The top travel specialists to know right now

Meet Condé Nast Traveller UK’s hand-picked little black book of the key travel specialists right now

By Toby Skinner and Emma Love – 7 November 2025

When we created our inaugural list of the top travel specialists last year, it was based on the belief that they’re more crucial than ever. In an age of Web3, artificial intelligence, and vast warehouses of digital information on nearly every destination imaginable, we need them. Not just to guide us to the heart of a place, avoiding lazy tropes and opening doors that would otherwise remain locked, but to make sure we do so with due sensitivity to local environments and communities. A year on, with the likes of ChatGPT making even more of an impact, that belief remains unchanged and firmer than ever. So, we’ve spent the past months at Conde Nast Traveller slowly growing our list of top UK-facing travel specialists.

According to James Jayasundera, who has run tailor-made specialists Ampersand Travel for more than two decades, there are both practical and emotional reasons for the very human role of a travel specialist. “The world is changing so fast, and more people are travelling based on something they’ve seen online or on an Instagram reel,” he says. “You need a really informed guide to explain both the reality of what you’ll see, and its impact; to manage expectations, but also to guide you towards something that might be even better.”

Jayasundera has travelled extensively since he was a child, initially with his English mother and Sri Lankan diplomat father. Now, he doesn’t just have one of the most far-reaching little black books in the business (especially on Sri Lanka and India), but also a very global context: meaning he can tell you how the Himalayas might compare to the Andes or the Dolomites, or the nuances of Asian versus African safaris. He says Ampersand trips are also about compassion, and often sensitivity to very specific needs – from a 75-year-old woman who wanted to learn to swim with her granddaughter to a terminally ill woman who knew that her trip to southern Sri Lanka with her husband would be her last, and passed away happy and at peace on the flight home from Colombo.

That humanity sums up our list of travel specialists, which now has nine new additions. They include global all-rounders like Carrier and Crossing Travel, as well as companies with a laser-like regional focus, such as Selective Asia, founded by Nick Pulley after living in Thailand and extensively travelling through its surrounding countries, and Mahlatini Luxury Travel, known for its trips to Africa and the Indian Subcontinent. We’ve also picked travel specialists such as ski expert Powder Byrne and Kirker Holidays, which organises cultural city breaks in Europe. They join other operators with a finely carved niche, including The Slow Cyclist, founded by round-the-world biker Oli Broom, flight-free experts Byway, and Inclusive Morocco, which offers magical trips that address specific destination challenges, especially for LGBTQ+ travellers.

All these brands trade in the unGoogleable: the local party fixer, the world-expert guide, the secret diving spot, access to the after-hours museum or gallery, sometimes with the artist; they can find the exact villa for your exact needs, or create the bucket list trip that doesn’t just exceed your expectations but explodes them, leaving you transformed. Enjoy our list of trusted travel specialists – and happy travels.

Read the full article at https://www.cntraveller.com/article/the-travel-specialists-to-know-right-now