Our own people.
Guests write about them by name.
Every guide is a Rara Avis employee, born in the region they lead. We do not use freelancers, and we do not put a stranger in your vehicle. Below, the people who run the house and the guides our guests keep mentioning.
Founded Rara Avis in Ulaanbaatar in 2016. Built the company the opposite way to the industry: own guides, own vehicles, own camps and lodge, and the Zochin Code, which treats every guest as sacred.
CEO. An economist by training who left banking to travel Mongolia deeply, document nomadic life and make sure every guest of this house is received as a zochin. She still reads every message you send us.
Speaks English, Japanese, Mongolian
In our guests' words.
Genuinely passionate is how one guest described travelling with Nyamka, and it is the right word. Ask about the Altai, the birds, or the weather over the next ridge and the answer comes with a story attached. Eight days with Nyamka feel like travelling with a friend who happens to know everything.
Guests who travel with CJ tend to write the same words afterwards: friendly, informative, passionate. On the road that looks like unhurried mornings, a fire already lit, and the day explained before you thought to ask. Never anonymous, never scripted.
A slice of Mongolian life is how one guest from Canada described travelling with Tanya. That is the craft: not showing you Mongolia, but letting you live inside it for a while. The monastery in the morning, the milking at dusk, and every door on the way already open.
Wonderful, helpful and knowledgeable, wrote one guest from Vancouver, and knowledgeable is the load-bearing word. Heidi reads the land, the weather and the mood of the party, and quietly rebuilds the day around all three. You notice the results, never the effort.
It was fabulous, wrote one guest from Scotland after a Naadam week with Eric, and I would and will be recommending this tour. Eric guides the way Naadam itself is run: with ceremony where ceremony belongs, and laughter everywhere else.
What every guide and driver holds.
- Born in or long resident in the region they guide, with the families along the route known by name
- Defensive driving certification renewed annually, four wheel drive and desert recovery training every two years
- Intermediate first aid renewed annually, criminal record check and pre-engagement screening
- English at CEFR B1 or above, B2 for executive work, with Japanese, Korean, French and Kazakh speakers available
- Maximum ten driving hours a day, mandatory rest, and no night driving outside Ulaanbaatar, without exception