Comfort meets authenticity.
I'm a freelance Travel Designer & Product Manager. I help luxury tour operators, wellbeing hosts and event organizers co-create travel programs and retreats that travelers truly feel.At the heart of every journey: local stories and human encounters. Designed especially for solo travelers, but felt by everyone.My mission is simple: create connection, not just visitation.
I believe travel should feel like connection, not just visitation.
My name is Bieke, but call me Bee — it’s a translation of my name, and it fits.
Like a bee, I like to be on the move. Drawn to what is real — to places you don’t just visit to see, but to feel.
That is OTENTIQ. No beaten tracks, only real encounters. To travel light, honour what is authentic, connect by name, embrace what is diverse, and find beauty in what is unscripted.
As a child, I loved African dance and wept watching films about Nelson Mandela. His story and his fight against injustice moved me deeply.
Part of my studies took place in Sweden, where I shared several months with eighty people from every continent. The world came to me before I went out to meet it.
Later, I moved to France, where I spent seven years in the wonderful city of Lyon, my second home.
But my first real journey beyond Europe came just before the turn of the century. I travelled through Costa Rica — across trails, along rivers, past volcanoes — to my eldest brother, who was working at the university in Managua, Nicaragua. He showed me another reality and taught me early on what travel can truly mean when respect is your compass.
After that, the world opened up: Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar, Senegal, Mali, South Africa. Russia, China, Mongolia, Nepal and Tibet, the Maldives, India, Vietnam, Cuba, Canada, Iceland, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia, France, Scotland, Greece, to name but a few.
The shift from travelling to designing journeys came in southern India. Through Kerala, with six women. A journey in perfect balance: wellbeing, excellent food, genuine encounters. Impeccably organised by and a close friend, yet never forced. There, everything came together — the essence of what a journey should be.
Later came a solo trip through Vietnam and again India. And a calling that grew louder.
When I approached a renowned travel house with a proposal to curate journeys, I was lucky they gave me the chance to curate a city trip to Lyon and a journey to Vietnam, for which I am still very grateful. From then on, organising became crafting encounters. Creating became curating.
Today, that is what I want to offer in partnership with you.
Because at OTENTIQ Journeys, we don’t just design itineraries. We create encounters. With local hosts who share their stories with us, and places that don’t shout luxury but whisper it. With the same care for people, place and purpose that I first learned on that road in Nicaragua.
Because the most beautiful journey is never just a destination.
It is a meeting of people.
