About us
50 Degrees North is a niche, independently owned, specialist travel company that aims to give you a little more than just a holiday. We specialise regionally, as we believe it is not possible to be good at everything. We also focus on offering the most enriching style of travel. Not necessarily cheap, but rewarding, full of real life experiences and with incredible value for money. Our knowledge and expertise will allow you to get deep under the skin of the northern region, and take home with you learning and understanding that others will miss.
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Leila Myllymäki-Hay is our Sales & Business Development Manager. Leila grew up on a farm by a lake in the middle of pine forest in Finland. She started her career in travel and tourism in 1980's while studying at Helsinki University. She went on to work in hotels, restaurants, local visitor information centres and travel agencies in Scandinavia and Australia. Leila has also co-ordinated various events ranging from gala dinners to tennis tournaments and from Icebreaker cruises to 2-day festivals. Before moving to Australia Leila worked as Sales and Product Manager in one of Scandinavians largest Destination Management Companies - custom made special interest and incentive tours is her passion! Leila is also very passionate about Finnish design and architecture. To pursue her love of great design, she has been running her own Scandinavian design shop for the last ten years. Leila speaks fluent Finnish and German. |
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| Jayde Kincaid is our Marketing Manager and Co-Founder and has been a tour leader in China, Europe and North Asia. Early in life Jayde learnt Japanese and has a strong affection for Japan. She was a rafting guide in the mid 90's safely guiding adventurous customers down the Mitta Mitta and Thomson rivers in Victoria. The past 15 years Jayde has spent in the Outdoor Education industry in Australia, working for a major Outdoor Education Group. She has also worked in operations at Intrepid Travel, looking after the Japan, Russia and Europe products. Jayde regulary travels to Scandinavia with family and loves trekking in the more remote parts of the North. |
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| Our Sales Consultant Taru Karisalmi is from Finland and was born and grew up in a little town in the lakes district in Central Finland. About 10 years ago she bumped into an Australian backpacker in the middle of Finland, fell in love and followed him to Australia. Before migrating to Australia she studied tourism management and worked in tourism and hospitality in Finland and the UK. Taru loves travelling and exploring new countries and cultures. She enjoys outdoor activities; hiking, running and skiing. Even though she enjoys living in Australia, she loves going back home once a year to visit her family and friends and do “all things Nordic”; hiking in the green countryside, skiing in the snowy forest, relaxing in the family summer cottage by the lake or celebrating a white Christmas the traditional way. |
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Our Administration & Sales Consultant, Minna Syvänen, is Finnish and grew up in the beautiful capital city Helsinki. She also spent a lot of time at her family's summer house by one of the thousands of lakes of Finland. In the wintertime she spent her time ice skating and cross country skiing on the frozen lakes and snowboarding in the Finnish Lapland. Minna comes from a travel loving family and very early on developed a huge passion for travel herself. As soon as she was old enough the family trips changed to independent travel around the world. Between her studies in Finland Minna took every chance to travel, and later decided to come to Australia to study. Falling in love with her new home country eventually led to migrating here. Minna still loves her motherland and is passionate about travelling to and talking about this beautiful part of the world. |
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Our Director & Co-Founder, Tietse Stelma, is Norwegian and was born far north of the Arctic Circle in a Sami village called Karasjok. He grew up in Hvaler in the outer Oslo fjord and has the last 7 years been living and working in Melbourne, Australia. Tietse joined the travel industry in the early 90’s in Norway working with off the beaten track travel, as well as specialist tours to China. In the late 90's he lead tours in North Asia, and later established the China product for Intrepid Travel in Australia. From 2005 to 2010 he headed up the global operations team for Peregrine Adventures to ensure high class product delivery. With 20 years in the industry, Tietse has spent years exploring the extraordinary northern region and knows the area better than most. Tietse speaks fluent Norwegian and Dutch, and has over the years built an extensive network of operators and suppliers in the northern region. |
