Global Reach

Activist, travel guru and businesswoman, Dr. Antonia Neubauer understands well that there is more to world travel than collecting snapshots of tourist destinations. By immersing oneself in other cultures, getting inside instead of only viewing new places from the outside, we have the opportunity to learn about ourselves and take something more away than just memories and pictures.

With a complete understanding of this and desire to assist others in getting the most out of their world experiences, Neubauer, known to her friends as "Toni," has been designing adventure-travel tours that focus more on education, understanding and adventure than filling album pages. Through her Incline Village–based company, Myths and Mountains, Neubauer is contributing to reformulating the way Americans encounter the world.

"Americans travel with a lot of baggage that has nothing to do with what’s in their luggage," Neubauer says with a slight laugh. "I’ve found myself in places where everything is so different. How you eat, shake hands, even go to the bathroom—it was all so different. Our way of life, our customs, don’t always work. It’s a shock for a lot of Americans, but when you go to a place like Nepal or India, you start looking at how you live your life."

At 62 years old, Neubauer has spent the last 20 years on the frontier of adventure travel. She’s met with shamans in the deepest regions of the Amazon, photographed the Dalai Lama and pioneered motorcycle trips down Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh Trail. Myths and Mountains caters to the intellectual and adventurous travelers more interested in learning about culture and history than being herded between tourist sights on a bus.

"When I first started, it was all about destinations. People went to see this single sight and missed the entire experience," says Neubauer during a quick break between phone calls with clients. "I wanted to work with concepts. I look at travel with a more holistic approach. Sights and destinations are interesting, but I’m more fascinated by people."

Neubauer has always had a passion for travel. Even at the age of three, her reply to the question of what she wanted to do when she grew up was, as her parents recall, "Go places, see people, do things." Spending her formative years just outside of New York City, Neubauer was certainly exposed to cultural diversity, but it wasn’t until her first visit to Nepal in 1983 that her eyes were opened to a new "style of life."

In the subsequent years, while researching adventure travel for Backpacker Magazine, Neubauer, who worked as a teacher, an educational researcher and freelance journalist, recognized that there was a niche to be filled in the industry. Travelers were either forced to strap on a backpack and go it alone, or embark on rigorously organized bus tours with 50 other Westerners. In the mid-eighties, a traveler with limited time to travel and plan had few options other than cookie-cutter tours.

Over the past 18 years, Myths and Mountains has established itself as one of the premiere adventure tour companies and a favorite of publications like Outside. The magazine heralded photographer Bill Chapman’s tour of Tibet as one of the best trips of 2005 and bestowed the 2006 honor of "trip of the year" to the Darien Explorer Trek, a foot and dugout canoe journey through Panama’s remote jungles, rivers and native cultures. For travelers with discerning pallets, the Essence of Chile’s Wines tour offers a unique glimpse into winemaking history. Highlighted in Bon Apetit’s "Travel with Taste" issue, the tour wanders through Chile’s coastal plains and glacial valleys where traditional French grapes were planted in the 1800s.

In the process of organizing and researching trips, Neubauer formed a particularly strong bond with the people of rural Nepal. In 1991, she founded Rural Education And Development (READ) with the hopes of spreading literacy and building vital educational infrastructure across Nepal. The foundation has blossomed, building libraries in the country’s mountainous villages and towns. This June, as part of the United Nations’ World Environment Day, READ received a Global Citizen Award for its contribution to global sustainability. After receiving requests from several developing nations, Neubauer is in the process of expanding READ to other locations.

Neubauer moved to Tahoe in 1994, and it’s proven to be a perfect home base. The mountains remind her of Nepal and Tibet, and the local community is filled with people who are interested in travel and learning about other cultures. She has taken up rock climbing and has made several technical climbs in the Sierra.

At a time when many are counting the days until retirement, Neubauer seems more ambitious than ever. She spends three months out of the year traveling, much of it abroad, in order to research and organize possible tours. Next year, she is going to explore the possibility of organizing the first motorcycle tour down the Burma Road.

"It’s a big ‘maybe,’ but I’ve been down it before, and I really like motorcycles," says this ultimate traveler. "I like traveling roads, the idea of connections. And I guess I’m really into motorcycles. They’re a great way to travel."

—Fitz Cahill