Guest Bio
Alex Vizcaino is the Founding Partner of Authentic Mexico Tours, an inbound tour operator and destination management company based in Cancun, Mexico. With over 14 years of experience in business development and product management, Alex, alongside co-founder Paulina Alpuche, established Authentic Mexico Tours to showcase the country’s rich culture, diverse landscapes, and hidden gems. Their shared passion for Mexico’s authentic experiences drives them to provide personalized and immersive travel services.
Show Summary
In this episode, Alex Vizcaino discusses the inception of Authentic Mexico Tours and the vision behind offering genuine Mexican experiences to travelers. He shares insights into the challenges and rewards of operating a tour company that emphasizes cultural immersion and sustainable tourism. Alex also reflects on his extensive career in the travel industry and how it has shaped his approach to creating memorable journeys for clients.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Passion-Driven Entrepreneurship – Building a business rooted in love for culture and travel.
- ✓ Cultural Immersion – The importance of authentic experiences in tourism.
- ✓ Sustainable Tourism Practices – Balancing business growth with environmental and cultural preservation.
- ✓ Personalized Travel Planning – Crafting itineraries that cater to individual interests and preferences.
- ✓ Overcoming Industry Challenges – Navigating the complexities of the tourism sector in a dynamic environment.
What You’ll Find on Authentic Mexico Tours’ Platform
- ✓ Customized Itineraries – Tailored travel plans highlighting Mexico’s diverse regions and cultures.
- ✓ Local Partnerships – Collaborations with local communities and businesses to ensure genuine experiences.
- ✓ Sustainable Practices – Commitment to eco-friendly and culturally respectful tourism.
- ✓ Expert Guides – Knowledgeable professionals providing deep insights into Mexican heritage.
- ✓ Comprehensive Support – Dedicated assistance throughout the travel planning and execution process.
👉 Visit Authentic Mexico Tours’ Official Website to explore their offerings and learn more about Alex Vizcaino’s contributions to authentic Mexican tourism.
Learn more about Authentic Mexico Tours and connect with Alex at:
https://authenticmexicotours.com/
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Podcast Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.
Jason Elkins (00:00.83)
Welcome everybody to another episode of the big world made small podcast for the adventure traveler Today we’ve got Alex Vizcaino here he is the general manager of Authentic Mexico Tours Alex, uh, we I practiced your name a couple times before I pushed record. I’m not sure I quite got it right Um bizcaino see is that right? All right. I think the first time I used a little bit more of the v sound Um, but yeah, so bizcaino so
Alex Vizcaino (00:21.469)
You got that perfect.
Jason Elkins (00:29.738)
Alex, welcome to the show. So happy to have you here.
Alex Vizcaino (00:32.362)
Oh, very happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Jason Elkins (00:35.182)
No, it’s my pleasure. This is actually my first opportunity to really have a conversation with somebody that’s operating in Mexico, which is kind of interesting because tourism is huge in Mexico. There’s a huge connection between folks in the States that are visiting Mexico and other places in the world. And there’s so many cool things to see and do in Mexico. I’ve been fortunate to spend some time there. So I’m really excited to have this conversation with you, learn a little bit about you.
sure some more about Mexico so yeah thanks again for being here. Alex
Alex Vizcaino (01:09.598)
Thank you very much for that intro. I hope I live up to expectations then.
Jason Elkins (01:14.099)
There’s no doubt in my mind. I’ve, you know, I’ve fortunately had a conversation with you earlier this week and learned a little bit, but I didn’t want to ask too many questions because I love the spontaneity that just comes up in a regular conversation. And I’m sure by now our listeners have figured out that it’s just a real kind of unscripted conversation without any editing or anything. So let’s, let’s see what happens, Alex. And let’s, let’s start with, I think everybody’s always interested in.
of background because people that work in this type of business usually have some kind of interesting story. I trust you do as well. So let’s go back in history just a little bit as far as you want to go to like maybe your first memory that you think played a part in what you’re doing now.
