Founders

Richard Lindberg

Serial entrepreneur with exit in tech sector. 15+ years of sustainability experience within finance and tourism. Now advising travel sector brands on how to position themselves amid rapidly changing traveller expectations and preferences. Richard, as one of the co-founders of One Planet Journey, is on a mission to making deep travel experiences the norm. He believes in an industry where authenticity, customisation, sustainability, immersion, and exclusivity define successful hospitality and travel.

Maral Kalajian

Maral is an entrepreneur with a strong voice in the tech scene. Her background is in marketing, digital, and community, with in-depth experience in sustainability, localism, and platforms. Maral is passionate about helping local communities share their stories with the world. She is a foodie who strongly advocates buying and consuming local ingredients and products. WSET Level 2 Award in Wines with Distinction.

Our Story

We often travel and stay at our destination for an extended time, sometimes even relocating for a year or more. But staying for a couple of months is more the norm, allowing us to test local life for a more immersive experience, while we work remotely. It means studying and understanding the whispers of history, interacting with locals, learning the cultural codes, shopping in the bustling markets, and cooking local dishes. In other words, the ordinary becomes the extraordinary, a sort of deep travel where sustainability, exclusivity, and personalisation define the experiences.

A recent 5 month, off-season trip through Europe, with extended stays in Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy, made us realise how many stories we had to tell, based on the fascinating people we met, as well as the wine, food, art, and natural wonders we enjoyed. Once back home in Sweden, the entire journey felt surreal. We learned a great deal about the destinations, and ourselves, like being part of an extensive documentary. But it’s not the amount of time that’s important, it’s about a mindset and curiosity to want more, to go deeper.

Our sincerest belief is that the future of travel lies in this type of immersion. And as One Planet Journey founders, the vision is to bring about a sea of change in the industry, making meaningful travel the norm for a wider audience. Everyone deserves to maximise the return on their journeys in terms of lifelong memories and one-of-a-kind experiences.