Meet our team

Meet the individuals who are passionate about making Inspired Adventures a life-changing experience for all involved.

Justine Curtis

CEO and Founder

Originally from the UK, Justine founded Inspired Adventures in 2004, motivated by her own experiences in both travel and philanthropic work.

Justine believes in fostering positivity in our social impact on the world and is driven by a genuine belief in the betterment of the planet. Justine leads the team to deliver personable, professional, and trustworthy end-to-end service.

Read the founding story of Inspired Adventures

Dr Michael Bonning

Chief Medical Officer

Michael is a General Practitioner in Sydney, having spent many years as a medical officer in the Royal Australian Navy. He was deployed to the Middle East, Mediterranean, southern Indian Ocean, South East Asia and the Pacific. His specialty areas of practice include high altitude physiology, diving medicine and emergency management in remote environments. An avid bushwalker, trail runner and cyclist, he has worked with Inspired Adventures and other organisations to take hikers to the highest peaks on multiple continents. As Chief Medical Officer he assists Inspired Adventures in planning exciting, safe itineraries and oversees clinical governance for all IAs’ doctors.

See our Staff | Team Leaders | Team Doctors

Staff

Our team work closely with charities and fundraisers to create a seamless experience and successful adventures. Meet the friendly faces making it happen behind the scenes!

Kelsey Rennie
Head of Client Services

Kelsey has had the pleasure of working for Inspired Adventures since 2019. After reading Chapter One by Daniel Flynn, Kelsey was inspired to transition her career and work for a social enterprise. With a passion for travel and social impact, Inspired Adventures has been the perfect fit!

Kelsey was born & raised in Canada and moved to Australia at the age of 18. Since then, she has seized every opportunity to travel. From backpacking through Europe, Asia & South America, doing humanitarian work in Sri Lanka to hiking in the Dolomites in Northern Italy.

With the absence of travel in recent years, Kelsey took the opportunity to complete her Yoga Teacher Training. You can often find Kelsey practicing yoga (of course!), baking vegan treats, gardening and going for long walks enjoying her favourite podcasts.

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Rebecca Dipple
Senior Partnerships Coordinator

Born in Sweden and raised in Australia, Bec has spent most of her life traveling between both countries and much of Europe, Asia, and America. Bec is an avid hiker and traveller who loves exploring new places and challenging herself. She’s completed hikes such as Everest Base Camp (Nepal) and The Laugavegur Trek (Iceland), with many more on her bucket list including climbing Mt Kilimanjaro.

After years of volunteering for different charities and completing her Master of Social Work last year, Inspired Adventures has been the perfect fit to combine Bec's love for doing good for the community, travel, and the charity space. Outside of work, you will find Bec swimming at the beach, baking at home, spending time with family and friends, or op-shopping.

Jessica Dunphy
Product Manager

Jessica is a Management and Tourism Graduate born and raised in Sydney. She began with Inspired Adventures as a Travel Operations Intern in early 2020, just before the pandemic, and loved everything about the company and making a difference for people. She has a strong interest in learning about sustainability and eco-travel in the ever-growing tourism industry. Outside of work, you can find her spending time with my family and friends, on long walks, reading, or enjoying food and drinks on a nice sunny rooftop. Jessica aspires to encourage people around her to do more good for other people and be more conscious of the planet.

Sandi Gericke
Senior Travel Operations Manager

Born and raised in Berlin, Sandi naturally grew up with a passion for travelling, being surrounded by all the amazing cultures and landscapes Europe has on offer. After a quick detour via Canada and a degree in Tourism Management, Sandi found her way to Australia. Since 2017, it has been her role to ensure that our Inspired Adventures run smoothly and are filled with authentic and memorable experiences.

She is also a mother of two and when not working, you'll find her roaming Sydney's many parks and beaches always on the hunt for the best playground. In her spare time, she likes going to the sauna to enjoy some peace and quiet, walking in nature to clear her head or meeting a friend over a glass of wine and a delicious meal.

Samantha Eismen
Campaign Manager

Sam loves to explore new places, tackle big adventures, and support good causes. She first fell in love with the charity space after volunteering in Nepal for 4 months. During this time she taught English, fundraised, and helped to build a library for the kids of Chitwan. After seeing the impact that charities have on communities, Sam knew this was for her.