Alex Vizcaino (01:59.026)
So I think, let me see where to begin this story. So I think I fell in love with traveling when I was a little kid. I grew up on the west side of Mexico. I live in Cancun, which is in the east corner of Mexico. But I grew up on the west side. And when I was growing up, my parents were not affluent people. It’s not like we were poor, we were not struggling to put food on the table or anything, but we were not affluent. But what that meant was that
We would road trip a lot during the summer, right? So we wouldn’t take flights, we wouldn’t take long vacations, but we would road trip a lot. And I just loved those trips with my family. It was visiting neighboring states, wherever we could drive to. It was exploring a lot in the cities and national parks and natural parks and whatnot. I fell in love with that. And yeah, it wouldn’t be fair to omit one of my uncles, my mom’s brother.
He took me traveling around Mexico a lot when I was little. The very first exciting travel memory I think I have, like the most exciting one is my mom put me on a bus that departed at 9 p.m. when I was about 10 years old, which was a huge deal at the time for me. So she put me, my sister, and my grandma in a bus at night so we could get to Mexico City where my uncle lived.
And we stayed for a handful of nights with my uncle. And then we drove to Puebla. From Puebla, we drove to Oaxaca. And it was an amazing experience for a 10-year-old, first time away from home. It was amazing. And then with that same uncle, as the time went by, we kept going.
on more travels, sometimes just me and him, sometimes other cousins, my siblings and whatnot. It was always an amazing experience. Like the most adventurous stuff I have ever done was probably with him when I was about 18 years old. It was amazing experiences and that paved the way for me to fall in love with my country, that paved the way for me to fall in love with travel.
Jason Elkins (04:06.81)
It kind of set the stage for sure. I can kind of imagine that having taken some buses in Mexico and traveled around a little bit. I, of course, I did it as an adult, so I can’t imagine the experience as a 10 year old. Um, you know, it’s, that’s, I’m curious, how old was your grandmother roughly when, when you went on that trip?
Alex Vizcaino (04:17.81)
Hehehehe
Alex Vizcaino (04:26.222)
Oh, that’s a good question. So she’s about 85 now and that was about 25 years ago. So she must have been around 60 at the time.
Jason Elkins (04:35.774)
Okay, so you were supervised or chaperoned to some extent. Still exciting.
Alex Vizcaino (04:41.613)
And my sister was one year older than me and she was in that trip as well.
Jason Elkins (04:46.942)
All right, very cool. And how many siblings do you have in your family?
Alex Vizcaino (04:50.942)
It’s three of us. I’m the middle child. And my mom says all these stereotypes about middle child, about the middle child are true. Um, but yeah.
Jason Elkins (04:53.742)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (04:59.758)
Uh-huh. So what part of that is the most true? Cause I’ve heard a lot of different things about middle kids and one is that they are pretty good at manipulating or maybe it’s what’s kind of like, what’s where you’re in the middle. So you’re trying to kind of blend in and keep everybody happy. I don’t know, what are your thoughts?
Alex Vizcaino (05:11.591)
Uh oh.
Alex Vizcaino (05:23.266)
Oh, you know that blend in and keep everybody happy is something that I developed a little bit later in life. I just, I just want to make people laugh. I want to make people have a good time and get along with each other. Get along with me. That’s something that I developed later in life. Earlier in life, I was the rebellious one, quote unquote. Yeah. I was always getting a time of getting grounded and stuff for things that I may have or not have done.
Jason Elkins (05:40.946)
Oh, okay. Okay.
Jason Elkins (05:50.122)
That, that makes sense because, you know, I grew up, it was just me and my brother. So there were the two of us and I was the older one. And I can imagine with the, if you’ve got a middle child, the first one gets a lot of attention because they’re the first born and they’re, you know, always mommy’s little baby, whatever. And, and then the latter, the last one is the youngest. They usually require a little bit more attention. So sometimes I think the kid in the middle, it’s like, they have to do something to get attention. So I could see, I could see that.
