About Hamel Travel
About the Founder – Patrick Hamel
For many years, I have traveled the globe extensively for business. I think I spend nearly as much time on an airplane as your average airline pilot! Most of my travel has been in North America, Europe, and Asia. In the past 10 years, I’ve been to more than 30 countries and have been to most of those countries multiple times. While it is hard to pick a favorite place, a few that are amongst my favorites include the UK and Ireland, Greece, South Africa, Japan, and southeast Asia.
After years of managing a staff of people who travel internationally as well, I realized a few things: 1) Not everyone is good at traveling- even if they like it, the planning and logistics may not be a strong suit, 2) I am rather adapt at traveling- navigating airports, orienting myself in new places, and keeping things on schedule, and 3) I’ve already been playing tour guide to coworkers for years. Finally the time came to start using my experiences to create great tours for others.
I make my home in St. Louis, MO. I am the father to four teenagers- three boys and a girl. Maybe they’ll be assisting me on tours one day! When my wife Misti and I are not spending time with my kids, we enjoy traveling together for pleasure whenever possible. A few of our favorite spots to travel to together include New Orleans, Napa/Sonoma (where we got married in 2017), and the Caribbean- specifically Playa del Carmen, Mexico; San Pedro, Belize; and Bridgetown, Barbados.
In additional to my travels, I am passionate about whisky. I have a particular expertise in bourbon whiskey, and I am a longtime member of several different bourbon groups/societies. I also enjoy golf, and I sporadically struggle to tolerate running and fitness as much as possible.
If you’d like to reach out to me directly with a question or comment, please do so at any time: patrick@hameltravel.com.
Who is going to lead the tours?
It will be Patrick Hamel, but he’ll have a lot of help.
Patrick’s lovely wife Misti might be there lending a hand and keeping things a little better organized. She’s someone who just gets stuff done. We’d love to have her on every tour, but her boss loves the hard work she does a lot as well. If she’s not on a particular tour, she’s definitely going to have done a lot of behind the scenes work to make it all possible.
Patrick’s brother Jim is a world-class photographer (you can check out his website here) and may be able to join for tours as well. If there’s a good picture on our website, chances are that Jim took it. Photography suits him well because he has a face that was made to be behind the camera! A brother simply cannot give a compliment without getting a dig in at the same time.
It’s a small group of us for now. Truly a family affair. But we hope you like what we do. Once you take a tour with us, you’ll surely want to join us again and again.