What we do
At Zicasso, we are dedicated to designing personalized, life-enriching travel experiences. We bring your travel dreams to life on tours curated around your preferences.
How it works
Share your travel dreams with us
Our specialists design a tour just for you
Customize your trip and book when ready
Share feedback with fellow travelers
Our Story
As founder and CEO, Brian leads the company with a laser focus on excellence.
He's recognized as a leader and visionary in the industry, often quoted in top travel publications and regularly speaking at shows like The New York Times Travel Show.
Brian's never-ending curiosity to learn and understand our world has taken him to more than 45 countries - from climbing the Great Wall of China to diving the Great Barrier Reef. He has a particular passion for African safaris and wilderness conservation.
Brian received his MBA and MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, as well as a BS in Electrical Engineering from Brown University.
Founder and COO Yuchun leads our team in client relations, analytics, and finance.
Yuchun's travels to over 50 countries have taken her to all corners of the planet, from the Andes to Zanzibar. Her passion for travel particularly centers around her interests in food, history, culture, and especially wildlife. She's always ready to return to Africa for another safari!
Yuchun holds an MBA from the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Architecture from UC Berkeley, and an MS in Engineering from National Taiwan University.
As our CPO (Chief Play Officer), Rico ensures that the Zicasso team maintains high productivity by taking regular walks and playing endless games of fetch.
He also provides senior management with daily coaching on how to maintain boundless energy and enthusiasm.
Rico didn't graduate from any reputable training schools (and frankly, didn't see the point given his career aspirations to become a CPO.)
Our team
The Zicasso travel team is committed to ensuring client satisfaction. From the moment you reach out with your initial ideas, to finalizing your personalized, luxury travel plans, we're here to help you every step of the way. Click here to meet the team that makes your dream trip possible.
Meet the team ›
How we select our top travel specialists
We are committed to designing exceptional, personalized travel in collaboration with our travel specialists who are among the top 10%, or indeed, the top 1% of local experts and tour operators in the world.
To ensure our tours exceed traveler expectations, we have pre-qualified and selected only the best specialists. Here's how we achieve this:
Our commitment to quality
In addition to the time spent vetting the experience, credentials, and capabilities of our travel specialists, we commit many hours to their training, setting quality expectations, and coaching their staff. To achieve consistent excellence, we have found that there are absolutely no shortcuts in this process!
But we don't stop at this initial vetting and training. We also monitor quality based on honest reviews from our trusted travelers. All Zicasso travelers are invited to write reviews when they return from their trips, and each travel specialist must maintain a minimum 4.25-star average rating out of 5 stars. Every review comes from a real traveler who has been on a trip with Zicasso.
Our values and community
Zicasso's community is one in which discerning travelers seek the best in quality, authenticity, and value delivered by our travel specialists. In surpassing the expectations of our travelers, our specialists receive the recognition they deserve and consequently get more business. Travelers and travel specialists come to Zicasso to help each other experience the very best in travel - from both their perspectives.
To promote and reward excellence in travel, our community is guided by the following core values:
We believe in open and honest communications - and no hidden agendas
We "do the right thing" and act with integrity and fairness
We respect each other's time and effort
We treat others the way we want to be treated
We are always here to help each other experience the best in travel
In the spirit of these values, Zicasso also pledges that:
We always operate with the highest integrity
We never spam
We never share our users' names and contact information with any third parties
We take your privacy protection extremely seriously
How we make money
We charge a fee to our travel specialists. However, no travel specialist can pay their way to become part of Zicasso - our vetting process independently reviews whether they are exceptional enough to join. Our travelers do not pay to use our service.
This is the same way in which eBay, Amazon, and other online marketplaces make money. Because Zicasso's travel specialists know that they are competing for your business, they strive to deliver the best tours and services for your travel dollars.
What's with the name?
The Zicasso name evolved from our desire to personalize each trip with experiences that are unique, authentic, and a million miles from mass tourism. This is a feat that we believe is beyond the capabilities of AI - an art that's best left to true travel destination specialists. Like the great artist Picasso whom we admire, "Zicasso" represents our relentless search for the unique and the original - out of zillions of possibilities.