Today we’d like to introduce you to Leo Cuesta

Hi Leo, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?

I’ve always loved nature and active travel and in my mid twenties I decided that I wanted to run my own adventure travel company. I went back to school in the US to study business with a focus on entrepreneurship and set up my company in the Philippines in 2011. Uncharted Philippines quickly became a leader in that country’s adventure travel industry. In 2015 I moved back to the US and have since set up Uncharted Colombia and Uncharted West which specialize in Colombia and the western US.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?

The road has been as bumpy as the trails I like to hike. I graduated in 2009 at the height of the US financial crisis. I knew I wanted to have my own company but my plan after graduation was to work for an adventure travel company in the US for about 5 years to learn more about the industry and establish connections. But it was extremely difficult for a business graduate to get any kind of job in 2009 and even more difficult to get a job in something specific like adventure travel.

My then girlfriend (and now wife) is Colombian, also studied in Boston and also gradutated in 2009. Unable to find work in the US after graduation she moved back to Colombia. I followed her there and ended up working for an outdoor activities company in Colombia as head of its adventure travel division and the company’s overall financial advisor.

As head of the Colombian company’s adventure travel division I got to travel around the country and learned how to operate adventure tours. As its financial advisor, however, I saw that the company was in deep financial trouble and that its best option was to focus on its core business of summer camps and divest from its other businesses including the adventure travel division. After 4 months of working with the company I gave the owner the best advice I could and then resigned.

I went back to the Philippines and set up my adventure travel company with only 6 months of industry experience — those 4 months in Colombia and a 2 month internship in the US while I was still in school. I knew essentially nothing about how to market and promote my trips so business was very slow in the beginning.

What I did know was how to design and operate great adventure tours. Eventually word got around and we got enough customers to become a viable business. In 2013 my wife joined me in the company and by 2015 we were leading the adventure travel industry in the Philippines.

Looking back now I think it was a blessing in disguise that I couldn’t find a job in the US after graduating. If I did I might not have set up my own company until 2014 and would have lost that first mover advantage that I had in the Philippines in 2011 when there were hardly any other adventure travel companies there. By 2014 there were dozens of other similar companies but Uncharted Philippines was already well established.

Having a life plan is great but life itself usually has other plans. Sometimes we need to be brave enough to jump into things that we’re not sure of or know little about and as long as we keep moving towards our goals I think most of the time things work out.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Uncharted Earth?

My company offers adventure trips in spectacular nature destinations that are unspoiled by mass tourism. We cover the Philippines, Colombia and the Western United States — places that we love and live in.

We have 3 core travel principles that have set us apart since we started :

First, we believe that true adventure can be had only if you are far away from crowds, familiar things, and your comfort zone. We are serious about taking our guests on extraordinary trips, and we do that by going to lesser known destinations – places that even most locals don’t know about.

We also believe that nature is best appreciated by engaging it physically and that a perfect vacation is one that is jam-packed with activity. In other words, we enjoy tiring people out. Tired faces with big smiles are our typical indicators of a successful trip.

Finally, we believe that the best people to show you a place are those who live there. True adventure involves the unknown and unexpected, but you want to travel with people who are intimately familiar with a destination. We focus on only a few countries, and these are the countries that we call home. We are operationally based in each of our destination countries, and all of our trip leaders and guides are locals. That’s why we’re the experts in our chosen destinations. What’s uncharted to everyone else is home to us.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?

Work is not everything in life but it takes up at least a third of your time and half of your energy. Work on something that you love or at least like and life is pretty good. Don’t be too concerned about monetary success. There are millions of ways to get rich but not too many ways for you to be happy. If you enjoy what you do for a living then you’ve already found true success.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.uncharted-earth.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unchartedearthadventuretravel/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnchartedEarth