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About Cultured Travel
Epic experiences in spectacular places with awesome people. Here is how that started, and who is behind it.
Founded
2019
Based
Warren, Pennsylvania
Team
Four
Our mission
We believe travel should go beyond sightseeing, offering opportunities for genuine cultural exchange, personal growth and lasting community. By blending expert guidance with authentic local experiences, we empower our travelers to discover the world in a way that is meaningful, inspiring and uniquely their own.
Travel isn’t just about where you go, it’s about who you meet, what you learn, and the stories you’ll retell for years to come. We design every journey to spark connection, create lasting memories, and leave a positive mark on the places and people we encounter.
How we got started
I spent 14 years as a Spanish teacher in Western Pennsylvania, and the best teaching I ever did was not in a classroom.
It happened on a bus rolling into a city my students had never seen. In a restaurant where the menu was in another language and someone had to be brave enough to order first. On a street corner where history had actually happened and a kid who had never left the county suddenly understood why it mattered.
I organized trip after trip, to Mexico, Costa Rica, Italy, Spain, Peru and more, and I watched what travel did to people. Students, sure. But also parents who chaperoned and colleagues who tagged along. Something changed in them. Every time.
Along the way I figured out what makes a trip truly great. It is not the five-star hotel, though we do not do subpar hotels. It is not the famous landmark, though we see those too. It is the guide who has spent 30 years studying a place and still gets excited telling you about it. The group of people around you who are curious and kind and up for anything. That moment you realize this is not sightseeing, but something deeper.
In 2019 one of my colleagues, my business partner Matt McKissock, and I turned years of conversations about travel into a decision. We wanted to take the curiosity, care and depth I brought to my student trips and offer it to adults who were hungry for it.
The name? One of my students came up with it. We were sitting around a lunch table talking about what travel meant to us, how it was not just seeing places but getting educated by them. Culture. Education. CulturED. A student I had traveled with handed me the name for a company I had not built yet.
What matters to us
At the heart of every Cultured Travel trip is a commitment to three things: connecting people, creating experiences you’ll remember forever, and leaving a wake of goodness behind us, everywhere we go.
On our tours you’ll learn from outstanding people, often PhD professors, or passionate locals who truly know and love their craft. Whether it’s a historian, artisan or community leader, everyone we partner with is more than just an expert, guide or supplier; they’re a friend who connects you to the heart of each place we visit.
And let’s be honest: epic group experiences only happen with epic people. Our secret? We make it clear from the start.
"Whiny, high-maintenance people who don't travel well and can't gracefully roll with the punches should not join a Cultured Travel tour."
And we mean it
Every trip is built to feel like a friends-and-family adventure, from your very first contact with us to your journey home. On our tours you should expect a blend of pre-planned activities and time to explore on your own, with all of the research and suggestions already done for you.
At a glance
- Based in MARS, Pennsylvania. founded in 2019
- Groups of roughly 14 to 28 travelers
- Twelve destinations on four continents
- Fabulous locals on every departure
At a glance
Our Motto
Epic experiences in spectacular places with awesome people.
Our Team
The people who plan the trips, lead the groups, and answer the phone.
Jewel Rozanski
CEO & Co-Founder
Hola! I am Jewel Rozanski. I have loved to learn through travel ever since I was a little kid taking trips around the U.S. with my family, many rooted in history. I obtained my undergraduate degree in Spanish Education with a minor in History from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, where I gained my first international travel experience studying abroad in Merida, Mexico. Later I obtained my Master of Education degree in Educational Psychology, also from Edinboro.
I taught Spanish for 14 years and served as my school district’s curriculum coordinator for World Language. Being a Spanish teacher opened the door for me to travel more and gave me the chance to do what I am so passionate about: showing people the world and providing opportunities for memorable, life-changing learning experiences. As a teacher I led tour groups nationally and internationally, to Chicago, Gettysburg, New Orleans, New York City, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Italy, Mexico, Peru and Spain.
In December 2020 I became a Certified Travel Advisor through the Travel Institute, and in June 2021 I retired from teaching to jump full time into Cultured Travel. To me there is nothing more awesome than bringing amazing people together and creating fun experiences they will reflect upon with joy forever.
Matt McKissock
Co-Founder
Following my partial retirement from a successful decades-long career as an entrepreneur in the professional licensing education industry, I now spend more time traveling abroad than at home in Warren, Pennsylvania. I have visited over 30 countries in the past five years alone, and my favorite cities are Istanbul, Cairo, London, Rome and Jerusalem, each of which I regularly return to.
I also routinely travel to my other home in Tanzania, where I have been active in the establishment, management and oversight of the Majengo Children’s Home, a Tanzanian orphanage supporting 95 severely at-risk children, for over a decade.
Among the many delights of travel, perhaps the most deeply rewarding for me is when I have the opportunity to nudge great people across the invisible barrier of their comfort zone and limiting beliefs, to travel to sublime, unfamiliar places and engage with others not from their tribe, experiencing first-hand how much more safe, friendly, generous, warm and welcoming the world is than they would ever suspect from staying home and reading the headlines.
Tom Chulick
Tour Director
Guten Tag! Tom Bjorkman Chulick here. My journey traveling started from as early as I can remember. Growing up in the Midwest my family traveled around the country on road trips all over the US. As an adult that fire to travel has only been strengthened.
I studied History and German at Saint Louis University, and in my junior year I studied abroad at Heidelberg University in Germany. My time in Germany was unbelievable, and allowed me to not only intimately know Germany but also travel across Europe. Since then I have traveled to Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Norway, Ireland, England, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Egypt and Turkiye.
To me traveling is all about learning and experiencing the people, the history and the cultures of the places we travel. It’s beautiful to learn how similar we all are, to be graciously humbled by the generosity and kindness of complete strangers who become fast friends in homes far from our own.
Stacey Ludwig
Tour Director
Hello! My name is Stacey Ludwig. I have always wanted to be a world traveler, and said that as soon as my three children were grown and gone I would be off seeing the world. For a number of reasons that was a dream deferred for about a decade. Several years ago I determined that I had waited long enough and embraced the philosophy that if at all possible, I was saying yes to opportunities that came my way. It has been life-changing.
When my friend of many years, Jewel Rozanski, asked if I wanted to travel with her to Egypt on a Cultured Travel tour, I said yes. It was the most amazing trip, and the start of so much more. We have traveled together on several more adventures: New Orleans, Spain, and recently a brand new adventure in Egypt.
I was a Language Arts teacher in the Warren County School District in Warren, Pennsylvania for 26 years. I love watching the light bulb come on when students make connections between literature and real life; now I get to do this with adults in fabulous locations with an amazing array of experts in their fields.