One Hundred Years. One Family.

Every great journey has a beginning, and for the McGeary family, it starts with a horse and a cart.

In the early 1900s, Alfred Owen McGeary was a familiar figure on the muddy, half-formed streets of Melbourne's inner north, hauling logs, ash, sand and gravel through Fitzroy, Essendon and Northcote. It was honest, physical work, and it quietly shaped everything that followed.

Alfred's son Bill grew up watching his father and dreamed of something more. A natural engineer with a gift for seeing where things were heading, Bill believed trucks were the future of transport. When his father's horse and dray business eventually declined through a reluctance to change, that lesson stayed with Bill for the rest of his life and would guide every decision he ever made.

Bill bought a truck and began doing much the same work as his father, until a single moment changed the course of the family's story. When Melbourne's tram drivers went on strike in 1924, Bill improvised by bolting seats into the back of his truck and ferrying commuters around the city. People noticed. Bill noticed too. Moving people, he realised, was where his future lay.

After carefully navigating new regulations and saving what he could, Bill purchased his first proper bus in 1927 which became the quiet, unassuming beginning APT. He ran a feeder service from Northcote into Melbourne's tram and train network, working with the city rather than against it. The business found its footing, and through the hardship of the Depression years it held firm built on Bill's determination and an unshakeable belief that if you cared for your passengers, they would come back.

By 1933 the family had grown and so had the business. Bill relocated to bayside Melbourne, where both would remain. By the late 1940s, he had five buses and around twenty people working alongside him, people who shared his values and his pride in doing things properly.

As car ownership rose through the 1950s and suburban bus routes came under pressure, Bill once again read the landscape clearly. He sold the South Road run while it was still thriving and turned his attention to charter and school runs. McGeary's buses began appearing on social club outings and weekend picnics, on local sporting trips and community gatherings. Without fanfare, the family business had taken its first steps toward something new: leisure, experience, and the joy of travel.

When Geoff McGeary, Bill's son, began finding his feet in the business, he inherited both the challenges and the spirit of everything that had come before. Despite being written off early by those who didn't know him well enough, Geoff had his father's instincts and his father's stubbornness in equal measure. He obtained an underage bus driving license and against the advice of those who said to sell, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

The school runs kept things ticking through the 1960s, but Geoff was always looking ahead, filling the quieter hours with kindergarten outings and local sporting trips, stretching itineraries a little further each time and letting his imagination run. A long and fruitful partnership with Mayer Page gave the business fresh energy and momentum.

By the 1970s, Geoff had made the same bold call his father had made before him, selling the school bus business at its peak and investing in a modern coach fleet to focus entirely on touring. Leisure travel was the future, and the McGeary family was ready for it.

The 1980s were a time of real confidence. APT acquired AAT Kings, reached into Europe and North America, launched Day Tours and grew to a fleet of over 100 coaches. Through it all, the company's motto — we care more— wasn't just something printed on a brochure. It was the way the family did business, and the way every person in the team was asked to show up. In 1993, Mayer Page took the reins of AAT Kings while Geoff continued building APT. strengthening its presence in New Zealand, welcoming Travelmarvel into the family, and founding Botanica World Discoveries.

Then came perhaps the boldest move of all. In 2001, the entire Australian coach fleet was sold, and the proceeds reinvested into a new and exciting chapter: Captain's Choice, Antarctica flights, Kimberley Wilderness Adventures, river cruising through a joint venture with AmaWaterways, and adventures across Canada and Alaska. For those inside the business, each step felt like a natural extension of the last. That is always the mark of a vision well held.

In 2014, the wider world caught up with what the family had always known. Geoff McGeary received an Order of Australia for his service to the tourism industry, and was named Australian Tourism Legend at the Qantas Australian Tourism Awards. For everyone who had worked alongside him, it was a moment of quiet, well-earned pride.

As the business grew, so did its sense of responsibility. The APT Travel Group Foundation was established to support the environmental and humanitarian causes closest to the regions APT calls home — from bushfire-affected communities and Indigenous Australians in the Kimberley, to children's charities in Vietnam. Doing well and doing good, the family believed, were never in conflict.

When COVID-19 arrived, it tested everything. The APT Travel Group worked around the clock to bring thousands of stranded guests home from across the globe, then navigated the long uncertainty of borders opening and closing and the need to reshape parts of the business to protect what mattered most. Through all of it, the trust that customers had placed in The APT Travel Group over generations never faltered and that meant more than words can say.

The business came back stronger. In 2025 — APT's best year on record — the family launched APT Solara and APT Ostara, two beautifully designed river ships created in partnership with Hecker Guthrie, crafted for the next generation of travellers who expect both luxury and meaning from the way they see the world.

In 2026, the family announced a new ship build in Portugal and a new Travelmarvel vessel on the Nile, further expressions of a river cruising ambition that continues to grow. That same year, APT achieved B Corp certification, a global mark of recognition that a business can be built around both profit and purpose. And in a moment that carried its own quiet poetry, APT won the Deloitte Best Managed Business Award, a long way from the accountant who once advised the family to sell and walk away.

A hundred years on from the day Bill McGeary first decided that moving people was the only business worth being in, the McGeary family is still at it, still 100 percent Australian family owned, still guided by the same values, and more excited than ever about the road ahead.

Some stories, it turns out, are only just getting started.