Alex Vizcaino (06:19.611)
That’s exactly right.
Jason Elkins (06:19.914)
And all right, cool, cool. And I’m curious, I definitely want to know a little bit about your uncle, but I’m also curious because it sounds like your parents also were involved in getting you out there and doing stuff, what kind of work or what kind of background did your parents come from that you think inspired them to kind of help instill that love of travel in you.
Alex Vizcaino (06:41.99)
That’s a very good question. Let me think about that. So my mom was a stay-at-home mom Her full-time job was taking care of three children Which now that I have my own my own children I get that that’s a full-time job. Yeah, it’s crazy And my dad was an architect and I think I don’t know Yeah, I’m actually not sure how much my mom what to travel when she was younger My dad did pretty much the same that I did which is travel
Jason Elkins (06:50.263)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (06:54.274)
That’s more than full time.
Alex Vizcaino (07:11.618)
around Mexico a lot with his siblings and his parents. And he always, he was the one that always wanted to get out. My dad can’t stay in one place. My dad can’t stay at home. He likes to.
see things he likes to be out and he I think he was the one that encouraged us the most to let’s just get the car and get out explore your own state explore neighboring states and get to know what’s out there and I think it was a little bit of uh I know I can’t give you more I know I can’t buy plane tickets for all of us but there’s a lot to see and do in the neighboring states so let’s explore that
Jason Elkins (07:46.39)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (07:52.246)
Yeah. I get that completely. I’m curious about it. When you told me he was an architect, I just had a moment of, you know, if you were to go back and listen to a lot of these episodes, I think you’d be surprised how many tour operators, adventure tour operators have fathers that were either architects or engineers. I just, I, and I’m like, Hmm, I wonder if there’s something behind that. Um, was.
Alex Vizcaino (08:11.206)
Oh, is that so?
That’s interesting.
Jason Elkins (08:18.946)
Let me ask you this, because you’ve been working in tourism quite a while. Did your dad have the personality that he could have worked in tourism? Could your dad have led Tours or is he more of a typical, like typically we think of architects and engineers as being more into things than people. So I’m curious. Um, yeah, I, those that can’t see your face, I just kind of a little look of acknowledgement. So tell us more.
Alex Vizcaino (08:37.77)
So, yeah, so my dad, I think I like to think that I take a lot after him. We can be very outspoken people once we develop, you know, this trust and confidence with people. But if left alone, we’re fine alone. You know, like I could lead a tour. I don’t do that, but I could lead a tour.
Jason Elkins (09:01.954)
Okay.
Alex Vizcaino (09:06.662)
because I would get in the mindset, right? Now I’m tour leader Alex and I have to do this and I think my dad would be the same. And in a social gathering, we’re very affable people, very approachable people, but it’s not something that we pursue. He doesn’t and I don’t, which is odd sometimes for a person in tourism. Ha ha ha.
Jason Elkins (09:24.718)
And so, well, no, it makes sense because I think that’s one of the interesting things about tourism is there’s a variety of positions or jobs or roles within tourism that demand a different skill set. So for example, and I know you’ve seen it, I know I’ve seen it.
Sometimes the person that’s the best tour guide or tour director, you know, out in the field with the clients, you know, maybe they can take a group of 50 people or five people, whatever, and they can go for a week and a half. And everybody is just raving and so happy. But if you took that person and said, okay, here’s an itinerary, I need you to check all the details. I need you to reach out to the vendors. I need you to negotiate the contracts and stuff like that. After about 10 days, they’d be like, I quit.
I can’t do this, I’m gonna go work at a restaurant. So what I heard you say, and I don’t wanna put in, I don’t wanna overanalyze it or interpret it too much, but what I kinda heard you say is maybe with your father, if you’re similar to your father, architects are generally kind of a little bit better planners, a little bit more interested in the details and putting procedures in place to keep things kind of organized, which is a super important part.
of the tourism business if you’ve got to have somebody doing that. So did I get that right? It sounds like you fit into that area a little bit more.
