About Us – Finding Alegria

Our Journey

Our travel to find alegria first truly began on the dry desert seeming land of southern Madrid in September 2013. As fresh twenty two year olds we left our masters acceptance letters, job offers, and family businesses at home to embark on a once in a lifetime unforgettable journey across the great pond.

NYC to Madrid for ten months, where we would start from scratch for the first time ever. We searched for an apartment, opened bank accounts, started new jobs, learned the train system, but most of all we traveled. We traveled both near and far, alone and in groups, met with strangers and friends, and honestly it had been the most impacting year of our lives to date; not simply because of the things we saw or the people met but the rush of emotions that came with each event.

Today, we continue our personal Madrilenan tradition of visiting foreign unknown worlds. We do it for the adventure, the escape, picturesque scenery, the amazing stories, the lifetime friends we met along the way.

For us travel is an indescribable yet tangible emotion. It’s the quickening pulse when our plane takes off or we hit 100 on the open road. The fluttering of our hearts when we see a baby sloth or hike to the highest point in a city. But most all it’s freedom that invigorates our bodies and gives life to our weary souls. We are free of others’ judgement, free to be ourselves, free to feel new and refreshed by the surrounding wonders, unattached to any personal chaos. No anchor to our daily routine. Feelings are after all the main if not only motivators in any decision in life.

This is why we travel…

Your Travel Companions

Priya Santos

The Trendy Traveler

At the age of seventeen there were several things on my goal list. Among them, and one of my main goals, to travel! I sort of felt that it would always just happen and that I wouldn’t need to worry about it. Boy was I wrong ! Alexis taught me – the time is now! And when she gave me an application to teach with her in Spain, I reluctantly said yes. It turned out to be of the best experiences of our lives!

Several years later and quite a few adventures under my belt, I cannot imagine going back to a life without travel. I travel for fluttering feeling in my heart every time we board a plane, hop on a foreign train, or jump on a cross country coach bus. I travel for the quickening heartbeat that happens when flying down a foreign road in a rental car. I travel for the feeling of anonymity in a foreign city and for the memories I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.

Alexis Singh

The Frugal Flyer

I think that wandering and meeting new people has always been my thing. My mom always tells me about the time she lost me at Coney Island and had lifeguards looking for me, only to realize that I made a friend on the beach. We dug a hole in the sand and were playing in the crashing waves.

I can say that 20 years later not much has changed. I moved on from Coney Island and have found myself wandering to distant states and countries searching for interesting people and breathtaking views. I am currently helping my family with their real estate management company in the Bronx, which is both rewarding and exhausting. I look to travel as my escape from the mundane, a new perspective, when I can’t see beyond the now.