Justin was born in Nairobi and spent his childhood in Zanzibar and in Kenya.
After completing his formal education, Justin embraced a life of global exploration. His early career was a mosaic of diverse experiences including tracking Arabian white oryx in Oman’s deserts, laboring on farms and construction sites across Australia, England, and the USA, and teaching English in Argentina, England, and Portugal. In between these projects he traveled extensively.
In 1988, he headed home to Kenya from Portugal where he was living at the time, first crossing the Sahara Desert through Algeria and Niger, and then exploring West Africa before arriving back in East Africa. Soon after that he joined his brother in Tanzania running a mobile safari operation.
This introduced him to guiding safaris and leading climbs up Mount Kilimanjaro, connecting deeply with the African wilderness and his sense of adventure.
He met Gillian in the early 1990s and a few years later they started a family and began designing custom luxury safaris, earning him features in prestigious magazines like Town & Country (USA) and Nob Hill Gazette (San Francisco).
In 2008, after 20 years running and guiding safaris, Justin and his family moved from Tanzania to Spain. He and Gillian formed A Step Ahead and added journeys in the Pyrenees to their repertoire of custom journeys.
Whether leading safaris, scaling Kilimanjaro, or exploring the Pyrenean wilderness, he lives his dream of combining a wanderlust with his deep connection to the wild places he loves.
