‘If you’re afraid don’t start and once you start, don’t be afraid.’
“If you endeavour, fate will favour you.”
Mongolian proverbs that have guided us
Eternal Landscapes began at a windswept campsite in the Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park.
Turuu and I had already spent four years working together in Mongolia as driver and tour leader for a UK adventure travel company. When the company was sold and restructured and our jobs came to an end, I had to break the news to Turuu.
His response was simple:
“Boss, why don’t we start our own company?”
Neither of us came from a business background. We hadn’t studied tourism and we had no investors or grand business plan. What we did have was several years of experience travelling and working together across Mongolia — and some strong ideas about the kind of tourism company we wanted to create.
I had become increasingly uncomfortable with the stereotypical version of Mongolia often sold to visitors. Mongolia’s nomadic traditions and wilderness are important, but they are only part of a much more diverse, contemporary country. We wanted our journeys to reflect Mongolia as we knew it: its landscapes and traditions, but also its towns, changing lifestyles, ordinary routines and the broad spectrum of people navigating life here in the 21st century.
So, in 2010, Eternal Landscapes began.
We started small — on a wing and a prayer, bootstrapping our way up — and although we have grown, we have deliberately chosen to remain small.
In those early years we kept our other jobs and lived frugally. My Ulaanbaatar base was a $6 dorm bed shared with five other people. I learned how to build a website and write a blog; Turuu mastered the art of small talk. Between us, we worked out the rest as we went along.
Some of the challenges we faced early on helped shape the company we are today. Rather than relying solely on conventional tourist accommodation, we began developing long-term relationships with families and communities. And knowing that most of our drivers would be men, we made a deliberate decision to create opportunities for Mongolian women through our trip assistant team.
Those decisions weren’t originally marketing strategies. They were practical responses to running a small tourism business in Mongolia. Over time, they became fundamental to how Eternal Landscapes operates.
We have made mistakes along the way and undoubtedly will again. What matters to us is acknowledging them, learning from them and continuing to improve.
We remain independent, intentionally small and without outside investors. That allows us to stay closely involved in our journeys, our team and the relationships on which EL has been built.
Jess first arrived in Mongolia in 2006 as an international tour leader and co-founded Eternal Landscapes with Turuu in 2010.
She designs EL’s journeys, drawing on quiet experience, deep local knowledge and a genuine love for Mongolia and her team. Her approach is shaped as much by years spent on the road as by working alongside the people who make each journey possible and understanding the realities of travel on the ground.
Jess believes tourism should create opportunities beyond the traveller, particularly for women, smaller local businesses and communities. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and Eternal Landscapes was named Gender Equality Champion by Equality in Tourism.
Jess currently divides her time between Mongolia and Devon, where she cares for her mother. Moved by the pressures of modern life on nature and wildlife in the landscape where she grew up, she co-founded Wild Oke — a small community wildlife group.
Turuu is the Mongolian co-founder of Eternal Landscapes and has worked in tourism for more than 30 years.
An expert driver, mechanic, problem-solver and team leader, he is happiest on the open road and has an extraordinary practical understanding of travelling across Mongolia.
Born into a herding family in the Gobi and now living in Ulaanbaatar’s ger districts, Turuu has experienced very different sides of contemporary Mongolian life. That perspective influences everything from the teams EL builds to the people and communities we choose to work alongside.
A highlight of Jess and Turuu’s partnership is their shared vision for Chandmana Erdene — an initiative created to provide long-term, structured tourism training for Mongolian women beyond the usual tourism circuit, while also opening new opportunities for older men who can face different pressures and expectations within Mongolian society.
At its heart, Chandmana Erdene reflects the same values that have shaped Eternal Landscapes from the beginning: creating opportunity, challenging assumptions and using tourism to benefit more than the traveller.
