In response to reader suggestions and encouragement, we are introducing a series of 'groupless tours.

A 'groupless tour' is a very different travel experience to a typical group tour.

You have much more freedom and independence on our groupless travels, and many fewer fellow travelers.

For more information, see Our Groupless Philosophy.

Why You Should Choose a Travel Insider Tour
	A typical group of Travel Insiders; in this case, some of the people who traveled on our 2007 Black Sea Discovery Expedition from Budapest to Istanbul, in the lobby of the Amalegro, and about to enjoy a private cocktail party reception. One of the best features of our tours are the other people you'll be traveling with.

If you're a reader of our free weekly Travel Insider newsletter, then you've been enjoying our industry commentary, our acid sense of what is right, proper and fair, and our 'call it like it is' reviews of travel and technology items.

But did you know that Travel Insider David Rowell also has over twenty years of travel and tour planning experience?

Now, you can get the benefit not only of David's opinions but also of his experience planning tours.

David's Travel Experience

Like many of you, David started off his travel experiences as a too-frequent business traveler.  After moving from New Zealand to the United States in 1985, he was regularly flying more than 100,000 miles a year around the US and internationally.

And when he wasn't traveling as part of his job, much of the time he was traveling for pleasure.  When you live in tiny New Zealand, you don't have many opportunities to travel anywhere far from home, and the rest of the world is a very long way.  So upon arriving in the vast US, and with Europe (relatively) close, travel was as much a pleasure as a burden.

Providing Travel Services for Others

David decided, in 1989, to apply his growing personal experience and love of travel to practical purposes, and formed his own travel company.  Initially it offered retail travel services to people wishing to travel to Britain, and then it widened to become a full service travel agency, offering all types of travel, for all travelers, in 1990.

The agency experience revealed there was a marketplace opportunity to specialize in travel to the South Pacific, and soon David's agency - Anzac Travel Inc - was selling New Zealand and Australia travel to individuals and groups, both within the Seattle area and elsewhere in the United States.

Increasingly, travel agents from other agencies would call and ask if David and his team could arrange travel for their clients, too, and so the agency added a wholesale division, named Abel Tasman Tours.  This division specialized in providing travel services for travel agencies to resell to their clients, everywhere in the US.

Further growth saw extensions into selling travel to Britain and Russia, with staff employed in both countries.

Still further growth saw the addition of a new company in Sydney Australia to source travel products directly from Australian and New Zealand suppliers, and then the addition of a customer service office in Auckland, New Zealand so that when clients called the Abel Tasman phone number, they'd often end up talking directly with a person in New Zealand.  This was one of the very first call centers established.

Abel Tasman Tours grew to become one of the very largest US suppliers of individual and group travel to the South Pacific, in large part due to David's innovative development of new types of travel packages, including 'land cruises' and super value one week inclusive packages for only $1 over the price of the lowest airfare.

David sold the Anzac Travel Inc group of companies in 2000.  They continue to prosper.

Travel Insider Touring - Fully Registered to Sell Travel

Travel Insider Touring is registered in the State of Washington as a Seller of Travel (registration number 602 036 247).  For your protection, your payment goes to a special Trust Account, managed per the requirements of Washington State law.

New Touring Concepts for a New Millennium

David believes - and Travel Insider reader surveys confirm - that these days, people seek a new type of travel experience.

Using his expertise and experience, gained during the course of helping many thousands of people with their travels over more than a decade, and building tour itineraries and concepts that are closely tested with his Travel Insider readers, he is now offering this new type of tour experience, combining freedom and flexibility with overarching structure and service.

Read more about our 'groupless tour' philosophy here.

Try a Travel Insider Tour.  You'll be delighted.

Originally published 7 Jan 2004, last update 08 Jan 2013

You may freely reproduce or distribute this article for noncommercial purposes as long as you give credit to me as original writer.