Who we are
A boutique operator that still plans every trip itself
ActivSport Travel has been designing international sports and educational group travel since 2006. We are deliberately small, we work directly with local partners, and we believe the point of the trip is what your travelers carry home.
Our mission
Be a traveler, not a tourist
We exist to give athletes and students an international experience that is genuinely theirs — earned through competition, conversation and time spent somewhere long enough to understand it.
That is why every itinerary we build rests on four pillars, and why we refuse to run the kind of trip where a group sees a country through a coach window. Sport is the bridge. Culture, adventure and education are what the bridge is for.
Adventure
Culture
Education
Sport
Core values
- Care about clients and travel
- Live the mission
- Respect diversity and embrace differences
- Be better citizens of the world
- Have fun and enjoy the journey
- Integrity
The founder
Jeff Davis
In 2006, while finishing his degree at EM Lyon Business School, Jeff Davis launched ProActive Travel from his student residence hall in Lyon. He was a former NCAA scholarship athlete in soccer and basketball, a university team captain and coach in France, and a high-level referee in the Ligue Rhône-Alpes with a working relationship with Olympique Lyonnais.
Those relationships are the reason American teams started asking for trips. By 2008, educational sports travel was the core of the business. The company relaunched as ActivSport Travel in 2019, and it is still the founder’s network — clubs, coaches, guides, hoteliers — that the itineraries are built on.
- NCAA scholarship athlete in soccer and basketball
- University team captain and coach in France
- High-level referee in the Ligue Rhône-Alpes
- Working relationship with Olympique Lyonnais
- EM Lyon Business School graduate
- Nearly two decades arranging international group travel
Also founded by Jeff
Jeff went on to found the Student Athletes Without Borders Foundation (SAWB), a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit, as a natural extension of the same belief: that sport connects people across cultures, and that travel should benefit host communities as much as the visitors. SAWB works with local leaders to identify real needs, which is how our groups can optionally build a service component into a trip. Service & Impact.
Our story
Nearly twenty years, one trip at a time
2006
Founded in Lyon as ProActive Travel
Jeff Davis started the company from his residence hall while completing his degree at EM Lyon Business School — initially arranging travel for individual and small-group clients.
2008
Educational sports travel becomes the core
American teams began asking for trips built around real competition abroad. Within two years, custom sports and educational group travel was the whole business.
2010s
University and college programs
Groups from Harvard, Brown, Bucknell, Northeastern, Michigan, Binghamton, Earlham and Waynesburg traveled on trips designed around their seasons and academic calendars.
2019
Relaunched as ActivSport Travel
A sharper focus: fewer trips, planned better, with sport as the bridge into culture rather than the entire itinerary.
Today
Boutique by choice
More than 30 destinations, in-house planning, direct supplier relationships, and a deliberately small operation so coaches keep dealing with the person who planned their trip.
By the numbers
Small on purpose
We take on the groups we can plan properly. That constraint is the product.
2006
Founded
Originally ProActive Travel
30+
Destinations
Across three regions
16
Sports arranged
From soccer and basketball to rugby and skiing
In-house
Every itinerary
No outsourced planning
Questions about how we operate? Read the FAQs
Two decades of groups
Programs that have trusted us with their travel
Since 2006 we have planned international travel for college and university athletic programs, high schools, clubs and school groups across the United States. Institutions we have planned travel for over the years include:
- Harvard University
- Brown University
- Bucknell University
- Northeastern University
- University of Michigan
- Binghamton University
- Earlham College
- Waynesburg University
Listed as organizations for which ActivSport Travel (or its predecessor, ProActive Travel) has planned travel. Not an endorsement, sponsorship or current partnership.
Start planning
Let's talk about your group
Tell us the sport, the roster size and roughly when you want to travel. We'll come back with destinations that actually fit — and honest pricing.
Prefer email? Write to groups@astravel.world