Meet Our Team
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Alex Erdman
A recreational photographer and passionate food lover, Alex has been traveling since a young age. Also interested in giving back, she has been on volunteer trips to both India and Thailand. In addition, she is a lover of the outdoors and has spent an extended period of time hiking and skiing in Zermatt and most recently returned from gorilla trekking in Rwanda and Uganda. Alex graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Art History and has previously worked at the Metropolitan Museum, as well as in television advertising.
Favorite Hotels: Hotel St-Barth Isle de France, Villa des Orangers in Marrakech, Cap Juluca, Mii Amo Spa, Estancia and Playa Vik in Uruguay and the Monte Rosa in Zermatt.
Memorable Meals: La Colombe, on the Constantia Utsig property in South Africa, Francis Mallmann’s Garzon near Jose Ignacio, Uruguay and in New York, I love Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills. I also had a fabulous meal at Chef César Ramirez’s Brooklyn Fare and one of my favorite dinning experiences to date at Joe Beef in Montreal.
Favorite Travel Book: Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.
Favorite travel quote: "Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world." Scott Cameron
Recently visited: Peru, China, Hawaii, Sardinia, South Africa, Montana, Bahamas, Palm Beach, Costa Rica, Morocco, Zermatt, Rwanda, Argentina, Uruguay, Anguilla and Montreal.
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Amelia Osborne
An art lover, Amelia Osborne was originally drawn to travel as a means to explore the world’s great museums. After growing up in Manhattan and Greenwich, Connecticut, she embraced her wayfaring spirit and went to college abroad, at Scotland’s University of St Andrews. While studying Art History and Ancient History, Amelia travelled extensively in Europe and developed a love of photography–both taking photos and collecting the works of others. After graduating college in 2005, Amelia did a post-graduate course at NYU and worked for Sotheby’s, a firm of art advisors and in an artist’s studio.
Prized Travel Moment: Getting additional pages inserted into passports
Most Remote Adventure: Trekking the Everest Base Camp Trail; Road-tripping through Eastern Europe in a Skoda with a radio stuck on a station playing only Shania Twain; Dog-sledding in International Falls, Minnesota
Favorite Hotels: Wentworth Mansion, Charleston, Hotel Sacher, Vienna, Four Seasons Sultanahmet, Hotel Borgo San Felice, Tuscany, Lapa Rios, Costa Rica. Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai, Gasparilla Inn, Florida
Recently Visited: Delhi, Agra, Nepal, Berlin, Istanbul, Lima, Santiago, Santa Fe, Charleston Easter Island, Nicaragua, Ireland, Maine, Prague, Vienna
Barkley Hickox
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Indagare’s Marketing Director, Barkley Hickox, was born and raised in Manhattan, but has also lived in Paris and speaks French. A passionate traveler (top of her wish list: South Africa and Thailand), Barkley also has favorites she will always return to. "Palm Beach for reuniting with friends and family, Cap Juluca for rest and relaxation on one of the world’s most pristine beaches, and Paris for the food, culture and shopping!"
Barkley graduated from Yale University with a BA in History and a minor in French Language & Literature. Prior to joining Indagare, she worked in investment banking.
Favorite Hotels & Resorts: Hotel Le Bristol in Paris, One&Only Palmilla in Cabo, Hotel Cipriani in Venice, Four Seasons Hualalai on the Big Island of Hawaii, Upper House in Hong Kong, Como Shambhala Estate in Bali and Amanwana in Indonesia.
Favorite Restaurants in NYC: ABC Kitchen, Gramercy Tavern, Babbo, Fatty Crab.
Most Memorable Meal: La Fiorella in Pienza while on a whirlwind road trip through Tuscany.
Best Adventures: Shopping in India, traveling through the Andes and Amazon in Peru, Ringing out the New Year in Rio de Janeiro and sailing through the islands of Indonesia.
Recently Visited: London, Milan, Paris, Cannes, Turks and Caicos, St. Barths, Indonesia, Venice, Rome, Courchevel, Anguilla, India, Hong Kong, Peru, Bermuda, Istanbul, St. Lucia, Tuscany, throughout Spain.
Up Next: Brazil, Buenos Aires, and Uruguay in April.
Brooke Pearson
A passionate foodie and self-taught chef, Brooke Pearson grew up in Michigan and developed a passion for travel and exploration at a young age. In 2007, she made a dream come true by taking a one-year round-the-world adventure, which ultimately led to a new career in travel. Brooke has written extensively about her travels and culinary adventures; most recently she was a guest chef in Brooklyn’s cool Whisk & Ladle Supperclub. She has lived in Rome, Chicago and Bangkok, but plans on calling Manhattan home for years to come.