Before finding her way to Inspired Adventures, Sam completed a degree in media and jetted off around the world to places like Morocco, Switzerland, Hawaii, and Myanmar. She also hiked multiple trails from the Annapurna in Nepal to Mount Rinjani in Lombok. After returning home, she decided to combine her 2 passions of traveling and doing good, and eventually made her way to the Inspired Adventures family. In her spare time, you might catch her at the beach, second-hand vintage shopping, or on a hiking trail.

Lauren Ward
Campaign Manager

Lauren is originally from the UK and has been living in Australia for nearly two years. She has been working in fundraising and the charity sector since she graduated university with a degree in English, and has supported many organisations in achieving their fundraising goals, even taking on challenges like the Paris Marathon herself! In her spare time, she loves to read, experiment with baking, go to judo training and of course travel whenever she gets the chance. Her aim for the next year is to finally get to see Uluru in person, but her favourite place she has visited so far has definitely been exploring Japan.

Holly Sherlock
Campaign Manager

Holly is born and bred in Australia with a love for all things outdoors. Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts and Science, she was keen to put that knowledge to work in a humanitarian field, looking for a way to give back to the community. Inspired Adventures was the perfect fit, allowing her to use the skills she developed to work alongside charities nationwide to really make a difference.

Holly has also trained as a Ski Instructor and worked in both Perisher Valley here in Australia, and Whistler Blackcomb in Canada. She has a real fondness for the mountains, hiking and skiing being two of her favourite pastimes. If she’s not in the snow, Holly will be at the local coffee shop, an art gallery or the cinema.

Lucy Turney
Fundraising Coordinator

Lucy is originally from Australia and has currently been living in Canada for over a year. Graduating with a Bachelor of Sports Development, she is passionate about health and fitness and loves using her enthusiasm and positivity to help others achieve their goals. She loves exploring new places and challenging herself, having recently spent 3 months tree planting where she planted over 100,000 trees.

Inspired Adventures is the perfect fit for Lucy as she gets to surround herself with like-minded people who love challenging themselves and spending time outdoors. In her spare time, you might find her listening to music, going for a hike, snowboarding or at the beach.

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Jared Styan
Fundraising Coordinator

Jared started out in fundraising after he volunteered at a children's hospital and decided he wanted to do more to help. So he ran up Australia's highest mountain in pyjamas for a children's cancer charity and ended up raising over $7,000!

Since then, he has run up a 5,800-metre volcano in Peru for charity, volunteered and worked in South America, learned Spanish, written a children's book, worked for various NGOs in fundraising and digital marketing, completed a Diploma of Social Media Management, and traveled to many remote and beautiful places all over the world.

He has since found his place at Inspired Adventures where he gets to combine his enthusiasm for helping others and going on epic adventures!

Michelle Riesel
Digital Marketing Manager

Michelle has been a part of the Inspired Adventures team since 2018, heading up our travel team before moving into the marketing space. She loves that her job means she can support hundreds of worthy causes, and make a real difference in the world. Michelle loves to travel and explore new places, having visited nearly 30 countries and living in three of them. Her favourite travel experience was visiting Lapland in Sweden, but anywhere snowy has her captivated. In her spare time, she loves spending time with family and friends, planning where to travel next, and hitting the dance floor.

Michaelee Parr
Senior Digital Marketing Coordinator

Michaelee joins us after 10 years of working in retail management & marketing roles, seeking a way to combine her skillset in marketing and passion for the tourism industry with something more purposeful.

Hailing from rural Queensland, Michaelee always dreamed of seeing more of the world, and as soon as she had the chance she jumped on her first international flight at 17 and hasn't stopped travelling since.

20+ countries later, she has seen firsthand the impact that travel can have on an individual as well as a destination and was inspired by the potential to connect with others and travel with purpose. She went on to study her Bachelor's in International Tourism and Business Management at the University of Queensland.

Outside of work hours, you'll find Michaelee at the local rock climbing gym, yoga studio, or practicing photography.

Team doctors

Dr George Crisp

George graduated from medicine in London in 1986, where he completed his General Practice training. He spent two years working at the Royal Perth Hospital, then spent a year working in a country General Practice before returning to Perth, where he runs a small family medical practice. He has an interest in travel medicine and has travelled widely in South East Asia including trekking in the Sumatran Rainforest and participating in an expedition to the Hindu Kush in a medical capacity. George also writes regularly for medical magazines on environmental health matters, reviews clinical information on herbal medicines and is on the national committee of Doctors for the Environment Australia. Outside of medical and family life, he is a keen musician and plays keyboards in the Perth-based rock band "80's inc.".

