Ayla Besemer

SCOTLAND TRIP LEADER
SCOTLAND, UNITED KINGDOM

Meet Ayla, our Trip Leader for our Scotland Group Trips.

Originally from Colorado, Ayla spent eight years of her childhood living and traveling aboard a 43-foot trawler with her family—journeying 35,000 nautical miles across two continents and two oceans. That early adventure sparked a lifelong love of learning through travel (she’s since studied abroad in France and the Maldives) and a passion for storytelling that runs through everything she does.

A Humanities major at Yale, Ayla focused her studies on feminist literature, journalism, and travel writing before moving to Scotland in 2021 to earn her M.Sc. in Marine Science & Policy from the University of Edinburgh. What was meant to be a temporary stay turned into home—she fell for Scotland’s rhythm, history, and rugged beauty (and for her now-husband). Today, she lives in rural Perthshire with her two dogs, Oscar and Hugo.

When she’s not leading adventures or writing about them, she works with a coalition of environmental nonprofits focused on Colorado River resilience.

Ayla believes food is one of the most intimate ways to understand a place—she’s currently perfecting her Sunday roast and loves sharing Scottish flavors with fellow travelers. You can often find her exploring the countryside in a classic car, metal detecting for glints of Scottish history in the fields of Perthshire, or sampling drams at boutique distilleries tucked into the Highlands