Favorite Cities for Exploring: Rome and Tokyo
Favorite Resort(s) for Relaxing: Four Seasons Chiang Mai and Mii Amo
Favorite Restaurant in NYC: Blue Hill for classic American, Locanda Verde for Italian, and David Chang’s mini-empire.
Most Memorable Meal: During a recent trip to Napa, I dropped in to Michael Keller’s Ad Hoc without a reservation and had a fabulous dinner. And there’s a terrible (but hilarious) Mexican restaurant in Chennai, India that has permanently marked my culinary memory.
Most Remote Adventure: Trekking to Annapurna base camp in Nepal
Favorite Travel Book: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
Recently Visited: Cuba, Thailand, San Francisco, Grand Canyon, Mexico, St. Barth’s, Antigua and Colombia
Cabell Belk
Cabell first experienced the thrill of the remote at age 14 when she accidentally spent a summer in rural Extremadura. She’s either been on the road or plotting her next adventure ever since.
Cabell graduated from Princeton University in 2007 with a degree in English in Comparative Contexts. During a summer internship in Peru’s Sacred Valley, she fell hopelessly in love with Latin America and decided to study Spanish language literature in graduate school. After finishing her M.A. at the University of Virginia, she moved to Buenos Aires, where she worked at a boutique travel company and, out of pure necessity, became an expert on eating everything except steak!
Favorite travel book: Final de novela en Patagonia by Mempo Giardinelli
Favorite museum: Colección Amalia Fortabat in Buenos Aires
Most memorable meal: Akelarre in San Sebastián or Francis Mallmann 1884 in Mendoza
Most nostalgic: Estancia La Bamba in San Antonio de Areco, Feast! in Charlottesville, VA, the Bent Spoon in Princeton, NJ
Recently visited: Telluride, Charleston, Torres del Paine, Blackberry Farm, Cartagena, Austin, José Ignacio, Morocco, Montreal, Scotland, Nicaragua
Wish List: Salta, Atacama, Cuba, Seattle, South Africa, Istanbul, Brazil
Catie Harte
Catie Harte’s sense of adventure was formed whilst traveling across Europe, Central America and Asia. As an undergraduate at Georgetown University, she studied abroad in Rome and volunteered on a medical and house-building missions in Guadalajara, Mexico and Quetzalotenango, Guatemala.
Favorite Hotels: Palazzo Sasso in Ravello, Chedi Club in Bali and Perivolas in Santorini.
Memorable Meals: Li Qun Roast Duck Restaurant in Beijing, Naughty Nuri’s Warung in Bali, China Club in Hong Kong, Katina’s in Santorini a nameless restaurant on High Island accessible only by boat in the South China Sea.
Favorite Travel Memories: Riding a parade float as a member of the Krewe of Mid City in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, attending an Indian wedding in Phuket and cruising down the Li River in Guilin, China.
Recently visited: Greece, Hong Kong, Thailand and New Orleans.
Travel Wish List: India and South Africa
Eliza Scott Harris
Indagare’s managing director, Eliza Scott Harris, has been with the company since it launched in 2007. Previously, she spent six years in the world of high-end travel magazines, as the managing editor of Town & Country Travel and the executive editor of Departures. She also worked at Garden Design and Random House. She graduated from Brown University in 1991. A serious foodie, Eliza has served as a judge for the James Beard Journalism Awards. She lives in Westchester with her husband and three sons.
Favorite hotels: Africa House at Royal Malewane in South Africa, The Point in the Adirondacks, Grand Hotel Timeo in Sicily, Twin Farms in Vermont, Palazzo Sasso in Ravello. “I love boutique hotels that feel very personal, impart a strong sense of place and have a soul.”
Memorable meals: “For splash, I love Alinea, in Chicago, and Minibar (Jose Andreas) in Washington D.C. For sublime simplicity: freshly grilled fish and vegetables at Villa Sant’Andrea in Sicily. And for the quintessential neighborhood restaurant, I adore L’Affable in Cannes.”
Favorite travel book: West With the Night by Beryl Markham
Recently visited: South Africa, Tulum, Sicily, Florence, London, Paris, Cannes, Marrakech, Maine, the Adirondacks, Chicago, L.A., Washington D.C., Antigua, St. John, St. Croix, Florida
Henley Vazquez
Henley Holmes Vazquez, Indagare’s Senior Director, worked with the future Indagare team at Town & Country Travel. She has also written for National Geographic Traveler, In Style and Daily Candy. Although Henley is now settled with her husband and two children in New York City, she has also lived in Tokyo, Madrid and, most recently, Boston. Henley graduated from Princeton University with a degree in English and American Studies in 2001.
