Max Cousins

I love to travel and experience landscapes and places through activity and have spent many of my holidays hiking, cycle touring and mountain biking in Europe and North Africa.  Living in Keswick in the Lake District is perfect for me – the human scale of the area makes the place easy to live in and accessible to explore, which I do mainly via mountain bike and on foot. Mountain biking here often involves plenty of walking!

The Atlantic Islands touched by Portugal’s presence are fascinating to explore. It would be easier to call them ‘Portugal’s islands’ but of course both Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe are independent countries. I love their volcanic nature, so obvious for example on Sao Miguel in the Azores where the hot springs of Poca Dona Beja are my favourite place to head to, to get directly in touch with the volcanically-heated waters! Pico mountain is another favourite, its upper crater an amazing place to be awestruck at nature’s power. In Cape Verde it’s impossible to ignore stark and arresting Fogo, a huge stratovolcano visiting which is one of the highlights of my travel life so far.

Each country, archipelago, island has its own distinct character which I have been lucky enough to have discovered by visiting and touring with locals we work with. You can have this too – exploring in the company of the people we work with on the islands whether Madeira, tropical Sao Tome, the Azores or Cape Verde gives you a much more authentic and in depth experience in a way that scratching the surface by yourself cannot achieve.

My work life has had plenty of variety, the central theme being working with people to understand what they want, and then help them get it, something that helps me when putting together holidays for our clients.