After 17 years in hospitality, I stopped helping other people’s guests.
Now I build the trips myself for my guests. I did not plan any of this.
I grew up across three continents, studied at universities in three countries, and spent the next seventeen years working in hospitality everywhere from Vancouver to Auckland to Hamburg to Vienna. I have checked guests in at 2am. I have handled complaints about pillow firmness that turned into hour-long conversations about divorce. I have walked hundreds of travellers through itineraries they clearly booked on autopilot and spent hours giving them the tips for sightseeing they should have had before they arrived.
That last part is what stayed with me.
People would arrive exhausted. They had planned too much, booked too fast, and picked hotels based on a rating number that told them nothing about the actual experience. They would ask me, where to eat. What to do. Whether the city was “worth” more than two days.
They were already in the city. And they were still not sure why they were there.
I arrived in Tallinn in 2024 and something shifted. The city is quiet in a way that lets you think. The Old Town is beautiful, yes, but what got me was everything around it. The forests twenty minutes from the centre. The coastline that feels like it belongs to nobody. The sauna culture that treats rest as something serious, not something you earn after a breakdown.
Add Riga to the conversation and you have something else entirely. The Baltics are not one place. They are three distinct countries with a shared instinct for slowness that most of Western Europe has forgotten.
I started recommending this region to friends back in Germany and Austria. Then to former hotel guests who had stayed in touch. Then to their friends. The same thing kept happening: people would arrive expecting a quick weekend in a small capital and leave saying it was the most restorative trip they had taken in years.
That is when I understood what I wanted to build.
GoEast Travels is not a booking platform. I am not competing with Booking.com or Expedia. I design bespoke trips, one client at a time, for people who are tired of planning travel that leaves them more tired and confused than before.
GoEast is an advisory studio. I take on a small number of clients at a time. I design the trip, coordinate everything with suppliers, and handle the details so you do not have to think about them.
Every trip starts with one question: what do you actually need from this?
Not what looks good on Instagram. Not what your colleague recommended. What do you need right now?
Sometimes the answer is a week in a forest with no phone signal. Sometimes it is a Hyrox race in Frankfurt with recovery days built around it. Sometimes it is a sauna circuit across Estonia and Latvia that nobody writes about because nobody here thinks to market it to outsiders.
I know these places because I’ve spent years travelling, working and building relationships across the region. I train five days a week. I do the activities worth doing. I sit in the saunas. I eat at the restaurants and cafes I recommend. When I tell you a hotel is worth the price, it is because I have slept in the bed.
GoEast Travels is not a booking platform. I am not competing with Booking.com or Expedia. I design bespoke trips, one client at a time, for people who are tired of planning travel that leaves them more tired and confused than before.
GoEast is an advisory studio. I take on a small number of clients at a time. I design the trip, coordinate everything with suppliers, and handle the details so you do not have to think about them.
Every trip starts with one question: what do you actually need from this?
Not what looks good on Instagram. Not what your colleague recommended. What do you need right now?
Sometimes the answer is a week in a forest with no phone signal. Sometimes it is a Hyrox race in Frankfurt with recovery days built around it. Sometimes it is a sauna circuit across Estonia and Latvia that nobody writes about because nobody here thinks to market it to outsiders.
I know these places because I live here. I train five days a week. I do the activities worth doing. I sit in the saunas. I eat at the restaurants and cafes I recommend. When I tell you a hotel is worth the price, it is because I have slept in the bed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: What is GoEast Travels and what makes it different from a regular travel agency?
GoEast Travels is a bespoke travel advisory and not a booking platform and not an OTA. Every trip is designed one client at a time by Shanky, a hospitality professional with 17 years of experience. GoEast operates as an advisory studio with a clear path to becoming a full bespoke DMC in the Baltics by building direct supplier relationships and ground operations that no generic agency can match.
Q2: Why the Baltics, Poland, and Eastern Europe specifically?
These are the regions most travellers overlook and most travel companies underserve. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have a quietness and slowness that Western Europe has forgotten. Poland offers a depth of culture, wilderness, and thermal spa traditions that surprise even experienced travellers. Eastern Europe as a whole rewards people who look properly, such as the architecture, the food, the pace, the space. GoEast knows these places because Shanky lives here and travels them personally.
Q3: Who does GoEast Travels design trips for?
Both individual travellers and B2B clients. On the consumer side; burnt-out professionals, active travellers, couples, and solo explorers who want to travel meaningfully, not mindlessly. On the B2B side; companies and organisations looking for bespoke group travel, corporate retreats, and incentive trips across the Baltics and Eastern Europe, designed and managed end to end.
4: Does GoEast Travels only cover the Baltics?
No, GoEast covers the Baltics, Eastern and Southern Europe, Central Asia for now. The Baltics are home territory with the deepest knowledge and supplier relationships, but every destination GoEast recommends comes from personal experience.
Q5: How do you start planning a trip with GoEast Travels?
Start a conversation. No booking forms, no pressure. Tell Shanky your budget and what you’re looking for, he’ll come back with two or three options worth your time.