Favorite City for Exploring: Barcelona
Favorite Destination for Relaxing: Tulum
Favorite Travel Book: Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk
Favorite Restaurant in NYC: 11 Madison for a big night out, or Birreria for casual rooftop summer dinner
Best Adventure: Trekking in Patagonia, navigating the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul
Recently Visited: Maine, Mallorca, Mustique, St. Barth’s, Tulum, St. Tropez
John Cantrell
John Cantrell grew up in Kentucky but has spent most of the years since—almost thirty—in New York City. A former magazine editor, he has visited some twenty-plus countries, but his wish list remains long: Marrakech, Congo, Cape Town, Prague, Budapest, St. Petersburg, Crete, Oman, Bhutan, Myanmar, New Guinea, New Zealand. He says, “Basically I’d like to head east and keep going.” Favorite city of all? “I love London. If I could check into Claridge’s and never leave, I’d be quite happy.”
Katie Stewart
Katie’s love for travel began at a young age with a trip to Lizard Island, Australia, and New Zealand. She was hooked. With a love of photography and exploration, Katie is always looking for the next great adventure. She loves the outdoors and is most happy when immersing herself in new experiences and cultures.
Best Adventures: Skydiving in Queenstown, driving the Great Ocean Road in Melbourne, sailing a trimaran through the Whitsunday Islands and stopping to go sand dune sledding on Frasier Island. Favorite Travel Quote: “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” -Pico Iyer
Favorite Restaurant in NYC: Joseph Leonard for brunch, Little Owl, Locanda Verde, Tartine
Recently Visited: Paris, Brussels, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. John, Sea Island, Grand Cayman, Park City
Travel Wish List: Thailand, Song Saa in Cambodia, South Africa, Myanmar, Amalfi Coast, Capri, Patagonia
Liz Long
Having grown up in Jamaica, Liz developed an early interest in travel and cultural exploration. In college, she traveled to Rwanda and decided to really get off the beaten path and studied abroad in Fiji. Liz graduated from NYU’s Gallatin School in 2008 and thereafter took on a major role in developing Same Sky, a fair trade jewelry company that employs HIV positive women artisans in Rwanda and Zambia.
Favorite Restaurants in NYC: Blue Hill, Joseph Leonard, Little Owl, Buttermilk Channel and Lucali.
Best Travel Memories: Learning how to surf on Nagigia Island in Fiji, building a house, literally, out of mud in Rwanda, and driving/getting lost in the Blue Mountains in Jamaica with my husband (not to be advised)
Travel Wish List: South Africa, Botswana, Myanmar, Turkey, Morocco, Cuba, India, Mustique
Lizzie McGirr
Born in Canada and raised right outside New York City by an American mother and Scottish father, Lizzie has always felt the desire to travel around the world. She’s especially interested in both adventure and literary-based trips: whether hiking in South Africa and Chile or reading Hemingway in the Parisian bars where he wrote. Lizzie graduated in 2011 from the University of Virginia with a double BA in English and History.
Best Adventure: Hiking over the pass that separates Alaska from British Columbia on the Old Gold Trail through the Chilcotin Mountains.
Favorite Travel Memory: Having the grand niece of James Joyce quote the last page of Finnegan’s Wake next to a cityscape at the National Gallery of Dublin.
Favorite Travel Book: The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak and Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese.
Favorite New York City Restaurants: Gabe Stulman’s Joseph Leonard and Jeffrey’s Grocery, Buvette, and Barbuto. Rooftop drinks and Manhattan skyline views at Wythe in Brooklyn.
Recently Been: Istanbul, Bodrum, Dunton Hot Springs in Colorado, Nantucket, Seattle, Anguilla, Vienna, Florence and Rome.
Where I Want to Go Next: Topping the list: Patagonia, New Zealand, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Bhutan.
Marley Gibbons
Marley has always loved to travel and discover new things, even if it means a stay-cation in Manhattan, where she was born and raised. As a child, Marley’s parents refused to set foot anywhere near Disney and instead took Marley and her brother all over Europe. Highlights: their two-month residence in a Tuscan villa one summer and studying abroad in Cairo, Egypt. Marley has worked for National Geographic Traveler, Susan Magrino public relations agency and Jetsetter.
Dream Itinerary: Tracing the Moors’ Path to Where They Started. Fly into Madrid, taking time to re-visit museums and brush up on my Spanish, then driving down to Cordoba, with enough time to explore the town and Mosque. Next stop is Seville for some serious sit-down feasts at places like Taberna del Alabardero and then to Granada to get lost in the Alhambra and see examples of Moorish and Spanish culture colliding. After making the way down to Gibraltar, I would cross the straight by ferry and straddle the great divide between continents and cultures. I would spend time in Tangiers, Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakech.
