Who founded WhereNext DMC?
Gregg Bleakney started the online travel guide WhereNext.com in 2000 and, in 2009, the creative agency that became WhereNext, Inc. in 2018. He launched WhereNext DMC Colombia with Angelika Köhler in 2021, and Fiorella Freyre launched WhereNext DMC Peru with WhereNext, Inc. in 2025.
| Parent | WhereNext, Inc., Seattle |
|---|---|
| Operating companies | WhereNext DMC Colombia (WhereNext Travel S.A.S., 2021), WhereNext DMC Peru (WhereNext Travel Peru S.A.C., 2025) |
Company history
I started WhereNext in 2000, as a college senior, obsessed with one idea: a personalized online travel guide. We were a bit early.
After working in the technology sector, I ditched logic to ride my bicycle from Alaska to Argentina between 2005 and 2007. Near the end of that journey, in an abandoned barn in Patagonia, I wrote a new WhereNext business plan. The vision: make people #FeelSomething through travel.
What came next was a series of ventures to pursue that vision. I spent a decade traveling the world as a photojournalist. Then I founded a creative agency, producing campaigns in 30 countries and working with some of the world’s most significant tourism brands and development projects. I moved to Colombia and started a family. I launched two travel companies: WhereNext DMC Colombia and WhereNext DMC Peru.
In 2025, the pieces lined up: storytelling, local teams, and travel companies in two countries. I merged my creative and travel businesses into one to realize the vision I wrote in that barn nearly 20 years before.
Men of Oregon. After a summer of triple jumping at track meets in Europe, Gregg Bleakney visits Bill Bowerman, the founder of Nike, at his ranch in Oregon. Peter Schmock brings him. Schmock, an Olympic shot putter who competed for Bowerman at the University of Oregon, was Gregg’s coach in high school and during summer breaks while he ran track at the University of Oregon. They spend the day together, three generations of coaches and athletes. Bowerman talks about his life philosophy and how he started Nike with Phil Knight. Gregg begins to wonder whether he can combine his life on the road as a track and field athlete with a travel business.
Gregg Bleakney stands behind Peter Schmock and Bill Bowerman at Bowerman’s ranch. WhereNext.com launches, an online personalized travel guide for mobile, budget-conscious travelers ages 18 to 34. Gregg Bleakney, its CEO, starts it with four friends and teammates connected to the University of Oregon track and field team, Andrew Johnston, Kaarin Knudson, Anne Rothlisberger and Chris Nelson, with $400,000 in seed funding from 13 investors.
The WhereNext.com team celebrates the launch. From left: Anne Rothlisberger, Chris Nelson, Kaarin Knudson, Andrew Johnston, Gregg Bleakney, Wes Horner and Pam Huyser. From the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences alumni magazine, Autumn 2000. The dot-com bust closes WhereNext.com. The idea behind it, a personalized travel guide, does not go away.
Gregg Bleakney rides from Alaska to Argentina, 18,500 miles by bicycle.
Cycling the road to Fitz Roy, Argentina, the day Gregg decided to leave his old life, follow his gut and start a storytelling agency. The evolution of revolution: Gregg cycles across the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia, with a group of friends he met on the road. Gregg Bleakney receives a scholarship from Rich Clarkson and Associates to study with National Geographic. The brand starts to give him work as a freelance photojournalist.
Gregg with Rich Clarkson, National Geographic's former director of photography. A National Geographic Kids spread on extreme exploration includes the ride. The Trip of a Lifetime, a reading unit about Gregg’s ride from Alaska to Argentina. Gregg Bleakney Visual Storytelling begins, focused on marketing, photography and video production for travel and lifestyle brands. It goes on to produce campaigns in 30 countries.
Selected work from this era
Patagonia features Gregg's photograph from a bike trip through Tierra del Fuego, Chile, in an email. ExOfficio Made to Journey print ad. A tour salesman in Samara, Costa Rica, tries to convince Gregg that he can get to Argentina faster on his boat than on a bicycle. The New York Times runs Gregg's photographs of the first Tour of Beijing, October 9, 2011. Parting Shot in Outside magazine. Bundi, Rajasthan, India. Photograph by Gregg Bleakney. Gregg records "Ditch Logic", an episode of The Dirtbag Diaries podcast supported by Patagonia, in a coat closet in Seattle, Washington, with Fitz Cahall, the podcast's founder.
The episode is adapted into a chapter of States of Adventure: Stories About Finding Yourself by Getting Lost, Fitz Cahall's bestselling collection of adventure stories published by Penguin Random House and inspired by The Dirtbag Diaries podcast.
Ditch Logic, episode 47. States of Adventure by Fitz Cahall. Gregg Bleakney Visual Storytelling makes its first brand video, for ExOfficio's "Two Years, Two Pairs of Underwear" campaign, which draws on Gregg's two-year bicycle ride from Alaska to Argentina.
ExOfficio Give-N-Go Underwear - Alaska to Argentina Gregg starts working in travel guides again, photographing and writing a comprehensive cycling guide to Europe for Velo Press.
The Ultimate Ride Guide, from the editors of VeloNews. Switzerland. Italy. Gregg Bleakney Visual Storytelling begins five consecutive years of travel brand campaigns filmed around the world for ExOfficio. The first is shot in Colombia.
ExOfficio Spring/Summer 2013 catalog. Gregg gives the keynote at the Adventure Travel Trade Association's Adventure Travel World Summit in Namibia, where he presents short films including "Colombia's Lost River of Seven Colors". The film's subject, Fredy Mora of La Macarena, travels with him.
