Hannah + Tee

We met in Tonga while working around humpback whales. At first, the idea was pretty simple: we wanted to share this ridiculous experience of being in the water with whales with other people.

But the more we talked about it, the bigger the idea became.

A bit about Tee

Tee loves getting a group together. Helping people try something new, getting to know each other, and seeing a bunch of strangers become a little community over the course of a week, that’s a big part of why she wants to do this.

And Hannah

Hannah wants you to get to know the place, too. The whale might be the reason you book a flight to Tonga, but there’s a whole island around that encounter.

Who’s making the day possible? What else lives here? What’s happening on shore? Those things matter to her, and she’d like them to be part of your trip rather than just the background to a photograph.

Those two things fit together surprisingly well.

We’re coming for the whole day.

Both of us are working guides, not hosts who appear for dinner after someone else has run the day. We’re used to long hours on boats, changing weather, wet gear, early starts, guests being nervous, plans changing and wildlife doing absolutely whatever it wants.

Paikea grew out of wanting to share the things we genuinely love doing ourselves. Not because we had always planned to start an expedition company, but because after enough conversations that started with “we should take people here,” eventually we thought we probably should.

Tonga is our first trip. It’s not the only place we’ve had those conversations about.