Nancy grew up in the Middle East, which put Asia within easy reach from the age of seven. Her parents took her and her sister across it: grand hotels and overnight trains, more temples than she could count, and the odd trip to a buzzing food market.
As an adult she kept going, with three months in Africa, an adventure in Costa Rica and six months across Asia and Australia with a friend. Now, she’s covered many corners of Asia, from India to Uzbekistan. Vietnam took the top spot, but she always meant to come back to Sri Lanka.
She started her career at a small tour operator specialising in painting holidays, then moved to London to join an independent agency with its own in-house tour operator, planning private trips. She joined ETG in 2026 and specialises in Sri Lanka.
Nancy travels for the food and is happiest outdoors, ideally in the sea. She has a soft spot for striking architecture, too. What she looks for abroad are the places away from the crowds, where you can live (and eat) the way people there do. Then the scenery, and for Nancy, Asia’s range is hard to beat: beaches, jungle, and unmatched sunsets.
Her advice for Sri Lanka is to give the hill country more time than you think you need. On her latest trip it was the greenery that stayed with her: jungle that never seems to end, and above all the mountains and tea estates, where she’d happily have stayed far longer.
Nancy pays as much attention to a hotel’s reading nooks as to its rooms. The Mudhouse’s hammocks top her list, closely followed by the open-air sofa terrace at Ellerton.
“We need the tonic of wildness.” – Henry David Thoreau
