Co-founded by Ian Baker and Cristy Elmendorp, Rare Journeys offers a multi-dimensional approach to exploration, adventure, and discovery, encompassing educational travel seminars, publications, and films. All Rare Journeys Expeditions are led personally by Ian and Cristy or by highly qualified associates.

Ian Baker designed and led study tours in Asia for the National Geographic Society, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution's Academic Travels Abroad, as well as other educationally oriented travel companies. He served as Academic Director for the School for International Training in India and Nepal and has led numerous research expeditions into the Himalayas. He is a fellow of the Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society as well as the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.

Ian studied fine arts, literature, and comparative religion at Middlebury College, Oxford University, and Columbia University and is the author of five books about Himalayan culture, medicine, and Buddhist tradition. He collaborated with the Dalai Lama on a book illustrating Buddhist meditation practices and with Robert Thurman and Deepak Chopra on books on the Tibetan healing arts.

Ian's most recent book, The Heart of the World: A Journey to Tibet's Lost Paradise (Penguin Press 2004) has been translated into multiple languages and chronicles his National Geographic sponsored expedition into the world's deepest gorge and his team's documentation of a waterfall that had been the source of myth and speculation among geographers for more than a century. Profiled by National Geographic as one of seven "explorers for the millennium", Ian has contributed articles to National Geographic Magazine, National Geographic Adventure, and Explorers Journal and lectures widely in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Cristy Elmendorp, a former script writer and television host born in Java, was educated in the Netherlands and later traveled extensively throughout Europe, the United States, and Asia. Cristy worked for humanitarian aid organizations in southern Thailand for several years and later co-founded Visual Works, producing multi-media presentations for the Thai travel industry.

As director of Rare Journeys Films, Cristy produces educational documentaries that explore far corners of the planet and the interfacing worlds of spirit, nature, and human experience.

Cristy also supports indigenous cultures through Rare Journeys product line, providing employment opportunities in remote villages and promoting local arts and crafts. She is currently working on her first novel.