Find Your Ideal Vacation

Cliff Hawk:  CEO & Founder

Cliff Hawk founded VoyageTrek Travel. Prior to VoyageTrek Travel, Cliff worked in senior product management and business development positions for the Microsoft Corporation. In early 2001 Cliff was hired by Microsoft to lead strategic planning on the new MSN Search Featured Sites program, which quickly grew to become MSN’s largest advertising product and later became the cornerstone for the Microsoft adCenter program. From mid 2002 to the fall of 2006, Cliff created and managed business partnerships with various Interactive and traditional media companies that enabled the MSN and Windows Live business models and powered multiple new and existing web properties such as MSN Video, MSN Real Estate, MSN Lifestyle, and Windows Live Search. He managed media partnerships with companies such as Disney, Viacom, News Corp, Bertelsmann, Hearst, Meredith Corp, Scripps Networks, AmEx Publications, McGraw-Hill, Scholastic, iVillage, Discovery, Expedia, and HomeStore.com.

Prior to Microsoft, Cliff helped drive development and management of new advertising products for aQuantive (then Avenue A, Inc.), a publicly-traded company and pioneering leader in online marketing technologies and services and the largest buyer of Internet advertising.

Prior to aQuantive, Cliff worked in brand management for Dell Computer. Prior to Dell, he worked in business development for the Dunlop Corporation.

While in college, Cliff spent a summer working and playing in Glacier National Park, Montana, and then subsequently spent many years working in operations and as a tour guide for Princess Tours (the land tour division of Princess Cruises), guiding thousands of vacation travelers on land tours through Alaska and the Canadian Rockies. As a self-described Leisure Activist, he loves to take people on vacation, send people on vacations, and talk about vacations!

Cliff holds a BA in Business Administration from the University of Washington, an MBA in Marketing from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University where he was the annual Philip Morris Merit Scholar, and he completed graduate coursework in business at The Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Management, where he was the Arizona Business Leaders Association Merit Scholar.

Cliff lives in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. He is an avid world traveler and enjoys many of the outdoor activities on VoyageTrek.com

Richard Bangs:  Strategic Advisor

Richard Bangs has oft been called the father of modern adventure travel and the pioneer in travel that makes a difference, travel with a purpose. He has spent 30 years as an explorer and communicator, and along the way led first descents of 35 rivers around the globe, including the Yangtze in China and the Zambezi in Southern Africa. 

Richard has published more than 1000 magazine articles, 19 books, a score of documentaries and several CD-ROMs; and has lectured at the Smithsonian, the National Geographic Society, the Explorers Club and many other notable venues. He writes a semi-regular feature with the NY Times. He was founder and editor-in-chief of Mungo Park, a pioneering Microsoft travel publishing effort. He also founded Terra-Quest.com, an early online travel pioneer. He was part of the founding executive team of Expedia (www.expedia.com), and served as its Editor-at-Large. He was creator and publisher of Expedia Travels Magazine (published in partnership with Ziff-Davis), and executive producer of Expedia Radio, and founder and executive director of Expedia Cafes. He also served as president of Outward Bound; Founded Well-Traveled.com for Slate.com; and was founding editor and executive producer of Great Escapes, another Microsoft Travel initiative for MSN and MSNBC. He also ran and founded First and Best for MSN, and founded Sobek Expeditions, which in the early 1990s merged with Mountain Travel to become Mountain Travel Sobek (www.mtsobek.com), one of the largest adventure travel companies. He recently co-directed the IMAX Film, Mystery of the Nile, and co-authored the Putnam book of the same name. His recent book, The Lost River: A Memoir of Life, Death and the Transformation of Wild Water, won the National Outdoor Book Award in the literature category. Richard also served as executive producer of Richard Bangs Adventures on Yahoo.com. 

Richard is currently producing and hosting the American Public Television series, Richard Bangs’ Adventures with Purpose, www.AdventuresWithPurpose.TV, and he is authoring the accompanying book series published by Simon & Schuster.