Ben Keene

From Tribewanted

Real Life: Ben Keene

Tribe Name: Chief Bengazi

Roles in tribewanted: Founder. Island developer. Island Community Co-ordinator.

It was in a Heathrow departure lounge in 2004 that Ben first discovered the famously friendly Fijians. Tony, a 24 year old Fijian serving in the British Army, was returning home when he sat down next to Ben for the trans-Atlantic flight. The two chatted all the way to the other side of the world where Tony invited Ben to stay with his family in a small village in the mountains to celebrate his brother’s birthday. The party went on for three days and Ben soon found himself part of a real Fijian tribe. So when, a couple of years later, MJ and Ben started searching for islands to form a new, global tribe, Fiji was soon back on the map. A month later and the pair had spent their last savings on a return flight to the South Pacific…

Through his work in adventure travel, international development and more recently running time-out magazine, Career Break Café, Ben has often found himself in the middle of an adventure in some remote part of the world. So when Ben’s mate Mark challenged him to a bet to form a 5000-strong global tribe that would develop an eco-community on a tropical island, Ben knew that this would be the start of his biggest