In an age of Web3, artificial intelligence and great warehouses of digital information on just about any destination you can think of, it might be tempting to wonder whether we need travel specialists at all. But at Conde Nast Traveller , our inaugural list of 50 approved experts is based on our belief that they’re more crucial than ever: not just to guide us to the heart of a destination, avoiding lazy tropes and opening doors that would otherwise remain locked, but to make sure we do so with due sensitivity to local environments and communities. According to James Jayasundera, who has run tailor-made specialists Ampersand Travel for more than two decades, there are both practical and emotional reasons for the very human role of a travel specialist.
“The world is changing so fast, and more people are travelling based on something they’ve seen online or on an Instagram reel,” he says. “You need a really informed guide to explain both the reality of what you’ll see, and its impact; to manage expectations, but also to guide you towards something that might be even better.” Jayasundera has travelled extensively since he was a child, initially with his English mother and Sri Lankan diplomat father.
Now, he doesn’t just have one of the most far-reaching little black books in the business (especially on Sri Lanka and India), but also a very global context: meaning he can tell you how the Himalayas might compare to the Andes or the Dolomites, or the nuances of Asian .
