Our background
The Northern Secrets story
Northern Secrets began in 2007, but the story behind it goes back much further – to childhood journeys between Germany and North East England, a local bus garage in a small County Durham village, and an early fascination with travel and the people and places that make it memorable.
WHERE IT REALLY BEGAN
Long before Northern Secrets
Northern Secrets was founded in 2007, but the story really begins much earlier.
Founder Alex Jacobs grew up in Lüdenscheid, Germany, with an English mother and German father. Several times a year, family visits brought him to Ebchester in North East England, where his grandparents lived at the Majestic Garage.
His grandfather drove for Armstrong Motor Services, making the bus garage an irresistible place for a young Alex. There were journeys on the buses, evenings spent sitting behind the wheel pretending to drive — and, from around the age of five, a first job helping to clean them.
His grandfather always said that buses and travel would somehow feature in his future. It would take a few more years for him to be proved right.
My Grandad always said I’d end up working with tours, buses and travel.
– Alex Jacobs, Founder
The journey north
Turning an interest into a profession
In 2004, Alex moved permanently to North East England, combining work with studies at Northumbria University in travel, tourism, urban regeneration and business.
Time working at Woodhorn added another perspective: how the history, culture and industrial heritage of a place could be interpreted and shared with visitors.
In 2007, he trained as a professional Blue Badge Tourist Guide. What had begun years earlier as a fascination with journeys had become a career in showing people the places he had grown to know and love.
Living and working in the region also made Alex realise that the more he discovered, the more apparent it became how much of the North remained overlooked by visitors following Britain’s more familiar routes.
Guiding brought all of those strands together: travel, history, storytelling and, most importantly, people. It also reinforced a belief that the most memorable journeys come from genuine local knowledge and personal connections – an approach that would soon become central to Northern Secrets.
Northern Secrets begins
Local knowledge, shared differently
Northern Secrets was established in 2007 with a focus on creating and guiding journeys through Northern England.
From the beginning, the idea was straightforward: combine genuine destination knowledge with careful planning and personal delivery, helping visitors discover not only the places they had come to see, but the stories, people and landscapes around them.
Private guiding developed into tailor-made journeys. New destinations followed. Relationships with guides, accommodation providers, attractions and local specialists grew alongside the business.
The story today
Still rooted in the North
Today, Northern Secrets creates tailor-made journeys, small group departures and specialist programmes across Northern England, Scotland and Wales.
Over the years, our work has grown well beyond those early days of guiding. In 2017, Experience North was established to develop our work with the international travel trade, groups, cruise operators and destination partners. That wider operation has brought a larger team, an extensive network of regional specialists and considerable experience in delivering complex travel programmes – expertise that also sits behind every Northern Secrets journey.
Much has changed since those childhood days at the Majestic Garage. The journeys are rather more complex, the distances greater and the brown envelopes have disappeared.
But something fundamental remains: a fascination with travel, a belief in knowing the places we work in properly, and the pleasure of helping other people discover them.
Northern Britain isn’t simply where we operate. It’s a place that has been part of the Northern Secrets story from the very beginning.
The story continues
Now, where will your journey take you?
From the places we know best to journeys that reach across Northern Britain, every new story begins with a conversation. Tell us what you’re imagining, and we’ll take it from there.