The Terrestra Family
Like its tours, Terrestra is a family affair. While we bring lots of local color and talent into each trip (regional experts and genealogists, local personalities, friends in high places, etc…), behind all planning and implementation there is a son, a daughter and a mother. (We’re still looking for a position for Papa...!)
The son, Thomas Friese
Founder, genealogist, trip architect, and everyone’s best friend on tour.
Travel has been my life since my teens, when our family moved from South Africa to Canada. Then, 15 years ago, I moved to Europe, where I began unraveling my own European roots. I lived for many years in Florence, Tuscany, from which wonderful base I worked in tourism in most regions of Italy. Though my roots are not Italian, I love everything about Italy, particularly its warm, authentic south. Indeed, a part of who I am now can be described as “Italian-by-adoption”.
In Italy I also began a professional travel career with the world’s premier luxury tour operator, Butterfield & Robinson. Researching custom trips for Butterfield for over 8 years took me again and again to Puglia, Sicily, Calabria, Abruzzo, Umbria, Sardinia, and Friuli. After a sojourn back in Vancouver (MBA in International Marketing included), a roots instinct again moved me to return to Europe, this time to Vienna, Austria, where I've lived now for 6 years. I became Butterfield’s Regional Director for Central Europe in 2003 and was also named European Regional Director of the Year. At this time, I also began intensively researching my own family history in Silesia and Brandenburg.
Traveling with Butterfield in Italy, Germany, Austria and many of the old German provinces, I discovered an instinctive empathy for its people and places. The need for a good excuse to return to old friends in these places, as well as a passionate belief in the value of understanding one's roots led to the founding of Terrestra and its specialization in these regions.
The daughter, Tanya Friese
Our North American behind-the-scenes marketing lass.
Tanya, presently in a new career as a mother of three blonde angels, also pursued a successful first career in the luxury travel sector, as a personnel manager with Seabourne cruise lines. After marrying the maitre’d on her ship, she can now only live out her travel fantasies virtually, through marketing our tours. She also takes care of managing this website and the finances.
The mother, Wendy Friese
Our office manager, in an unexpected new career!
Wendy was recruited by Tanya and Thomas into the company just as she had sold her fabric business and was preparing for her retirement. When you call our North American toll free line, you’ll probably speak to her. As a successful entrepreneur in her own right, she also provides us with valuable (and very reasonably priced!) advice on running the company.