Dr Brooke Ah Shay

Brooke is a general practitioner hailing from Far North Queensland whose career has taken her to nearly every corner of Australia – from metropolitan Western Australia to the remote Northern Territory, where she currently works as a clinic doctor in an Aboriginal community. A keen nature enthusiast, she has trekked around the world, including to countries such as Iceland, Peru, Borneo and Tanzania. When not enjoying the great outdoors, her hobbies include playing the piano, flying planes and photography. Brooke is thrilled to work for Inspired Adventures – to be able to play a role, however small, in raising money for good causes as well as sharing in the sheer brilliance of nature with others.

Dr Claudia Lee

As a doctor and author, Claudia has devoted her career to medicine involving nature, cultures and areas where life’s most important philosophies are at the fore. This has included Emergency, Intensive Care and General Practice medicine in (outback and urban) Australia, and overseas locations for employment, fundraising, fitness and research, the most recent being Antarctica. Her book titled the ‘The Mystery Gut’, co-authored with Professor Kerryn Phelps, was released in 2018 on the threshold of the major revolution on the way we think about the gut and its relevance to our health. Claudia believes that nature is our most powerful teacher in life that takes persistence and bravery, so therefore jumping into the ocean with her family (husband and son) and friends is her greatest joy.

Dr Rob Dickson

Rob works in rural and remote general practice, a very Australian medical specialty, which has taken him through regional NSW, central Australia, Antarctica and now to Tasmania. Based on Tassie's wild west coast, he tries to balance the climate controlled and fluorescent lit environment of modern medicine with the more natural outdoor environment of planet earth. He is a big believer in the personal growth and discovery which can be found through the right mix of beautiful landscapes, psychological determination and physical challenges.

Dr Hugh Simpson

Hugh is originally from Queensland, where he trained in medicine and neuroscience. He currently works in Melbourne where he is training to be a neurologist. Hugh has been hiking for over 20 years and takes every opportunity to get away to the wild and wonderful corners of the world and at home in Australia. He has hiked in South East Asia, New Zealand, Nepal, and Africa, as well as the Americas, from Canada to Chile. In 2012 he undertook a particularly memorable 3000 kilometre, five month long bicycle trip from San Francisco to Guadalajara in Mexico (he can now give excellent recommendations for comfortable bike seats). The only thing Hugh enjoys more than solo adventures, is combining his passion for hiking and the outdoors with medical work, which he gets to do at Inspired Adventures.

Dr John Messing

Jon relocated to New Zealand in 2015 from the United Kingdom and started working as a helicopter doctor around rural New Zealand. With just a small medical kit in his backpack, the transition into expedition medicine shortly afterwards was a natural one. Since then, he’s visited five continents on trips with Inspired Adventures. When he’s not travelling, Jon works in Intensive Care in Auckland as well as on New Zealand's national aeromedical retrieval service. In his spare time he enjoys mountain biking and long walks on the beach.

Portrait of Team Doctor Callum Barnesstanding in on a bright mountain side covered in snow

Dr Callum Barnes

Callum is an emergency medicine doctor currently working in Sydney. When not working, he and his girlfriend. Genevieve, are at the beach with their dog Arlo or researching their next holiday destination. Growing up on the east coast of Australia, he was taught to love the outdoors from a young age. He has both personal and professional experience in austere environments, having trekked to Everest Base Camp, Mount Kilimanjaro and even to Norway's Trolltunga during a snowstorm! Callum has also completed subspecialty training in wilderness medical skills.

Dr Paula Conroy

As a general practitioner with interests in travel medicine and preventative health, Paula believes in the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and feeding the mind and body with nourishment from the natural world. She has crafted a portfolio career combining general practice with health leadership and medical education, which allows her to nurture her love of the great outdoors. An avid hiker, Paula has been fortunate enough to travel the world enjoying incredible trekking opportunities. She loves sharing these experiences with others and enjoys being able to give back and make a difference by working with the Inspired Adventures team.

Dr Natalie Dodd

Natalie relocated to NZ from the UK on a whim in 2009 and has travelled extensively within five continents (so far) including four inspired Adventures as both Medic and Team Leader to China, Tanzania, Cambodia and Australia. Expedition medicine naturally merges her interest in wild medicine and adventure travel. She is a post Grad student, solo parent to two young boys (and dog!), a vocal feminist and rural GP. She loves nothing more than pushing her own boundaries and enjoys having the opportunity to help others push theirs with Inspired.

