Founder & Journey Designer
Michael Hackett
Two decades of experience. Fifty-eight countries. Every corner of Europe — including the ones no map bothers to name.
The Man Behind the Journeys
A life spent finding what others walk past
Michael Hackett didn't stumble into travel — he chose it, deliberately, over two decades of accumulated miles, missed trains, and serendipitous wrong turns that led to the most extraordinary places. He has visited over 58 countries and every nation in Europe, not as a tourist ticking boxes, but as a student of place — its architecture, its agriculture, its social rituals, and its silences.
For ten years Michael lived and worked in The Netherlands, building a first-hand understanding of northern European culture that most travel designers only read about. That decade gave him an intimacy with the Low Countries — the polders at dusk, the canal-side rhythms of daily life, the distinction between a village festival and a tourist event — that informs every Dutch and Belgian itinerary Hidden Roads offers.
Hidden Roads Travel grew directly from Michael's belief that the most meaningful travel happens in the margins — the village square no coach tour visits, the winemaker who opens his cellar only for those who ask. His twenty years of experience are not a credential. They are a muscle, trained by repetition, refined by failure, and entirely in service of the travellers he designs for.
"The best place I've ever sent a traveller is one I found by getting lost myself."
— Michael Hackett
What Michael Does Best
The art of the hidden road
Undiscovered Villages
Michael's greatest talent is finding inhabited places — still lived-in, unspoiled, unglamourised — that have quietly escaped the attention of mass tourism.
Netherlands & Belgium
A decade of living in The Netherlands gives Michael a local's fluency — from Amsterdam's hidden hofjes to the lesser-known Flemish towns most visitors never reach.
Pan-European Scope
Having visited every European country, Michael designs cross-border itineraries that flow naturally — combining regions by culture and character, not just proximity on a map.
Slow Travel Architecture
Michael builds itineraries with deliberate breathing room. The unhurried morning, the extra night in a village that earns it — pace is as important to him as destination.
Local Network
Two decades of introductions, returns, and trust-building have created a contact list that no algorithm can replicate — farmers, guides, innkeepers, and artisans who open doors for Michael's travellers.
Honest Curation
Michael removes places the moment they stop earning their place in an itinerary. He has no loyalty to a recommendation he's outgrown — only to the traveller in front of him.
Michael's Philosophy
Slow down. Go deeper. Come back changed.
Michael measures a journey's success not by how much ground it covered, but by how much it revealed. The village that wasn't in the guidebook. The conversation that lasted three hours. The road that turned out to be the whole point.
Travel with Michael's Expertise
Let Michael design your journey
Every Hidden Roads itinerary carries two decades of Michael's knowledge — the routes, the contacts, the unhurried pace that turns a holiday into a story worth telling.
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