Asia - China, SE Asia, Bhutan, Nepal Sri Lanka
“Our travelers are so much more educated now, they are looking for very focused thematic trips. My goal is to deliver what I think are the most amazing travel experiences China, Asia and the Pacific regions have to offer. Places where I can push the envelope a bit more, yet where I don’t have to compromise on luxury and exclusivity.”
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Seasoned designer-guide of luxury multi-country journeys
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Experienced marine archaeologist & underwater photographer
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Superb in-country contacts across the Asia-Pacific
When it comes to travelling the world, few do it with more passion or panache than Denis Pagé. This Canada-born, New Zealand-based adventurer has a résumé most modern explorers would die for: from diving with whales in the Pacific and supporting researchers in Antarctica, to searching for shipwrecks on the treacherous west coast of Vancouver Island. Along the way, Denis has worked with the Cousteau Society and the BBC and has had photographs published in National Geographic, Time, and numerous books and travel magazines.
But for all these accomplishments, Denis is happier in his quieter moments of achievement with one of his many repeat guests: trekking across Bhutan, floating in a balloon over the pagodas of Bagan, or exploring ancient trade routes of the Silk Road across central Asia or photographing the source of the Mekong near Tibet. His guiding experience has seen him nominated in Condé Nast Traveler Magazine’s 2020 List of the World’s Top Travel Specialists.
Denis has been at the very forefront of the arrival of luxury travel in Asia.
After 20 years of guiding and designing exclusive journeys across the continent, his bespoke travel company designs some of the finest ‘couture trips’ across Asia and the South Pacific.
His long-standing ground contacts enable him to arrange magical journeys that are simply not available to others: like flying the Silk Road by private jet, traversing three countries in a private boat on the Mekong River, or coming cheek to cheek with Xian’s terracotta warriors in the off-limits conservation laboratories.
His local contacts are legendary: from a renowned Chinese art dealer to a member of the Lao royal family; a highly decorated Vietnamese general, a Michelin star Thai chef and Indonesia’s most prominent architect. Depending on your interests, his black book has the contacts.
Denis himself began life as a marine archaeologist, logging over 3,000 hours of dives during 14 years of excavating shipwrecks and filming marine life for the Canadian Parks Service. It was an exciting life but a risky one too, and in 1992 Denis made a ‘sea change’ and moved to Dunedin on New Zealand’s South Island – where he lives today “surrounded by penguins and albatrosses.”
For the next 10 years, he served as director of an exclusive global tour company, pioneering adventurous new routes through China, Indonesia, and the then largely ‘closed’ countries of Indochina.
So was born a passion for Asia, the Greater Mekong and the South Pacific that has guided much of Denis’ own life since. Today, he focuses on designing and leading highly personalized multi-country journeys, using his incredible ‘black book’ of contacts to open unique windows onto the ancient history and monuments, the contemporary culture and politics, of some of the world’s oldest civilizations.