Dr Matthew McAlpine

Matt is a rural and remote general practitioner and has a passion for anything that gets the heart rate up in beautiful places – specifically hiking, ocean swimming, trail running, and backcountry skiing. In winter he works at Falls Creek Ski Resort, and the rest of the year works in Emergency Medicine in smaller country hospitals, mostly in NSW. He loves big mountains and altitudes, including treks above 5000m in Nepal, Tanzania, Peru, Chile and Bhutan. He is excited about people challenging themselves and growing through the process and is stoked to be part of the Inspired Adventures team.

Team leaders

When you choose to travel with Inspired Adventures, you can be confident you’re in the best hands. As well as an expert local guide, we send an Inspired Adventures Tour Leader on most adventures and Doctors where required, to make sure you have the very best experience while away.

Kyle Taylor

Kyle is an Inspired Adventures alum, having worked at IA from 2010-2012. He has led more than 20 adventures on almost every continent. His wanderlust is insatiable. Kyle has lived on four continents and travelled and worked in over 100 countries. He has run the London marathon, swam an open water marathon in the English channel, trekked to Everest Base Camp and summited Mount Kilimanjaro not once, but twice! He has personally fundraised over $50,000 for various charities. Kyle grew up in Southern California and has been an "expat" for over 15 years. He loves travel more than anything, followed closely by politics and Ru Paul's Drag Race. He recently took up knitting and ticked off the top item on his bucket list – an expedition to Antarctica – which is the last place he went before COVID-19 struck.

Barbara Comeskey

Travel allows Barbara to get out of the ‘everyday’ zone and be challenged in a new environment. She enjoys learning about different cultures and meeting new people, sharing time and wonderful experiences with them. South East Asia is Barbara’s preferred travel destination, having undertaken many hiking and biking trips in Vietnam with Inspired Adventures. She also loves Iceland because of the spectacular scenery that helps remind her that nature is much bigger and more powerful than humankind. But the most fun she’s ever had was sailing and biking around the Croatian Islands, because the people are great storytellers and the food is amazing. Barbara originally hails from New Zealand, but worked in both Asia and Australia before returning home to live, where she enjoys mountain biking or running in the Tararua Ranges with her dog, Bella.

Bianca Drieberg

Bianca is born and bred in Melbourne and travels often. Her love of globetrotting stemmed from running marathons around the world. Bianca is passionate about setting goals and celebrating them, which makes her the perfect person to lead a team with Inspired Adventures. In her time with IA, she’s led treks and cycling adventures in Vietnam and China, which she does alongside her corporate communications career and side hustle of teaching fitness classes. On top of this, she’s passionate about learning more about the charities supported through IA, as it makes for really meaningful work with the inspiring individuals she enjoys getting to know during on adventures.

Dave Rawlins

Dave first became involved with Inspired Adventures in 2011 when he participated in Rainforest Rescue’s Orang-utan Adventure Trek in Sumatra. He loved both the adventure and the idea of making a contribution to a great cause. Dave has since joined IA as a Team Leader and has led groups to the forests of Borneo, trekked Mt Kilimanjaro in Africa and the Inca Trail in Peru, walked the Great Wall of China and supported domestic trips around Australia. When Dave isn’t travelling he lives on the northern coast of New South Wales, where he works as an ecologist, making use of his degree in Zoology. He runs his own business, restoring areas of native vegetation and educating people on biodiversity conservation and sustainability. Dave is passionate about climate action and works with his community to support environmental causes.

Dior Chantelle

Dior is originally from Brisbane, though she has spent more of her life abroad and adventuring than she has sitting still. Between working in Human Resources and studying, she has always found her true happiness lies in vagabonding in the natural world. Last year she spent most of the year diving in Indonesia, and the highlight from the year before was a 100 day hike across the top of Nepal. Dior has run up mountains, been swimming in streams, and camped in the wild in more countries than she can list. Nepal, Mongolia and Norway are some of her favourite adventure playgrounds of the world. Dior loves being a Team Leader for Inspired Adventures and helping others to realise that these adventures are possible, and how much the world offers you when you step outside.

Suzy Clarke Inspired Adventures Tour Leader

Lou Cormack

Lou loves the outdoors, a good long walk and has been very fortunate to spend her life working in and travelling through communities all over the world. She started life as a farmer, before getting into project management and leading expeditions. Nowadays, as well as being a Team Leader for Inspired Adventures, she works with an international NGO to provide medical care to populations in need. In between projects, Lou is fortunate to be able to travel to places like the Pembrokeshire Coast Path in Wales, Tiger Leaping Gorge in China, the Cordilleras in the Philippines and undertaking a 1000 kilometre bike ride down Australia’s east coast. Lou is thrilled to be part of the IA team, sharing her love of travel and the outdoors with likeminded people who want to use it as an opportunity to give back.

