About Us
How It All Began
It Started in Arusha
Adventure International began in Arusha, Tanzania, with a simple idea: create a higher-level Kilimanjaro experience and do it the right way.
What started as a local climbing outfitter quickly became something much bigger. As the team spent more time on the mountain, the people behind each journey became central to the business: the guides, porters, cooks, and local partners who make every experience possible.
That led to a deeper commitment to building a more ethical model for adventure travel. Adventure International invested in guide training, better pay, worker support, stronger operating standards, quality gear, and practices designed to create more sustainable opportunities for the people working behind the scenes. The goal was straightforward: deliver exceptional experiences for travelers while creating meaningful impact in the communities where those journeys take place.
As Frank Castro puts it, the company was simply trying to do the right thing. That approach helped shape what Adventure International would become.
From Kilimanjaro to the World
After building a strong operation in Tanzania, Adventure International began expanding its model into other iconic adventure destinations.
The Himalayas came next, working with local partners in Nepal who were already pushing standards forward through worker health insurance, reforestation projects, and water filtration initiatives.
From there, the company expanded into Peru and Ecuador, bringing the same combination of high-level adventure, local expertise, and responsible operations to the Andes.
What began as a climbing operation in Tanzania had become truly international.
Where Adventure Meets Luxury
Adventure International occupies a unique space in the travel world. Many luxury travel companies excel at service, accommodations, and private experiences, but may not have the technical expertise required for serious trekking and mountaineering. On the other side, highly technical adventure operators may offer exceptional climbing expertise without the level of comfort, service, and itinerary design expected by a luxury traveler.
Adventure International brings those worlds together. The company specializes in challenging, authentic adventure while elevating the experience around it through exceptional guides, thoughtful logistics, better accommodations, great food, private experiences, and seamless extensions.
A Kilimanjaro climb can become a safari and Zanzibar journey. A climb in Ecuador can flow into a private Galapagos experience. A trek in Peru can include the Sacred Valley, Cusco, eco-domes, and cultural experiences. The adventure remains the heart of the journey, but the entire itinerary is designed as one complete experience.
Adventure Beyond the Mountains
Over time, Adventure International has continued to evolve. The company has expanded into eco-domes and glamping experiences, conservation-focused safari camps, luxury surf travel, family adventures, and privately guided journeys through national parks in the United States and North America.
These experiences may look different, but the philosophy remains the same. Get people outdoors. Connect them with remarkable places. Work with exceptional local partners. Create opportunities for communities. And design experiences that travelers will remember long after they return home.
Why We Believe in Adventure
Adventure can be transformational. A challenging trek, a conversation with a guide, a quiet moment in the mountains, or simply spending a few days away from screens and surrounded by nature can change the way someone sees the world.
Adventure International believes travel creates opportunities for people to reconnect with nature, with other cultures, with their families, and with themselves.
Sometimes that happens on the summit of Kilimanjaro. Sometimes it happens sharing tea in a remote village. Sometimes it happens watching wildlife with your children or taking your first hike through a national park closer to home.
The destination may change. The impact is often the same. More than 15 years after its beginnings in Tanzania, Adventure International continues to create journeys built around adventure, connection, exceptional local expertise, and the belief that travel can do real good in the world.
A Small Team of Specialists
We are specialists. Adventure International is a small team of adventure specialists — destination managers, expedition guides and adventure outfitters.
Strategically Located
With guides, leaders and owners in some of the most incredible locations in the world, living and working in destination countries gives us the ability to deliver exceptional adventures — from the highest peaks in the Himalaya to the plains of East Africa and the snow-capped summit of Mt Kilimanjaro where we cut our teeth.
Passionate About Adventure
We are brought together by our passion and love for providing adventure seekers high quality, safe adventures in remote locations whilst remaining sustainable, ethical and sensitive to the needs of areas visited.
Diligent
With elite planning and rigorous safety protocols in place you can be sure you're getting the right team for your expedition, adventure or mountain climb — even in some of the most remote, hostile and challenging settings in the world.
Adaptive
We provide bespoke, private guided services supported by our intimate knowledge of the destination, terrain and local customs. We don't sell trips we haven't done ourselves.
Local
We work hand in hand with people from the communities we operate in to deliver first-class, private guided expeditions that have meaningful and positive impact through employment, capacity building, training & development and resource management. True partnerships build Adventures for a Lifetime.
Frank & Ben
Frank Castro
Frank grew up in Malibu, California and has spent much of his life traveling and working with management teams on film productions, restaurants, and lodges in Los Angeles, Spain, South Africa and Tanzania. After managing a leading luxury safari lodge in Tanzania, Frank joined a mountain climbing outfitter there as the International Sales & Marketing Director before partnering with Ben at Adventure International.
He has climbed a number of peaks including Kilimanjaro, Mt Kenya, Mt Meru, and Mt Whitney to name a few. His passion for finding and organizing adventures is a great asset to Adventure International and he spends countless hours carefully planning tailor-made trips around the world. His considerable knowledge of safari destinations comes from his first-hand experience at many of Africa's premiere safari lodges and tented camps.
You will often find him surfing or exploring a new remote wilderness area to add to AI's list of exciting destinations. Frank guarantees your trip is planned well and executed with impeccable service from start to finish.
Ben McCullough
Ben is passionate about epic adventures, ethical travel and sustainable tourism. Born and raised in the South West of England, he has travelled and worked across continents from South America to East Africa with a little Europe in between. He's a qualified Wilderness First Responder with an interest in high altitude medicine paired with significant high altitude trekking experience.
Captivated by the beauty of Tanzania and her people it was inevitable that he would find a way to live there. After climbing with our team on Kilimanjaro in 2009, Ben "just had to know how it all works" and how he could be part of it. Ben became General Manager of the Tanzanian operation not long after and made Tanzania his home. Ben loves to be out on the trails, has fantastic people skills, is a strong leader and loves a good story. He has guided and climbed with groups across the European Alps, the Himalaya, Peru, Ecuador, North Africa and several East African peaks — Kilimanjaro will always be the one mountain that keeps him coming back for more.
Having guided large groups and our more private boutique trips, he has the experience and ability to carefully assess a team, make strong informed decisions that ensure our crew and guests stay safe, get the best from their experiences and achieve their goals. When he's not out adventuring or building new experiences, Ben also handles International Sales and Operations for Adventure International. You can be confident he knows and understands all aspects of our adventures from bottom to top and can tailor an incredible experience for you.