Gregg Bleakney's ATTA World Summit Keynote Speech on Colombia Gregg Bleakney Visual Storytelling becomes WhereNext, Inc., a creative agency focused on tourism marketing and lifestyle brands, incorporated August 24, 2018, in Delaware. Gregg reclaims the WhereNext name he retired when the first WhereNext shut down in 2001.
WhereNext, Inc. wins the public tender for ProColombia's The Birders, a global campaign that generated more than 30 million organic likes and comments, a record for the Colombian Ministry of Tourism, and produced five documentary films.
The Birders, A Melodic Journey Through Northern Colombia. Coming soon, August 2018. Colombia in Flight, an illustration of the WhereNext creative team, signed Guarisquín. Gregg Bleakney and Angelika Köhler launch WhereNext DMC Colombia, registered March 24, 2021.
WhereNext, Inc. is selected as the local implementing subcontractor for USAID Colombia's Destination Nature, a nature tourism initiative of nearly $40 million.
USAID Colombia's Destino Naturaleza, known in English as Destination Nature. WhereNext, Inc. creates Finding Encanto for ProColombia. It wins the Premios Excelencias Turísticas Audiovisual 2023, presented at FITUR 2024, a Dolphin Award at the 14th Cannes Corporate Media and TV Awards and a Gold Award at Terres Travel Festival, and is an Official Selection at Zagreb TourFilm Festival.
Cannes Corporate Media and TV Awards Terres Travel Festival, Spain, 2023 Zagreb TourFilm Festival WhereNext, Inc.'s creative team records and catalogs the natural history soundscape for Netflix's One Hundred Years of Solitude. The series reaches Netflix's Global Top 10 and generates more than 31 million viewing hours shortly after launch.
Recording the natural history soundscape for the series. WhereNext, Inc. stops taking new creative work to focus on the travel business. WhereNext DMC Colombia joins WhereNext, Inc., and Fiorella Freyre and WhereNext, Inc. launch WhereNext DMC Peru on June 12.
How Do You Start Over After Losing Everything? | The Origin of DITCH LOGIC CBS 60 Minutes airs Anderson Cooper's story on Colombia as a birdwatching destination on May 3, with an encore on August 2. WhereNext helps support and facilitate the project.
Birding takes flight after peace deal between Colombia and guerrilla group WhereNext OS launches. A proprietary AI operating system, built around the idea Gregg Bleakney started with in 2000: a personalized travel guide in the guest’s hands. WhereNext OS pairs that guide with a journey designed, booked, and supported by WhereNext local DMCs. It automates mundane operational tasks so Trip Designers can put their time into designing moments that make travelers #FeelSomething.
A Lookbook, a Quote, a Trip Guide, and a guest web app can be white-labeled for travel advisors, tour operators, hospitality brands, and experience-led travel companies. Each trip can also leave as data, in the format a partner’s system already uses: text, CSV, Excel, JSON, or an API.
Sample Lookbook, 11 pages
Who stands behind us
WhereNext DMC operates through locally led, locally registered companies in Colombia and Peru, with the same service standards, proposal process and communication model.
| Entity | Role | Founded |
|---|---|---|
| WhereNext Group | Umbrella brand | Brand, not a legal entity |
| WhereNext, Inc. | Parent, Seattle | Incorporated August 24, 2018, Delaware |
| WhereNext Travel S.A.S. | Operating company, Colombia | Registered March 24, 2021 |
| WhereNext Travel Peru S.A.C. | Operating company, Peru | Incorporated June 12, 2025 |
Registration numbers and registry checks are in the vendor file.
Leadership
- Gregg BleakneyFounder and CEO
- Angelika KöhlerCo-Founder and Country Manager, Colombia
- Fiorella FreyreCo-Founder and Country Manager, Peru
- Stephan SchierOperations Director
Advisors
- Christina TunnahStrategic Advisor
Head of Global Marketing & Brands at World Nomads, the travel insurer. She advises WhereNext DMC on insurance strategy, technology integration, and brand positioning.
- Harley SchachterSales and Partnerships Advisor
Harley founded Travel Mindset, an influencer marketing agency for travel, and sold it in 2022. At WhereNext DMC he introduces emerging destinations, such as Colombia, to U.S.-based travel advisors and agencies, and works on growth in the U.S. market.
- Nicholas GillGastronomy, product, and editorial
James Beard Award-nominated author and co-author of Central and The Latin American Cookbook with Virgilio Martínez. Consulting producer of the Netflix series Street Food: Latin America.
- Stan MoAI and Infrastructure Advisor
Original investor in WhereNext.com, the online travel guide that launched in 2000. He spent more than 16 years at Intel, including as Director of AI Software Technology Planning and as an AI researcher, and advises WhereNext DMC on the AI vision for WhereNext OS.
Memberships
Verify each membership, with the date we last checked it, on the Vendor File.
| Colombia |  National tourism registry (RNT). Search the company name or tax number (NIT) and confirm the status is active. Our NIT is 901470098-5 and our RNT number is 204473. Open the RNT registry |
|---|---|
| Peru |  MINCETUR directory of qualified tourism service providers. Search the tax number (RUC) or legal name. Our RUC is 20614378701, and our registration is Constancia N° D000328-2025-MML-GDE-ST. Open the MINCETUR directory |
Registration numbers, insurance and the date each registry was last checked are in the vendor file.
Open the vendor fileOur Purpose
We believe travel should make people #FeelSomething.
We design journeys your guests remember long after they return, and that benefit the places they visit and the people who live there.
Press and Recognition
A decade of award-winning work, international media, and conservation across Latin America.