Recently visited: O’ahu, Portugal, Coachella, Monterrey in Mexico, Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Egypt.
Melissa Biggs Bradley
Before founding Indagare, CEO Melissa Biggs Bradley served as the travel editor at Town & Country and launched Town & Country Travel magazine in 2003. Under her editorship in 2006, the publication was nominated for a National Magazine Award for General Excellence by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME). She has traveled to more than 100 countries, has favorite neighborhood restaurants and shops in cities on five continents and believes that travel broadens our vision and enlarges our soul. Though she doesn’t claim to have mastered jet-lag completely, it rarely slows her down, and she travels with her children, friends and Indagare members multiple times a year.
Monique Brendel
Communications director Monique Brendel grew up in New Jersey but spent summers in Europe with her family as a child. Before moving to New York, she lived in Miami for eight years where she worked in marketing and fashion. Recent best-loved trips? Traveling through the South of France in 2010 and her honeymoon in St. Barths in 2011. Next on her list: Bhutan, the Philippines, and Fernando de Noronha in Brazil.
Favorite City for Exploring: Florence, Paris and New York
Favorite Resort for Relaxing: Hotel du Cap Eden Roc in Cap d’Antibes, France; and in Brazil, Insolitos in Buzios and Ilha da Piedade in Angra dos Reis.
Favorite Restaurant in NYC: Joseph Leonard for my weekly neighborhood fix; 11 Madison for a seasonal big night out; brunch at Back Forty on a sunny Sunday afternoon; the back table at Buvette for girls night.
Recently visited: Tulum, St. Barths, London, Rome, Tuscany, Stockholm
Nicole Martin
Born and raised in New York, Nicole Martin has also lived in Los Angeles and Paris. Family holidays with her adventurous parents were spent exploring the souks of Marrakech, the pyramids of Giza and the game reserves of Botswana. She took travel plans into her own hands at age 18, when she crafted a two-month expedition through Europe for her and two friends. Ever since, she has been researching and designing trips. Nicole graduated from the University of Southern California in 2012 with a BA in Art History.
Favorite Travel Quote: “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller
Favorite New York Restaurants: Il Buco Allmentari & Vineria, Perla, ABC Kitchen, Locanda Verde
Recently Visited: Santa Barbara, St. Barth’s, Jamaica, Spain, Cartagena, Paris, San Francisco, China, Croatia
Simone Girner
Indagare’s editorial director, Simone Girner, was born in Germany and raised in New York. Before joining the founding team of Indagare, she worked as an editor at Town & Country Travel where some of her favorite journeys included skiing in Cortina and a beachy sojourn in the Maldives. Prior to Town & Country Travel, Simone spent three years living in Paris, where she was a contributing editor for Departures and also frequently wrote for Vogue. Simone, who is fluent in German and French, received her BA in English and French from Vassar College in 1999. She lives in New York City but hopes to one day divide her time between the States and Europe.
Favorite City for Exploring: Paris, Vienna, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
Favorite Resorts for Relaxing: Soneva Fushi, in the Maldives; Parrot Cay, in the Turks & Caicos; and Four Seasons Koh Samui.
Most Memorable Meals: A spicy Szechuan dinner at a hidden kitchen in Hong Kong. Lunch at local spot Jesse in Shanghai. A romantic fireside dinner at Winvian. Lunch with a view of the Coliseum at Aroma, in Rome.
Favorite Restaurant in NYC: 11 Madison for a big night out; Joseph Leonard for a neighborhood spot; River Deli, in Brooklyn, for a laid-back ambience; and the downtown Fatty Crab for Malaysian fusion cuisine.
Favorite Travel Book: Venice is a Fish (by Tiziano Scarpa); A Room with a View (by E.M. Forster); A Nervous Splendor (by Frederic Morton); and anything by Pico Iyer.
Recently Visited: Paris, Vienna, Hong Kong, Bahamas, Maui, Rome, Shanghai, Venice.
Tara Tunney
Tara Tunney is originally from Malibu, California, although she and her family moved to New York City when she was fourteen years old. Tara, who holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University and an Associate degree in management of Hotel Operations from the École Hôtelière de Lausanne, has lived in Buenos Aires, Lausanne and Paris. Top on her list of where to go next is Prague. Tara is fluent in French and Spanish.
Favorite City for Exploring: Paris
Favorite Summer Resort: St. Tropez
Favorite Travel Book: The Sun Also Rises
Favorite Restaurant in NYC: The Red Cat
Recently Visited: Dubai, the Seychelles, Maine, Mexico, Sun Valley, Monaco, Los Angeles, Paris
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