Who We Are

Urban Expeditions and The Urban Guide (TUG) offer rich cosmopolitan adventures through urban culture, local tourism, and gamification. Our goal is to enhance the confidence and sense-of-belonging of independent travellers in under four hours. Our objective is to use games and customizable city tours to engage active learners  across North America, Europe, and Asia.

 

For over two decades, Urban Expeditions has been designing immersive cultural experiences. The Urban Guide (TUG) is a digital solution developed in response to recent social isolation. Together, we promote  community-driven discoveries, local history, architecture, street art, and food culture.

 

 

Both companies were founded by entrepreneur and innovator Peter Odle. His passion for exploration, hands-on learning, and leadership development continue to influence our efforts to enhance urban health and wellness.

 

Creative direction flows from Joe Dunning whose artistic talents make Urban Expeditions. Unlockthecity, and The Urban Guide exciting lifestyle brands. Our core team of seven facilitators travel far and wide creating the best local city tour and experiential games in the world.

 

In the beginning, we produced hand-drawn maps for a handful of customers. In time, the maps became easier to produce using the Google's mapping technology. This  freed up time for us to create more culturally relevant content for our urban experiences.

 

As society began to recover from the events of 9/11, the global travel industry suffered from three additional blows - mad cow disease, SARS, and the 2008 crash of the U.S economy. At this point, it became clear that building a business model solely around international travellers was no longer sustainable and we pivoted on the local market of 'stay-cations'.

 

By 2010, our customer base grew to include colleges, universities, and corporate groups. Fast-forward through a decade of blending social innovation with urban adventure, and we found our stride working with gamification experts to again pivot on the events of the COVID-19 pandemic.