The Adventure Gene was started from the belief that the best way to explore this earth is using your own two feet. Our mission is to enable outdoor journeys by sharing hard-fought knowledge and expertise. With over 40,000km of experience, we strive to make your outdoor aspirations a reality.

We do this by leveraging our extensive experience in ultralight gear, modern hiking techniques, and performance nutrition. This allows us to create and execute guided hiking trips in regions that are typically reserved for highly experienced hikers on personal trips. 

No matter the trip, you can always expect the same core experience.

✔ The best gear and clothing. All our trips include access to our Ultralight Comfort System™. We’ve partnered with industry-leading brands to equip you with cutting-edge ultralight gear and clothing for your trip. This includes tents, sleeping bags, hiking packs, down layers, fleece layers and more. All you need to bring are your shoes and the clothes on your back! This allows us to keep your pack weight around 10kg (hiking) or 15kg (snow camping).

✔ Home-made quality meals. We don’t use pre-made dehydrated meals. We source key ingredients from a local freeze-drying company in Canberra. This allow us to cook our meals on the trail, rather than just rehydrate them with hot water. 

✔ An authentic wilderness journey. All of our trips are tent-based experiences, taking you to places that are inaccessible by vehicle. This allows us to explore off the beaten track and get away from crowded tourist trails such as the Overland Track, Larapinta Trail and Cape to Cape Track.

✔ Industry-leading guides. Our guides have extensive outdoor experience, drawing on tens of thousands of kilometres from their own personal expeditions. Whilst every guide has their own unique background and interests, they all share a common set of skills and traits. No matter the guide you can expect a world-class educational experience, safe and supportive guidance, and a friendly face!

✔ Intimate group sizes. We have a strict maximum group size of 10 on all of our trips. With 2 guides, this means that we have an industry-leading guide to guest ratio of 1:5. This allows us to cater to a wide range of experiences and ensure that everyone is looked after.

Tom & Maddie's Story

The foundation of The Adventure Gene is an unparalleled depth and breadth of experience in ultralight hiking. This includes setting hiking speed records on trails such as the Australian Alps Walking Track, Bibbulmun Track and Te Araroa.

After studying theoretical physics, we (Tom and Maddie) decided to leave behind the academic life and pursue our love for sharing the outdoors with others. Too often we would meet people who aspired to adventure, but lacked the confidence to commit to their dream. We knew that with the right guidance, these dreams could often turn into reality.

Based on these experiences, we set out to provide outdoor adventures built on three pillars: the best gear, in-depth education, and wilderness immersion.

We couldn’t find a guiding company that shared this philosophy, so we decided to start our own.