Our Story
Way back in the 1980s Dag Goering and Maria Coffey stumbled across each other on Vancouver Island (far from their respective home countries) and discovered a shared passion for adventure trips and exploration. Not long after marrying, they bought a folding kayak and set off on a wild year-long trip around the world. Their journeys turned into published books, photographs and presentations; then, as Dag and Maria love sharing the magic they discovered, inevitably their skills and passions melded into Hidden Places.
The love story continues – they are still exploring the world together and scouting new destinations.
Hidden Places Travel was founded in 2000 and based in British Columbia, Canada. A three times winner of the National Geographic “Tours of a Lifetime” award, renowned for innovative small group tours, Hidden Places has also been a leading light in conservation efforts and support of local communities.
Now Hidden Places has a new role: a consultancy for its clients, advising them on destinations and itineraries and connecting them with trusted local operators.
We travel humbly and with open eyes. Along the way sometimes we encounter hard things: human/animal conflict, environmental issues, humanitarian needs. We don’t just turn away. We’ve committed ourselves, seriously and for the long haul, to protecting the hidden places we love — and the people and creatures who call those places home.
We know we can’t single handedly fix all the problems. But we believe that every action makes a difference — and it’s our responsibility, as travelers and as humans, to try.
Our efforts have included the following:
A background in veterinary medicine gives co-founder Dag Goering a deep understanding of the needs of animals. The suffering of elephants is of particular concern to him and in 2009, he and Maria Coffey launched Elephant Earth to protect these majestic animals and their habitat. Elephant Earth supported grassroots, practical and evidence-based projects that directly help conserve elephants and their habitat. These include community anti-poaching projects, mitigating human-elephant conflict, humane training and handling methods for captive elephants.
Hidden Places organized and ran fundraising expeditions to support conservation and humanitarian projects that are doing great work. Through 100 Miles for Elephants trek we have raised close to $ 200,000 which was instrumental in reducing elephant poaching in Kenya. Their Snow Leopard trek kickstarted a project in the Indian Himalaya to protect these beautiful cats by mitigating human-snow leopard conflict and collecting valuable data on the local snow leopard population.
Partners
We support many conservation and humanitarian organizations, including:
Space for Giants
K.I.D.S. International
https://www.kidsdevelopmentsociety.org/
PEN Canada:
www.pencanada.ca
Human Rights Watch:
www.hrw.org
Amnesty International
www.amnesty.ca
Doctors Without Borders
