ENCOUNTER LATIN AMERICA
your way
Encounter Story
OVER 24 YEARS EXPERIENCE
We are a team of travel experts that love what we do. Passionate about Latin America and with local offices all along the continent. With the Encounter My Way concept we are able to go beyond and use all our expertise and local knowledge to make a positive impact.
8 LOCAL DMC OFFICES
8 local DMC offices, 8 families and communities to create for you a home away from home.
TRIPLE IMPACT
We believe that together we can make a better world and that travel and the way we travel can have a positive and empowering impact on ourselves and the people and destinations we visit, if done right.
ENCOUNTER’s
HUMBLE START
We have no other word to describe the past twenty years of our lives. It’s been a real adventure story. We explored Latin America for several years before turning our passion for travel into a career by founding Global Encounters in Lima in 1997 and Colorful Ecuador in 2000. We started out with great hopes, little money and no clients at all, but with lots of energy and a mad belief that we would be able to build this company and share our passion for Latin America with other travelers and adventurers.
Year by year, brick by brick, our companies grew from a tiny office in a living room, to the company we are now; with eight local destination offices and Global Encounters and Colorful Ecuador working now as one.
The projects we have chosen to work with, are all run by incredibly dedicated individuals who have given up a great deal to help others in need, often without any funding or manpower. Their objectives are selfless, their struggle intense and their knowledge profound.
We offer our travelers the chance to make a real difference in Latin America. Our intention – to share with others the incredible experience of discovering Latin America, and to do so with heart, providing unique adventures, authentic experiences and making sure our impact is positive and helps our communities.
Lydia & Agostina
the driving force behind
Encounter My Way
My WHY has always been creating WOW experiences and making a positive impact on our travellers, our clients, our projects, our environment and ourselves. The Encounter My Way concept is my IKIGI: The one thing I get out of bed for and is worth living for. It is where my four elements come together: what I love, what the world needs, what is my job and what I am good at.
AGOSTINA – I was born and raised in Buenos Aires. In my early twenties, I started traveling for the first time and that process of planning and research hooked me and I decided this was what I wanted to do for my career. After my studies, I started working at Global Encounters in 2007. I now heads the commercial department and became the sales director some years ago.
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My WHY has always been creating WOW experiences and making a positive impact on our travelers, our clients, our projects, our environment, and ourselves. The Encounter My Way concept is my IKIGAI: The one thing I that gets me out of bed and is worth living for. It is where my four elements come together: what I love, what the world needs, what is my job and what I am good at.
Coordinator Encounter My Way
PRISCILLA – Born in a little Island Willemstad, Curazao but grew up in Costa Rica, now living in a beautiful beach town called Nosara located in Guanacaste. Passionate about nature and movement, yoga teacher on the side and soon to be a holistic chef. Always been interested in discovering new places and projects with impact and purpose. My goal is to be part of life changing experiences with consciousness and be there for you helping you in the process.
Let’s connect and create something meaningful together!
ENCOUNTER TEAM
OUR LOCAL SUPERSTARS
silvina pereiro
Silvina started exploring her home country, Argentina, as a child, and over the years her fascination with travel grew and she developed a passion for getting to know different places and people. Silvina joined the team in a moment of crazy growth and instability and managed to steer us sound and safe through those difficult times. From executive she grew fast to operations supervisor then to region manager in 2008 and in 2017 she became our operations director.
Karem Cuba
Karem was born and raised in Sucre, Bolivia. She studied Tourism Management and started working for Bolivia Specialist. Here she soon became our go to person and for years as she handled our reservations and operations while working in the office of our local partner. In 2018 Karem started working as the manager of our local office in Sucre.
montserrat neira
After studying to become a travel agent at Belgrano University in Buenos Aires, Montse worked in several different areas of the travel industry and believes that travel is one of the best investments a person can make for their personal development. In 2010 Montse started as a sales executive in the Buenos Aires team. Traveling to Rio de Janeiro, Montse fell in love with the ‘Marvelous City’ and in August 2014, she made her travel dreams a reality moving from our office in Buenos Aires to become the Regional Manager in Brazil.
eleonore smits
Born and raised in Amsterdam, the multi-cultural capital of The Netherlands, Eleonore’s fascination with getting to know different cultures and people instantly grew as she developed a great passion for travel, especially in Spanish speaking countries. At the age of fifteen, she developed a deep connection with Costa Rica, and nowadays being married to a Tico, truly loves and understands the country better than most. After having her son in 2009, she transitioned to the Central America Regional Manager position for GE in 2010.
juliana Loaiza G.
Juliana was born in Colombia’s beautiful coffee producing city of Manizales and grew up in the country’s bustling capital city of Bogotá. After graduating from university, she started working in tourism and became a tour leader taking small groups of travelers to the most popular destinations of South America. With the desire to settle down, she started as a city guide in Bogota and in 2016 as our commercial and operations executive for our Colombia office. In 2018 Juliana took on her role as operations manager of our Colombia office.
GPS
Galapagos
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EC
Ecuador
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we believe in responsible travel
We love what we do and have a deep passion for travel in our destinations. We are so privileged to work and live in these countries with such diverse cultures and incredible nature. We believe that travel can have a positive impact on both the destination and the traveler, if done well. It is our mission to provide our travelers with authentic and immerse experiences and educate them on treading lightly, understanding cultural differences and the respect that comes with it and to share the beauty of our natural surroundings, that cannot continue to exist without the support and understanding that we need to protect and preserve.
We truly believe that responsible travel is the only way for the future of travel and that together we can make this world a better place.
matilde miranda
Peru
Born and raised in Lima, Matilde has a deep connection with Peru and neighboring Bolivia, and understands the two countries better than most. Matilde started out as a trainee in 2002 at Global Encounters (then still known as CATDMC) and it wasn’t long before she began to take on more and more responsibility. In 2012 Matilde became the first Director of the team next to Karin.
OUR VALUES
We are committed to providing safe, authentic South American experiences for your clients.
It is our mission and commitment to provide our travelers with authentic and immersive experiences, to educate them on treading lightly, and to better understand cultural differences and the mutual respect that comes with it. The beauty of our natural surroundings cannot exist without the support and understanding that we have a responsibility to protect and preserve. We truly believe that responsible travel is the only way for the future of travel and that together we can make this world a better place.
We Build open, respectful & honest relationships
We aim towards responsible & sustainable travel
We are a team & a family
We build bridges & safeguard our cultural heritage
We believe in diverse backgrounds, ideas and perspectives. By building bridges between cultures we will learn, understand and essentially become a better person. Our activities and excursions are conducted with utmost respect for the artistic, archeological and cultural heritage to which they reside.
We safeguard our natural environment
We keep it local
