotherspoon and Robin Cox, at the Department of Conservation (DOC); Mark Walter at the Ministry for the Envrionment; Jeff Minthorn at Verge Magazine; Marsha Ray, a fantastic GAP year consultant.
Finally and most importantly - to our fantastic program leaders, wonderful in-country operators and friends, and to all of you who've travelled with us (and who've shared your inspiring memories and photos) - a huge and heartfelt THANK YOU!
Scott Burnett and Rachel Sanson