Meg San Miguel

Throughout her life, Meg has seized every opportunity to explore new countries and cultures, from backpacking around Europe for a year, to living in France, volunteering in Greece and working in India. Meg has been an Inspired Adventures Team Leader for two years and loves working with teams who are passionate about using responsible travel to raise vital funds for charity. Meg has previously worked with an education social enterprise in rural Indian communities, a destination she adores along with neighbouring Sri Lanka and Nepal. She’s passionate about food sustainability and permaculture, and dreams of one day running a small permaculture farm or organic vineyard. Meg also runs a small knitting project called Neighbourhood Knits, creating beautiful handmade garments for the community. You’ll often find Meg pottering around the garden, making cultured butter, or enjoying a glass of natural wine.

Michelle Faithfull

Michelle has a long history of volunteering, fundraising and coordinating events for multiple charities, earning her the title of Newcastle Citizen of the Year in 2020 and a nomination for Australian of the Year in 2016. She has personally raised over $175,000 for charities over the past decade, and it all began with an Inspired Adventures trek along the Great Wall of China back in 2011. Her first trek as Team Leader was along the El Camino in Spain in 2017. Michelle’s ‘obsession’ with giving back to the community came from the loss of her first child after spending four months sitting in an intensive care nursery and witnessing the wonderful, caring nature of the hard-working medical staff and the need for charities to assist with research and support.

Scott Herring

Scott led his first Inspired Adventures team in 2014 on a trek up Kilimanjaro. Since then he has led more IA trips including the Larapinta Trail in Australia and the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal. He has travelled widely through Asia, Europe, Canada and New Zealand, often with a trekking focus and always seeking out mountains. Scott currently lives on a patch of land in Cobargo, New South Wales (one day to be a proper farm) with his wife and two girls and as well as leading for IA, works with NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service as a caretaker at Green Cape Lightstation. He is also endeavouring to run his own land management business and is involved in community projects in Cobargo such as the Triangle Tool Library.

Suzy Clarke

Suzy has a passion for everything outdoors – whether it be a stroll on a beach with her dogs or climbing a mountain in -15 degrees, she embraces every adventure. Suzy’s love of trekking has taken her to countries including Papua New Guinea, Borneo, Tanzania, China and New Zealand. The Larapinta Trail is one of her favourites in her homeland of Australia, closely followed by the Thorsborne Trail, which is practically Suzy’s backyard in North Queensland. She has competed in the international Coast to Coast adventure race in New Zealand, cycling, trail running and white water kayaking over 243 kilometres and coming third in her category. As well as being a Team Leader for Inspired Adventures, Suzy is a fully qualified fitness leader and enjoys seeing first-time trekkers fall in love with the challenge, thrill and beauty of trekking.

Tara Larby

Growing up in Scotland meant that Tara had to hike, ski, fish and shovel snow just to get to school. She moved to Australia in 2000, and immediately immersed herself in the outdoors before becoming an Interpretive Guide and travelling around the country. She really enjoyed the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and share incredible stories and experiences. Tara has also worked as an expedition leader for school students, leading trips to Vietnam, India, Cape York and the Kimberley, navigating a host of challenges on the way. Personally she’s travelled to Europe, Canada, Africa, Asia and New Zealand. As well as being a Team Leader for Inspired Adventures, Tara creates images of threatened and endangered wildlife to bring awareness and support to their causes. She’s passionate about all things remote, wild and geared towards conservation.

Timmi Saunders

Timmi was originally from Melbourne, but has spent the majority of the last 13 years living in a motorhome. The last seven of those years he’s worked as a hiking, four-wheel drive and expedition guide, residing mostly in the Northern Territory. While a lot of his time is spent going between the desert sands of Alice Springs and the tropics of Darwin, he also enjoys guiding in Tasmania. No matter where he’s based you’ll find him teaching people about the environment, Aboriginal culture and Australian history. Timmi delights in time spent outdoors being active, or under a tree reading a book. He loves new places, adventures, meeting new people and seeing them push themselves outside of their comfort zone and achieving things that make them proud of themselves, which is why he loves being an Inspired Adventures Team Leader.

See yourself working here? While we’re not actively hiring, we’re always interested to hear from talented individuals. Feel free to tell us a bit about yourself at recruitment@inspiredadventures.com.au

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