About Waypoint Desk

The People Who Answer Your Request

Waypoint Desk is run by the three co-founders of Waypoint Journeys. Between them, more than 350 countries, many of them places where nothing books itself. That is where they learned the part of travel most people never see: entry rules, permits, connections that run only on certain days, and what to do when a plan breaks. The same team now plans your trips.

Jason Wang, co-founder of Waypoint Journeys

Jason Wang

Co-founder

Jason is a former Silicon Valley tech executive and entrepreneur. In 2016 he set out to visit every country on Earth and climb the Seven Summits, a path that has taken him to the South Pole, the Great Migration, Yemen’s Socotra archipelago and the Kumbh Mela.

Years of trips where a missed connection had a real cost shaped how he books: connections that hold, hotels chosen for where you need to be, and a fallback in place before anything goes wrong. At Waypoint Desk, nothing is booked until every leg has been checked against the next.

Favorite travel moment

“Riding on top of an iron ore train for 22 consecutive hours across the Sahara Desert in Mauritania. No seats, no shade, no regrets.”

Chad Zhang, co-founder of Waypoint Journeys

Chad Zhang

Co-founder

Chad’s career runs from investment banking and big tech to the university, where he teaches graduate students. Between semesters he has visited more than 100 countries, from Bhutan’s Bumdra trail to the empty boulevards of Ashgabat at midnight.

Each of those worlds rewards the same habit: work from evidence, test the assumption, show the numbers. At Waypoint Desk it means every option priced side by side, with the trade-offs stated plainly before you choose.

Favorite travel moment

“Standing at the edge of the Door to Hell in Turkmenistan. A 230-foot-wide crater that’s been burning since 1971, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. You feel the heat on your face from 30 feet away.”

Michael Du, co-founder of Waypoint Journeys

Michael Du

Co-founder

Michael has lived and worked abroad since he was 18 and learned languages the hard way, on the ground. He has floated through the stilt village of Ganvie in Benin, crossed the Khongor dunes of the Gobi and traced the old trade routes through the Saharan oases of Algeria.

He knows how a plan behaves once it meets a border post, a ferry timetable or a festival that moves its date. At Waypoint he is the one who makes sure each trip delivers on the day, and when a flight moves at midnight, the plan moves with it.

Favorite travel moment

“Three nights camping in rural Niger to witness the Guerewol festival. Wodaabe men in full face paint competing in a beauty contest judged by young women. Nothing I’ve seen anywhere else comes close.”

How we work

How We Run Your Trip

  1. Check every leg against the next

    Connection times, terminal changes, transit visas and the last ferry of the day, confirmed before anything is paid for.

  2. Price it in full

    Every flight, room and transfer at the supplier’s own price, side by side, with our fee on its own line before you commit.

  3. Plan the fallback first

    The next flight, the alternate route and the hotel near the airport are known before they are needed.

  4. Keep one plan current

    Every confirmation in a single itinerary that changes when your trip does, with a person at the other end of the message.

Part of Waypoint Journeys

The Same Team as Our Expeditions

Waypoint Journeys runs private expeditions to places most operators won’t touch, from Socotra to the Congo. Waypoint Desk is its travel desk: the same founders and the same standards, applied to the flights, hotels and paperwork of any trip.

If your trip includes one of our expeditions, there is no booking fee on the expedition itself. We book what goes around it.

Start a request

Tell Us the Trip

A few lines is enough: where you need to be, when, and who is going. A member of our team replies by email with options and prices.

Run by the founders of Waypoint Journeys. Meet the team

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