People have asked us why we chose the name "matador," the 17th Century term for one who faces a charging bull on foot.

First of all, we don't travel the world to find what we already know: the familiar, the comfortable, the instantly recognizable. With every time zone we traverse, we leave our comfort zone farther behind and open ourselves to the unexpected, the mind-altering, the life-changing.

By avoiding the pre-packaged experience and striking out on our own, passionate travelers hope to come face-to-face with other cultures, rituals, ways of living. We embrace the startling. We make ourselves strangers in strange lands. We have adventures.

To those back home, what we do may seem risky. And it is. Most people avoid the unknown at all costs. Passionate travelers pursue it around the world.

Think again of the matador and the bull. So concentrated is the matador's attention, and yet so nonchalant. The thundering bull brushes past the leaning man. All is risk, all is grace, all is life balanced on a sharp point: the moment of truth. It’s an expression of cultures and traditions, beauty and ugliness, fear and bravery, life and death, preparation and spontaneity, risk and reward, grace and clumsiness, victory and defeat. A Matador, like a traveler must be prepared, yet confidently let the experience spontaneously unfold. They are both alone in the moment, yet alive and connected to the world around them. It’s at times communicating without the use of the spoken word, a feeling of helplessness complemented by a sense of supreme accomplishment. It’s the ability to put yourself in a situation that forces you to utilize all of your honed skills and abilities, yet after it’s over accept there is much you don’t know and still need to learn.

Can anyone be more full of life than at such a moment? The spectators may think they have experienced it. But only the dancer ever really knows the dance. Only the passionate traveler, the risk-taker, the open-hearted, can know the world.

That is what we mean by matador. Hope that helps.