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At 50 Degrees North we like to call ourselves specialists! We don't try to do everything - only what we know. What we know really well. Our Director grew up in the north, he is Scandinavian and is passionate about designing realistic itineraries and experiences that work for you. He also spent years working in Northern Asia looking after the quality and operations of tours in this region. He has worked locally in Mongolia for an inbound operator in Ulaanbaatar training and developing local staff. As destination specialists, we are able to tailor make holidays to suit you, be that customising the itineraries shown on our website or creating something bespoke. Therefore, if you cannot find exactly what you are looking for, tell us about your interests, timescale and budget, and we will get to work. We are prepared to spend considerable time and effort making sure that your holiday is right for you, ensuring your time away is fun and hassle free. Canada and Alaska, which are perfect contenders for product to include within 50 Degrees North is on our horizon. However, at this very moment, we do not feel we can offer you that bit of extra specialist knowledge for this region just yet. |
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"I wanted to thank you and 50 Degrees North for giving us the best 4 days my daughter and I had EVER!!! We fell in love with your country and its beauty took our breath away every time we went out. The hotel was absolutely fantastic, the food, the room, the guides everything was so well organised and the people so friendly and eager to share their knowledge/culture with us. We only saw very faint Northern Lights but being out there in the middle of nowhere in pitch black looking at an amazing sky was more than enough! Our outings with the reindeers and the huskies were unbelievable.Please pass on our thanks to the team and again thank you for your assistance when booking the trip.” Sylvie, January 2013 “Just a quick email to say a huge thank yo 2000 u for a great trip to Norway. Myself, my husband and parents absolutely loved it! Lyngen Lodge was fantastic. Mum and Dad are really keen to head back there in summer one day. Addicted now to chasing the northern lights- what an amazing experience. Hopefully one day we get to go again.” Kelly, January 2013 “I must complement you and your travel company. We recently returned from our Nordic Winter Odyssey that started on the 2/1/2013 everybody said to us before leaving that '"why would you want to go there in the middle of their winter". The answer after returning is simple what an experience my wife, myself and our 2 children have just had. Being right up the top of Norway / Sweden and not seeing the sun for days on end, experiencing -5 to -20, experiencing the northern lights about 6 out of 8 nights, husky sledges, snow mobiles, ice fishing, Sami village, Lyngen Alps, Abisko, staying at the Ice hotel, all totally amazing experiences and places. The other thing is that all other accommodation, flights, ships, trains, transfers were all first class and organized down to a tee. Highly recommend this trip to any one looking at it, and again thank you and your team for such a wonderful experience.” David, Jan 2013
"Jane & I wanted to thank you for putting a great holiday itinerary together for us for our recent trip to Greenland. All the travel arrangements, accommodation, the Ferry and Fiord boat trips went well, and to schedule, and all to our satisfaction. We found Greenland extremely interesting and thoroughly enjoyed our visit there. Although our stopovers in Oslo, Reykjavik and Helsinki were only brief we enjoyed the opportunity to visit them and see a few of the sights. Fortunately the weather for most of the trip, including our 2 weeks in Russia, was fine and warm. It was perfect for our Greenland trip and made the icebergs look so spectacular.
Please pass on our thanks to your Finnish colleague, for directing us to Pihlajasaari Is. We caught the first ferry for the day - it was a beautiful morning - and once ashore felt we had the island to ourselves. The old guest house wasn't yet open, but the owner kindly made us coffee and told us a little of its history. We'll always remember the sight and fragrance of the pines and wildflowers, lily of the valley, violets and lilac trees." - Jane and Graeme (travelled to Greenland and Scandinavia July 2012)
“We have ticked all the boxes.!!!! The cream on the cake for me was a moonlight dogsled ride from Abisko lodge. We had only 3 sitting on a sled with a guide, bright full moon, clear sky ,perfect weather and a whole sky full of lights ,green,pink covering the sky. We tied the sled to a tree and lay in the snow and watched nearly 20 minutes of aurora activity in strong colours. (seemed like 20 mins)!!!! Between 9pm and 10.30pm. No photos would have done it justice,….” -Anne (travelled to Greenland & Lapland Feb/Mar 2012)
Read our latest press: Visit Kamchatka and Aurora Borealis Photography |
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50 Degrees North Pty Ltd is independently owned by Scandinavians with a strong financial background. 50 Degrees North is a full member of the Travel Compensation Fund and holds a full travel agency licence (no.: 32937). "The Travel Compensation Fund is Australia's primary means of providing compensation to eligible travellers who suffer loss as a result of the financial collapse of a participating travel agency business. The TCF helps guard against the failure of participating travel agency businesses through financial monitoring of agency accounts." www.tcf.org.au |
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