Be my guest!
I am Patrick the founder of voyageactually, a native of France, and an avid professional traveller for three decades.
I grew up in the country outside of Nantes, close to the Atlantic Coast (a culturally mixed border region between Brittany and the Loire Valley.) For many years I lived in Paris, in Marseilles (France’s second largest city), in Montpellier, on the French Riviera in Cannes and in Metz, Eastern France.
The tourism and hospitality industries have always been part of my life. I went to restaurant school when I was a teenager. I worked in restaurants as a chef in Brittany, Paris and in the South of France. Then I pursued my education in tourism. I have also worked in travel agencies where I learnt the logistics of travel planning.
I hold the coveted French National Tour Guide Card (Guide-Interprète National), the official certification in France, allowing me to legally serve as a guide throughout the country in sites and museums.
While guiding groups around the world (USA, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador and India, to name a few), I decided to pursue graduate studies in Art History at the University of Delaware in the United States– a logical enhancement to my tour guiding skillset. I taught both Art History and Culinary Arts at The Art Institute of Philadelphia for many years after earning my degree. There I developed a class called “The Visual Culture of Food” that exposed students to the history of food and evolution of taste through art historical visuals, hence combining my two passions, art and food.
Building itineraries to France and the US, and tour guiding in both countries, is the culmination of a lifelong passion to discover; to expose clients to places and cultures and interact with interesting people.