Ihab Zaki is the President of Spiekermann Travel Service, a Michigan-based travel agency established in the 1940's.
It was only natural that Ihab selected a career in the travel industry. His mother is one of Egypt's top Egyptologists/guides who instilled in her son a love of history and travel. He began his career working in a travel agency in Egypt handling inbound visiting tourists from all over the world.
After moving to the U.S. and purchasing Spiekermann in 1991, the Cairo native decided to expand the business beyond his familiar Egypt. He began scouting nearby destinations which at the time were obscure and seldom visited by Americans, including Jordan and Syria. It snowballed from there where every year or two he would offer new destinations.
Today, Spiekermann's repertoire includes adventures to all of the Near East from Morocco to as far as Central Asia, plus the Balkans and little visited countries in East and West Africa and South America.
Spiekermann has established its reputation as being a leading operator of private and group tours to some of the world’s most exotic and least know locations. Their claim to fame is for running adventures to some of the world’s diciest and scariest destinations. Their clientele has mushroomed through the years with many guests becoming repeat customers. In fact, a few have even taken 20 or more trips with Spiekermann!
Ihab earned both his B.A. in Economics and his M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from The American University in Cairo.
In this episode, Ihab shares his one way ticket to continuous travel! In so doing, he talks about journeys to some of the places he'd like to revisit including: Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Armenia, Saudi Arabia, and his native Egypt.
Ihab is just one of the accomplished guests featured on The One Way Ticket Show, where Host Steven Shalowitz explores with his guests where they'd go if given a one way ticket, no coming back! Destinations may be in the past, present, future, real, imaginary or a state of mind.
Steven's guests have included: Nobel Peace Prize Winner, President Jose Ramos-Horta; Legendary Talk Show Host, Dick Cavett; Law Professor, Alan Dershowitz; Broadcast Legend, Charles Osgood; International Rescue Committee President & CEO, David Miliband; Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty; Journalist-Humorist-Actor Mo Rocca; Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.; Abercrombie & Kent Founder, Geoffrey Kent; Travel Expert, Pauline Frommer, as well as leading photographers, artists, chefs, writers, intellectuals and more.