Budget Travel Real Deals: BT Flashback: Cambodia

December 2011/January 2012

On her 55th birthday, Sandy Snowe received a cake in her hotel room—9,000 miles from her Merritt Island, Fla., home. “It was absolutely gorgeous,” she says. It was also one of many personal touches she came to call “Andrea moments,” after Andrea Ross, whose Southeast Asia tour company Journeys Within arranged Snowe's 2004 Cambodia trip.

Snowe found Journeys Within, then less than a year old, through its first Real Deal, and Ross has developed a fondness for Read Deals fans, too. “BT readers are the people I stay in touch with,” she says. “They set us up for success.” To show their appreciation (and to celebrate the Dec. 1 reopening of their Siem Reap B&B, now the Journeys Within Boutique Hotel), Ross and her husband, Brandon, are offering the same deal Snowe snagged—at its 2004 price, 42 percent off today's rates. “I wanted to find a way to say thank you.”

$875 for a seven-night trip with privately guided tours, domestic flights, and many meals, Dec. 1, 2011-Feb. 29 2012

The Constant Traveler: Travel Pioneers in Southeast Asia

October 12, 2011

Andrea and Brandon Ross fell in love with Southeast Asia on their very first visit, then moved to Cambodia in 2003 to start Journeys Within, a travel agency headquartered in Siem Reap at the threshold of Angkor.

They were pioneers at the time. In the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge genocide and civil war that claimed the lives of at least two million people between 1975 and 1998, the town was a run-down backwater. But the young American couple knew it wouldn't stay that way.

Now Siem Reap has a population of about 100,000, an international airport, a branch of the national museum and ritzy hotels catering to millions of people who visit Cambodia every year to see the 150-square-mile archaeological park at Angkor, a UNESCO World Heritage Site enshrining the singular art and architecture of the Khmer Empire...Read more at Smithsonian.com

Travel Weekly: An exceptional tour, traced to its roots

August 15, 2011

The origin story of a new tour is background for a wonderful expression of humanity

I recently came across a very interesting travel business that has its roots in the friendship of two girls named Andrea who went to the same high school in Danville, Calif. Andrea Ross and Andrea Marshall shared not only first names, but a desire to make an impact on the world and, to quote Ross, to have "adventure in our lives...." Read more at travelweekly.com

Los Angeles Times: Journeys Within: a tour company in Cambodia, a helping hand in Cambodian communities

May 15, 2011

When Brandon and Andrea Ross started Journeys Within, a tour company and B&B just outside Siem Reap, in 2003, they also were struck by the living conditions, especially in the countryside where people lack clean water, healthcare and all but rudimentary education.

Living here made Brandon, an American who grew up in Park City, Utah, appreciate his good fortune. At the same time, it changed him fundamentally. “I can't go back to seeing things the way I did before,” he said.

The Ross travel enterprise, which offers special trips in Southeast Asia, such as a 30-day descent of the Mekong River from Yunnan Province in China to the delta in Vietnam, morphed into a charitable institution when the couple noticed how little money it takes to do big things in Cambodia....Read more at latimes.com

The Perrin Post: Family Travel Contest: Tips for International Travel with Kids

April 20, 2011

Throughout April I'm sharing some of my favorite contest entries here on The Perrin Post, and today's entry comes from Andrea Ross of Journeys Within, a boutique Southeast Asia tour company that Condé Nast Traveler readers love (just read these traveler reviews to see how much).

Journeys Within is also the recipient of a Condé Nast Traveler World Savers Award for its projects that alleviate poverty and improve health in the Southeast Asian communities in which it operates. Here are Andrea's tips for traveling internationally with kids....Read Andrea's Tips on the Perrin Post at concierge.com

Shanghai Talk Magazine: Stepping Out & Giving Back

April 2011

Journeys Within, a tour company that offers an experience with bed & breakfasts and charitable foundations, has a slightly different approach by taking visitors to see what their donation has made possible.

They call it “active philanthropy” because travellers don't just write a check to a charity, but instead travel and visit that charity, participating in the English class they helped fund, meeting the recipients of the well they provided or having lunch with the scholarship student they're supporting....Read more at shanghai.talkmagazines.cn

Los Angeles Times: Beyond Angkor, Cambodia, a Khmer kingdom emerges from the jungle

March 6, 2011

Journeys Within, a small tour company with a bed-and-breakfast inn just outside Siem Reap, arranged my trip. I traveled in a van driven by trusty So Sopheap, who gave me a cool cloth from an ice chest at every stop, with Kham Sina as my wise and gentle guide....Read more at latimes.com