Our Team
Aegea Adventures is a New York corporation with offices in New York City and Athens, Greece.
Aegea Adventures is the culmination of our years of experience with Greece's travel market, a deep knowledge of the country's land and people, and our ongoing cultivation of extensive local contacts. These attributes enable us to offer high quality vacations imbued with a personalized touch of the love and spirit of Greece.
Through the years we have developed active tours with exciting itineraries on land and at sea, such as cycling, walking and hiking and sea sports. Our soft adventure, low impact, leisure tours emphasize the traditional customs and culture of Greece.
We support sustainable tourism, also known as eco-tourism. We take earth friendly approaches to our products through low impact tours with small groups. We patronize local services that offer meaningful exchanges with the indigenous people.
Our team associates and collaborates with local professionals who add depth to our specialty tours, including historians and archaeologists, naturalists, marine biologists, wine producers, chefs and other experts in their field.
Yannis Skevis, Operations Director
Born in Delfi Greece, Yiannis spent his early years close to nature in the mountain ranges surrounding his birthplace.
At an early age he emigrated to the US where he received his education and developed his personality and skills in outdoor activities. He has attended many seminars and training courses in sports management and physical health endurance.
With an inherent athletic ability, Yiannis has practiced and competed in many sport activities, such as, swimming, mountaineering, road biking, soccer, skiing, sailing, tennis, scuba diving and of course cycling.
His career in business is just as diversified. Yiannis is one of the founders of CycleGreece, a new and exciting concept in the world of cycling tours in Greece. He is one of the managing directors in field management and quality control, as well as marketing and sales.Born in Delfi Greece, Yiannis spent his early years close to nature in the mountain ranges surrounding his birthplace.
Colleen McGuire, Managing Director
Visit Colleen's blog.
Dividing her residence between New York and Greece comes natural to Colleen who is an adventurous world traveler.
Colleen has visited over 70 countries, accumulating such spectacular memories as cycling the Ho Chi Minh trail in Vietnam, stumbling on a circumcision ceremony in Timbuktu, chewing qat with women in Yemen, undergoing a spiritual journey with an Amazon shaman, sleeping in abandoned slave castles in Ghana and working with wild desert elephants in Namibia. Greece is one of her top five favorite countries.
Colleen's second passion is cycling. In 1997, she bicycled by herself from New York City to San Francisco, 3,765 miles, carrying all her gear: tent, sleeping bag, camping stove, food, tools, the basics.
After graduating from law school in New Orleans, for sixteen years Colleen ran her own housing rights law firm in New York City. And then Greece called . . .
Elizabeth Hatleli, Marketing Director
Fluent in Greek and with an MA in Library Science Elizabeth has lived in Greece since 1999, including three years in a village on the island of Chios. However, her real passion is Athens. She loves all of it, everything from the majestic Temple of Zeus to the grit of Omonoia Square. She is truly a walking guidebook to the city and loves introducing people to the Athens not found in tourist guides.
Elizabeth is originally from Portland, Oregon and grew up in a family of avid hikers and outdoorsmen. Her sales career started when she put herself through college selling season tickets to the Portland Opera.
In her spare time Elizabeth likes to read, knit, play the piano and of course, listen to opera!
Yannis Lykidis, Field Operations Manager
A native of Athens where he continues to reside, Yiannis Lykidis is a man of many talents. He cooks, experiments with photography, plays a drum and studies martial arts.
Yiannis is also an avid athlete familiar with a dazzling array of land and sea sports, including open water sailing, scuba diving, windsurfing, rock climbing, skiing, and mountain biking.
Yiannis is devoted to showing visitors the pleasures of Greece, the authentic side of Greece that makes the country so endearing to foreigners. His top priority is the care and safety of our clients which he carries out in an original Greek way, which is to say, with the utmost hospitality.
Brady Kiesling, History Consultant
Brady obtained a degree in Ancient Greek from Swarthmore and an MA from US Berkeley in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology and spent a year in Athens studying and visiting ancient Greece. He has excavated at Ancient Corinth and Nemea in Greece and Aphrodisias in Turkey.
Brady joined the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer in 1983 and was a political officer at the U.S. embassy in Athens from 1988-92. He returned to Greece as Political Counselor in 2000. In February 2003, Brady heroically resigned from the State Department to protest the impending war with Iraq – the first diplomat to do so. Learn more about his amazing career by reading his book of Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower (Potomac Books 2006) or visiting Brady’s website.
Brady’s most passionate extracurricular activity is biking. He has cycled on road and offroad through many regions of Greece, most often in pursuit of an important, but obscure and remote, archaeology site. Brady is also one of the founders and active members of Helada www.helada.org, an organization for politically active progressive Americans living in Greece.
Giorgos Altyparmakis, Bike Guide
Giorgos is, hands down, the best bicycle mechanic in all of Greece. This is not surprising considering he runs his own bike repair shop in Athens that has been in his family for forty years. Name any region in Greece, and Giorgos has cycled there. He knows roads and off-roads better than any Greek cartographer. He has a peculiar affection for touring at night, especially during a full moon.
Alex Ioannidis, Bike Guide
Alex can’t remember whether he learned to walk first or bike first --- that gives you an idea how long this warrior has been cycling. He started mountain biking competitively when he was 16 years old and now races in road cycling events as well. He is currently sponsored by Specialized bikes www.specialized.gr of Greece.
Alex has a stable of five “thoroughbreds,” including two Orbeas, a Klein Attitude and a Specialized Stumpjumper. Visit Alex’s blog http://limas.unsponsored.gr/?page_id=2 to learn more about his passions. Oh, he’s also an expert in computers and technology and has this uncanny ability to figure out technical stuff on the spot, from downloading waypoints on a GPS to accessing internet instantly on a palm pilot.
As a lead bike guide, Alex’s popularity with our guests is unparalleled. He knows how to pace riders so that they ride hard without over-exertion. His cycling tips (such as changing gears) are appreciated. And he is an ace mechanic who can repair a flat tire or broken chain ring before you practically have time to take off your cycling gloves and helmet.
Pepi Spyropoulou, Field Operations Consultant
An outdoor enthusiast, Pepi is skilled in scuba diving, competitive open water sailing, and climbing. She obtained a degree in Fish Biology and Aquacultures in Messologi. She is a member of the Greek Mountaineering Association with and intimate knowledge of the four corners of Greece land and sea. She is also a member of the Rescue Squad of Greece. Pepi is a dynamic, energetic woman with a great sense of humor.