About Us
The Work
We guide long-form journeys through places that haven’t been turned into tourism yet, moving at the pace the story requires.
Our inaugural Collection unfolds in Brazil’s Serra do Espinhaço, a little-visited mountain range in Minas Gerais that Elisa and I began exploring in 2018 and have called home since 2021.
All of our trips follow original routes shaped through years of place-based research and fieldwork. Before a route is ever mapped, we spend time learning how the places along it actually live. We walk local trails, build relationships within communities and with landowners and conservation units, and pay attention to the rhythms of daily life that rarely appear on maps.
From that groundwork emerge the crossings themselves: routes through working landscapes, guided alongside crews composed largely of locals who know the range best.
The result is a style of travel that is immersive, effortful, and revealing, built for travelers who value depth, narrative, and stewardship over spectacle.
Field Trip #1. Santa Bárbara
How This Became Our LiFE
Long before Gift of Go existed, I was a curious traveler.
I’ve always been drawn to the quietest corners of the map and the ways of life that unfold there. For years I traveled with the same question in mind: how is life actually lived there? Guidebooks sometimes provided a start, but the most reliable way in was through time, effort, and a willingness to push beyond the usual routes.
Brazil was once a quiet corner of the map for me.
My first visit came in 2002, and its story has continued to unfold over decades of travel and study since. In 2013, I first stumbled across the Serra do Espinhaço. In 2018, I returned to explore the range in earnest. The trails were empty. The stories were still alive. The people along them welcomed my effort.
Elisa and I met in the Espinhaço not long after. In the years that followed we traveled widely together, but we kept returning to Brazil, and to the range. Eventually we stopped leaving.
When we decided to make the Espinhaço our home, the idea behind Gift of Go became clear: to share the story of this place. The work that lay ahead was building the structure that would allow others to experience it the way we had come to know it.
Gift of Go is the result of organizing our lives around that work.
Brazil, as told through the Espinhaço, was always going to be the first story we shared. Others will follow.
Field Trip #12. Sempre Vivas NP
Founder-built. Explorer-led.
Every Gift of Go expedition begins the same way: with time on the ground.
Elisa and I chart the paths, build the relationships along them, coordinate the logistics, and guide the journeys ourselves alongside local crews who know the range best.
Leading trips isn’t a branding decision. It’s what holds the work together. Decisions on the trail stay grounded, the rhythm of the journey stays intact, and the people who receive us remain part of the story rather than a backdrop.
Gift of Go grew out of a desire to share the stories of these places. For journeys built on context, relationships, and understanding, leading each trip ourselves is the only way that makes sense.
If you're considering traveling with us in 2026–27, it’s worth starting the conversation early. Fit matters.