Founder

Brett Naisby

Founder & Chief Adventurer

Originally from Ottawa, Canada, Brett has spent a lifetime blending his passion for travel, culture, and the great outdoors. After studying in Canada and France, he earned a Master’s Degree in International Studies from McGill University in 1990. That same year, he began guiding luxury biking and walking tours in France for Butterfield & Robinson, sparking his love for adventure travel.

In 1994, Brett left a promising career with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs to return to Europe full-time, this time settling in Tuscany’s enchanting Chianti wine region. He founded Customwalks Ltd. in 1996, and over the years, his small company grew into what you see here, a still small, but thriving boutique tour operator with more than 30 years of experience. In 2018, Brett established Customwalks Italia Srl, a licensed and bonded tour operator in the European Union. In 2023 he closed his New Zealand company and now everything is run from Italy. 

Brett’s collaborations have included a 23-year partnership with REI Adventures, for whom Customwalks provided hiking and biking tours in Italy and France. To date, he has designed and run hundreds of tours for thousands of travelers in destinations ranging from Italy, France, and Spain to Croatia, Turkey, Greece, Algeria, Slovenia, New Zealand, and even the Republic of Georgia.

As a hands-on leader, Brett still researches new itineraries and personally audits several tours each year for quality control purposes. He is the first to admit that he's not a businessman at heart (we're hardly a marketing juggernaut!) but rather a bon vivant and traveler who has been lucky to apply his interests and passions to create a thriving little company. He is ably helped by the wonderful people you see on the "Our Guides" page. Until 2023, Brett divided his time between homes in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Tuscany, but now he is a full-time resident in Chianti.