Alejandro Martínez Galán
Were you expecting a guide with thirty years in the trade?
I'm not that guide. I've spent more than thirty-five years travelling the world, and I came to tourism afterwards.
First I learned to move around the world on my own.
The curiosity started early: a school trip at fourteen, Mallorca without teachers at seventeen, and at twenty a train to Rome to find out whether my English and my independence were up to an international adventure.
Then came more than thirty years opening markets and selling industrial machinery in over 85 countries. I arranged every trip, studied every route, negotiated, and solved whatever came up.
“I didn't travel with a team. I was the team.”
years of international experience
countries travelled
years living in Copenhagen
working languages
Denmark changed the course.
After seeing the world without ever having lived outside Spain, I moved to Copenhagen. I left an established career behind and started over: I learned, adapted and took on jobs that had nothing to do with one another.
At the cruise terminal I discovered tourism from the inside. Then came Copenhagen, Scandinavia and the Baltics as a guide and tour leader.
I didn't come to tourism from a catalogue.
Staying calm is part of the itinerary.
Two flights cancelled on two consecutive days. A group scattered across several countries. Hotels, taxis and new connections to coordinate until we were all back together in Norway on the third day.
This photograph isn't about the incident. It's about what matters: the group was whole again and the journey carried on.
Then came the road.
Six pilgrimages on foot across four continents, from Lisbon to the 88 temples of Shikoku. No two were alike, and all of them taught me the same thing: a journey can have a clear destination and still leave room for what wasn't planned.
Walking forced me to listen more and decide less. That is probably what has changed most about the way I accompany a group.
Why I do this
I have travelled in every way there is.
I have seen the world from an airport waiting lounge on my way to a factory. From a backpack, walking alone for weeks. From the front seat of a coach with forty people in my care. And on holiday with my children, which is the most demanding way of all.
Each one teaches you something different. Work taught me to solve problems and keep calm when things go wrong. The road taught me to listen and to leave room for the unplanned. Guiding groups taught me that a group isn't a sum of people: it has its own rhythm, and you have to learn to read it. And travelling with family taught me that the most brilliant itinerary is worthless if somebody is uncomfortable.
That is what I want to put at the service of your journey. Not to show you mine, but to help you build yours, with the advantage that I've already made a fair few mistakes before you.
What I've learned travelling is only worth something if I share it.
The travelling didn't start when I became a guide.
There's a story behind those numbers. Open only the chapter you feel like reading.
The curiosity started early
My first real journey came at fourteen: from Bilbao we crossed the peninsula to Madrid, Córdoba, Granada and Málaga, and took the ferry to Ceuta. At seventeen I helped organise a school trip to Mallorca with no teachers. We raised the money, made the bookings and, for a few days, we were responsible for ourselves.
At twenty I took a train alone from Hendaye to Rome for an international youth gathering. I wanted to find out whether my English was good enough and, above all, whether I could manage away from home. I came back knowing I could. Interrail followed, and many other ways of learning by travelling.
More than thirty years travelling alone
For most of my working life I was a sales director in the food machinery industry. The job took me to factories, ports and small towns across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. I rarely travelled with a technician or an engineering director. I arranged my own flights and hotels, studied every journey, visited clients and solved things on the spot.
That trade taught me to observe and to ask. It also taught me to always look for a better way of doing things: a smarter schedule, a well-located hotel, an afternoon by the sea once the work was done. My children still tell me I ask too many questions. Maybe. But asking has always been my way of understanding a place and its people.
Denmark and the value of starting from zero
I moved to Copenhagen for family reasons, without a word of Danish and with no clear next professional step. After more than 85 countries, it was the first time I had lived outside Spain. I studied the language, rewrote my CV, and understood that what mattered there was less everything I had already done and more what I could contribute now.
When my brief return to industry ended, I took on very different jobs: logistics, kitchens, conferences and volunteering. One opportunity led to another until I reached the cruise port. There I handled the arrival and departure of thousands of passengers; later I started guiding in Copenhagen and leading tours around Scandinavia and the Baltics. Denmark reminded me that reinventing yourself isn't about erasing what came before, but using it differently.
The journey that also happens inside
In 2021 I set out alone on the Portuguese Camino from Lisbon. I had no home to go back to in Copenhagen and I was looking for some light for my next chapter, in every sense. A sudden knee injury took me unexpectedly to Fátima, where I wrote three letters to three women who matter in my life and gave thanks walking on my knees. The next day I could walk again perfectly.
On the road I met stories you don't forget: a pilgrim with pulmonary fibrosis, given two months to live, determined to keep walking as long as his body allowed; a woman walking to make sense of a pain far deeper than the one in her feet. Then came the Via Francigena, the Jerusalem Way, the Basilica of Guadalupe, Lalibela and Gondar in Ethiopia, and the 88 temples of Shikoku. It was in Italy that I understood I could bring my two worlds together: the ability to organise and solve, with a closer, calmer, more human way of accompanying people.
You are already the group.
I listen to what you want to experience, design the journey and coordinate every piece of it. And, if it makes sense for you, I come with you.