Hi, We are
Pietro & Eltje
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.
Check out our Island adventures
We have an entire website filled with images, videos, and tons of detail about our remote island adventures. Take a look and what true paradise looks like.
Check out our Photography Site
On our photography site, you’ll find over 10,000 images that include travel editorial and landscape photography. Browse our incredible collection, and perhaps buy some art.
Countries we have visited
The green countries and flags indicate the countries we have already visited at least once.
Us, before we left the corporate world
Just to give you a sense of where we have come from. We prepared the resumes to the right when we decided to leave the corporate world back in 2016. It was aimed at helping us get our feet into the South Pacific as resort managers perhaps.
In the end, we decided to go on our own and buy an existing business on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.
This is us a year later sitting in front of our shop, the Dive & Surf Shop Cook Islands.
Our Current Country Location
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