About

Chill Haven Travel was born out of our passion for adventure. In the seven years that we have been together, we have taken a significant step towards pursuing our travel passions.

Before meeting each other, our lives were filled with traveling and discovery. Pietro traveled the world on business and always combined it with personal exploratory trips.

Eltje, on the other hand, spent all her holidays abroad, discovering cultures and places. This culminating in her taking a sabbatical to explore the depths of the South Pacific, including remote areas such as Papua New Guinea.

So it came as no surprise when we gave up our, deep into six-digit, executive careers to follow our dreams of being g explorers of little-known places.

Our first steps took us into a South Pacific island state. I guess we were not 100% ready to be full-time explorers and thought we would ease our way in by buying a Dive and Surf shop. This afforded us a base in the Cook Islands from where we explored all the remote islands of the Cook Islands. 

After four years, we sold the shop, just before COVID hit, to take the giant step, for us at least, into full-time travelers and explorers.

As could be expected, COVID did indeed impact our plans. For months we could not leave the Cook Islands. Then all ways of getting to French Polynesia, the next island state we wanted to explore, were blocked.

Eventually, we could move on, but that meant we could only get to Europe to visit family, and from there, continue our explorations.

What we planned to be a one-month visit to Europe turned out to be a four-month stay in Switzerland, Germany, and England. With so many travel restrictions and limited flights, we were hugely frustrated.

We were resolute to move on from Europe and soon found ourselves on our way to Cape Town, South Africa.

Let’s see where to from here.