Andy Moore is the founder of EverTrek, the Caerphilly adventure travel company that takes groups to Everest Base Camp, Kilimanjaro, Machu Picchu and beyond.
He started the business after trekking to Everest Base Camp in January 2016, and in September 2026 EverTrek marked 10 years of trips, having welcomed nearly 6,000 customers and grown by more than 30 per cent a year since 2024. Backed by £1.3m from the Investment Fund for Wales in 2024, it appointed Rhys David as chief executive in January 2025. He tells Business Matters why the customer is the hero and what COVID taught him.
What do you currently do at EverTrek?
I currently look after quite a broad mix of things at EverTrek.
A lot of my time now is spent managing the technology and systems that sit behind EverTrek, whether that is our marketing technology, customer systems or the functional systems that keep everything working in the background.
I am also still heavily involved in our marketing, particularly our paid channels, and I do a lot of the more public-facing parts of the brand. That includes hosting our webinars, our Tuesday Tune-Ins and other live events, as well as appearing on podcasts or doing interviews.
One thing that is really important to me is remaining present in the EverTrekker community. I still want to know what people are thinking, what they are worried about and, most importantly, whether they are having a brilliant experience with us.
Because I have been involved from the start, I also know many of our overseas operators, suppliers and guides personally, particularly in Nepal, so I stay in close contact with them too. Even as we have grown, I have never wanted to become completely detached from the people who actually make the adventures happen.
What was the inspiration behind your business?
The inspiration for EverTrek really came from my own trip to Everest Base Camp in 2016.
It was not long after the devastating Nepal earthquake in 2015, and tourism in the country had understandably taken a huge hit. In January 2016 I headed out to Nepal and trekked to Everest Base Camp.
I absolutely loved it. I fell in love with the country, the mountains and the people, but the trip also did quite a lot for me personally. When you are walking through the Himalayas for hours every day, you get a lot of time to think.
I came home thinking that I wanted to help other people experience what I had just experienced. So I pretty much came back, built a website, put some of my own money into it and started trying to get EverTrek off the ground while I was still working a full-time job.
From the beginning, I wanted it to feel personal. Taking on something like Everest Base Camp can feel enormous when you are sitting at home thinking about it. People worry about altitude, fitness, kit, whether they will keep up or whether they will fit into a group.
I felt we could create something that helped people through all of that rather than simply selling them a trekking holiday. I wanted it to feel friendly and memorable and, ultimately, to build a community of people helping each other take on these big adventures.
Who do you admire?
There are loads of people I admire, but one of the biggest influences on me has definitely been my dad, Kevin Moore.
He was the person who first got me into the outdoors when I was younger. We would be outside whatever the weather was doing, and I think that had quite a big impact on how I approach things today.
It taught me that sometimes the conditions are not going to be perfect and you just deal with what is in front of you. You put your jacket on, get outside and get on with it. That probably translates into business more than I realised at the time.
I also have huge admiration for the teams we work with overseas, particularly our guides in Nepal. A lot of them have become genuine friends over the years, and they are the people who really make the magic happen on our trips.
Many spend months away from their families while they are guiding, dealing with challenging conditions and looking after groups of people day after day, yet they somehow manage to do it all with a smile on their face. I massively admire that resilience, positivity and generosity.
Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?
COVID was obviously an enormous challenge for us. When you are an adventure travel company and suddenly cannot run trips for a couple of years, you are in a very difficult situation very quickly. Looking back with what I know now, I think having stronger financial expertise within the team earlier would have been incredibly valuable.
Hiring is another massive one. I have always been someone who wants to get involved in everything. I want to talk to customers, make bookings, run the marketing, build the systems and fix something when it breaks.
The problem is that eventually there simply are not enough hours in the day, and you also realise that having one person trying to do everything is not how you build a high-performing company.
Would I actually go back and change it all, though? Probably not. We learned an enormous amount from those periods. We tried to deal with difficult situations with humility and integrity, and those experiences have shaped the way we run the company now.
Probably the biggest lesson I have learned is that you cannot do everything on your own. Lean on your team. Be honest about what is happening. Get people involved in solving the problem rather than feeling like you have to disappear into a room and solve it yourself.
I genuinely believe you can solve almost anything if you have the right people around you, everyone understands where you are trying to go and they have bought into the journey.
What defines your way of doing business?
For me, it comes down to being human. I have always wanted EverTrek to deal with people on a personal level and actually show that we care about what they are trying to achieve.
One analogy I use is that we are Obi-Wan, not Luke Skywalker. The customer is the hero of the story. They are the one standing at Everest Base Camp, reaching the summit of Kilimanjaro or achieving something they might have spent years thinking about. Our job is to be the guide who helps them get there.
I have always wanted our team to approach customers in that way. Be helpful. Have a personality. Talk to people like people. And have a laugh along the way.
Adventure travel obviously has a serious side. We are taking people into high-altitude environments and remote parts of the world, so safety and professionalism are incredibly important. But being professional does not mean you have to become corporate or lose your personality.
People should feel comfortable asking us the questions they are worried might sound silly. They should feel like they know us. As the business grows, one of the things I care about most is retaining that human side of EverTrek.
What advice would you give to someone starting out?
Make the choice and go for it. I think it is important to have some big goals from the outset and a vision of what you are actually trying to build.
Whatever it is, have something that acts as your north star and keeps you moving in the right direction.
I would also say: do not automatically copy your competitors. Just because another company measures something, markets itself in a certain way or runs its business in a particular way does not mean that is what you should do. Work out what makes sense for you and go your own way.
You get one life, so if you are going to spend a huge amount of it building a business, try to build something you actually enjoy. Work with people you enjoy being around and have some fun with it.
Keep a positive mindset, stay humble and focus on helping people. You will get plenty of things wrong along the way. I certainly have. The important thing is that you learn from them, surround yourself with good people, keep moving forward and enjoy the journey.
