About me
My name is Mateusz Knol.
I am a traveler, translator and tour leader. I obtained my tour guide license in 2000.
I am fluent in English, French and Spanish. I know well Italian and Arabic language. I know Portuguese and Russian on a communicative level.
Knowledge of foreign languages really opens up many cognitive paths. I consider this skill to be my greatest asset. I cannot imagine getting to know the world or working with other cultures without a good knowledge of foreign languages.
I travel professionally around the world, but I have my favorite regions - with particular love for Arab countries and the Middle East, Latin America and the Far East.
Beginnings
I graduated in Romance philology at the University of Lodz and translation techniques at the Marc Bloc University in Strasbourg. I also completed a post-graduate MBA (University of Lodz / University Of Maryland).
I started working abroad quite early - during my studies. From 1996 I started spending my holidays in the USA working with young people from all over the world. I spent the money I earned on traveling - initially around the USA and Canada, and then to many interesting countries around the world.
Soon I completed a course of tourism guides. And it hapenned. It started with residencies in the Canary Islands, mainland Spain, the Greek Islands and Morocco, where I worked for 5 years.
20+
years of experience
140+
visited countries
400+
led projects
Experience
Since 2000, I have been professionally leading tourist groups with which I have reached over 120 countries around the world. I started my adventure in tourism as a youth tutor in the USA, a pilot/guide in Spain, Greece and Morocco, spending over 5 years abroad. Then I led sightseeing groups and exotic trips for individual tourists.
Since 2005, corporate clients have become more and more frequent guests on my trips. In the most active years of my work as a pilot, I spent over 300 days a year with groups on trips abroad around the world. In my career, I have led over 500 groups, for over 20 travel agencies and over 70 corporate clients.
Today, I am traveling catalog, travel and incentive. I have the honor to be invited to cooperate on the most prestigious projects on the market for many industries. I also started to conduct trekking trips, e.g. as a leader of expeditions to Kilimanjaro, Kazbeg, Aconcagua.
Hobbies
I grew up in a house of artists, in the spirit of freelance professions. Father Kazimierz Knol was a soloist and the first dancer of the ballet of the Grand Theater in Łódź. Mother Urszula Klechta-Knol is a painter: http://urszulaklechta.pl. Although Dad never taught me much, I became interested in music and dance myself. As luck would have it, the Cuban "tambor", African "djembe" and Caribbean dances spoke to me the most.
One of my many passions is sport. As a young boy, until the senior age, I was a player of the first-league water polo team of Anilana in Łódź and later ŁSTW. I got to know the taste of hard work, many successes and many failures - this is what sport teaches.
I am fascinated by climbing and mountains. There I find my personal "spirit of inspiration".
Thanks to my wife, lovely Agnes, I became interested in spirituality and philosophical and religious systems of the East: Buddhism, Hinduism and Sufism. Every day I practice yoga, I try to meditate and look for "myself" - which is the biggest challenge in eastern systems.