In the spring of 1963, Gordon Fairbank and the late Bernie Taylor, two young Canadians with a shared passion for travel, founded Horizon Holidays. While their initial ambition was nothing more that to temporarily defer the drudgery of a more conventional career, their venture became an almost immediate success. At the time, the combination of creative itineraries, all-inclusive escorted journeys, and quality creature comforts was highly unusual, and it struck a chord in a population just beginning to enjoy the fruits of economic affluence. That first summer, they escorted groups of 30 tour members to the east and west coasts of Canada on the inaugural journeys. 

After the early success of the new venture, Gordon and Bernie never looked back. The firm grew rapidly, and in the process pioneered many new destinations around the world, from the plains of Africa to the wilds of Newfoundland. Horizon opened up the Yangtze River with their early river boat cruises, chartered old De Havilands and flew them up into the High Arctic, brought the Oberammergau to rural Canada and ventured into the heart of the great white continent of Antarctica long before it became trendy. In the 70's Horizon launched its infamous annual road shows, a touring travel carnival of sound and light that crossed the entire country, from the villages of rural Ontario to the outposts of the Maritimes, keeping the faithful in touch with the spirit of Horizon and providing a unique opportunity for conducting reunions with old friends.

Through the 80's and the 90's the business continued to grow, adding staff and offices across the country, opening up new parts of the world to international travel, and introducing new people to the joys of small group luxury travel. An entire generation of travellers experienced their first taste of foreign cultures within the framework of a Horizon trip, and an equally large contingent of guides funded their adventures on the back of leading Horizon trips to exotic places. Although Bernie & Gordon are no longer involved in the business, their legacy lives on in the culture of the company and in the memories of the literally tens of thousands of travellers around the world who have experienced the magic of a Horizon journey.

Horizon today is still a Canadian-owned privately-held company run by owners-operators with a shared passion for the business and pleasure of travel. Norman and Andrew are intimately involved in the operation of the business and they are collectively working towards re-inventing the company and the travel business at large (they are nothing if not ambitious). Although they have started to transform the company to reflect their own vision of what it takes to be a great travel company in the new millennium, the core values on which the company was built have stayed constant. 

At the end of the day, people travel with a travel company because that company has earned their trust. Travel companies earn the trust of their travellers through an ongoing commitment to excellence, expressed as a constant process of creative reinvention and backed up by an obsessive attention to detail and a profound sense of respect. Horizon achieved its position as one of the best travel companies in the country as a result of this commitment to excellence, and while the original founders may be gone, the commitment itself endures.