About Kris Hehl
Tailor-made Travel Planner

Nothing here is pulled from a catalogue. Kris starts with a blank page and a conversation about how you actually like to travel: whether you wake early or slow, whether a day is built around a single long lunch or three museums, who is coming and what each of them needs. From that, Kris chooses and sequences every stay, transfer, guide, and reservation by hand. The result is an itinerary that fits the way you move through the world, not a template with your name printed at the top.

A safari lives or dies on two things: where you are, and when. Kris plans around the migration and breeding seasons, the green months and the dry, so you are in the right place when the wildlife is. That spans the classic East African circuits of Kenya and Tanzania, the waterways of Botswana's Okavango, the desert game of Namibia and southern Africa, and the gorilla trekking of Uganda and Rwanda, alongside wildlife travel beyond the continent. Kris chooses camps and lodges for genuine access to the land and its guides rather than for the size of their marketing budget, from mobile tented camps that follow the herds to private conservancies where the only other vehicles are yours.

The way you move through a place is part of the trip. Rail journeys across Europe and farther afield, where the route itself is the experience and the landscape arrives at the window. Charter flights for the routes scheduled service does not cover: a small aircraft into a remote lodge, a connection between two cities with no hub in between, or a departure timed to yours rather than a timetable. Yacht charters for coastlines on your own schedule: a crewed sailing vessel working through the Greek islands, a motor yacht anchoring off a Croatian town, pace and stops entirely your own. River voyages that move you through a region from its waterways, docking in the center of towns rather than at distant terminals, with the right ship, season, and cabin chosen on purpose. Expedition cruising for the places roads do not reach: polar coastlines, remote archipelagos, and wildlife shores, aboard smaller vessels built for landings rather than buffets.

Trips organized around the thing you actually care about. Coffee journeys to origin, walking the farms and roasteries where the cup begins. Wine travel through the regions and cellars behind the bottle. Hiking and trekking routes matched to your fitness and appetite for distance, from day walks to multi day crossings. Kris also designs culinary and food focused travel, eco and sustainable journeys, and wellness retreats for travelers who want the trip shaped around a passion or a purpose.

A seat at the event is the easy part. Kris builds the trip around it: the Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend with the right grandstand and a hotel you can actually walk back to, the major golf championships, World Cup and international soccer fixtures, and the tennis Grand Slams. Travel, access, and timing arranged so the only thing you think about is the event itself. This goes beyond watching the event. The Pre-Designed Sport Team Travel page is one example: team travel, where a whole squad moves together for both development and downtime.

On these, Kris comes with you. Not a guide who meets the group at the airport, but the person who built the itinerary, there on the ground for the whole trip. A plan shifts, a question comes up at the trailhead, a road closes. The answer is standing next to you, not a time zone away.

That presence is what makes these the most flexible trips Kris offers. When the planner is right there, an idea over dinner can turn into tomorrow's plan. An extra night, a detour, a table at the spot a local just mentioned. Kris books it on the spot.

It shows most on safari. No two lodges offer the same thing, and each one runs differently. With Kris on-site working directly with the lodge manager, the days bend to you. Out at dawn one morning, a slow start and a long lunch the next, as much or as little as you feel like.

For groups, Kris can lead Pre-Designed Tours, multi-day hikes when a mountain guide isn't needed, and tailor-made departures. The Pre-Designed Tours run on a set route, so you get a proven itinerary with Kris there to handle the parts that usually go sideways. On the multi-day hikes, where the trail is clear and the risk is low, Kris covers the logistics so the group can just walk. And on a tailor-made departure, the trip is built around your group from the first day, with the person who designed it leading it.