Alex Vizcaino (10:52.134)
That is correct. That is correct. And like I said, if I, if I had to go out and lead a tour, I would, and I believe I would do a good job, but I feel more comfortable. Like you said, you know, putting processes in place, planning, costing, negotiating contracts, all of that thing. And I think you, you hit the nail right on the head. I know guides who have said, listen, I’m just going to do my own thing. And they set up their company and they get so frustrated with the business side of things, you know, they don’t want to talk to suppliers. They don’t want to negotiate contracts.
I mean, guiding is not for everybody, but at the same time, the business side of things is not for everybody either. And like you said, there’s a personality type for each task that needs to be done in this job. That’s the reality of it. And I’m fortunate to have people in my network that complement my skillset.
Jason Elkins (11:40.319)
Yeah, yeah.
And I’m sure that, cause you work a lot of, do a lot of work as a DMC and for anybody that’s not familiar with that destination management company, where you’re kind of the boots on the ground and you’ve got operators that maybe do day Tours or longer Tours that you’ve got a close connection with the, when, when someone from the States, maybe a tour operator in the U S says, I’ve got some clients or a travel agent in the U S has some clients that wants to go to Mexico, they can come to you and you can kind of put all the parts together, which means. That.
some of those guides that we were just talking about are your suppliers, right? So I know that you could probably name five or six people right now that you do business with that you have to actually create the invoices for them so they can get paid. You have to help them create their own calendars so you can check availability and they might be amazing guides, but it’s they need.
Alex Vizcaino (12:15.698)
That is correct.
Jason Elkins (12:37.038)
I would say they need somebody like you to kind of, because if they just put up a website, they’re not gonna make any, they’re not gonna get any business because people are gonna inquire and they’re gonna have to actually respond and they’re gonna have to send out quotes and do all that stuff, so, huh.
Alex Vizcaino (12:52.654)
Yes, exactly. And it has happened, you know, that I recommend accounting people to guides and I recommend whatever other outsourcing that they need because they just don’t want to deal with that side of the business. And let’s say, listen, talk to this guy, he’s going to help you with bookkeeping, or whatever it is.
Jason Elkins (12:58.541)
Hm?
Jason Elkins (13:05.867)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (13:11.495)
Yep, now I see the need. It’s actually, there’s probably a, I mean, you’re right. We have bookkeepers, we have different, you know, tech people, website designers, all these different types of people that we can refer to. But I’m doing some operations work for a DMC here in Columbia.
And I reached out to a supplier the other day trying to figure out his prices and he would send me one price at a time through WhatsApp with very vague. You know, is this rack? Is this now what it, you know, and finally he’s like, I’ll put together a price sheet. And I’m like, okay, cool. And then three days later, I got this price sheet. I could not read. Not because it was in Spanish. My Spanish is okay. But it was like, it made no, it was, he spent a lot of time on it. It was like four pages and obviously he used a spreadsheet and he had it color coded.
Alex Vizcaino (13:48.726)
Hahaha
Jason Elkins (14:00.13)
but I couldn’t make it, I couldn’t make any sense of it. And I was like, you know, maybe I should, cause I do contract work, I’m like, maybe I should go to him and say, hey, I’ll build a price sheet for you. Cause it’s like, oh man, it’s, it definitely, so you see a lot of that stuff, but he’s a great, he’s actually, I think a transfer, transfer company and does a great job.
Alex Vizcaino (14:09.506)
Mm-hmm. That’s an opportunity.
Jason Elkins (14:26.582)
You know, but it’s yeah. So anyway, so that’s just some interesting things that have come. Okay I don’t want to hear about your uncle because clearly he was an important part of this as well. What was he doing? What’s different between him and your dad or what would you like to share about your uncle because obviously he made a real impact
Alex Vizcaino (14:33.915)
Okay.
Alex Vizcaino (14:46.886)
Honestly, he did. He made me fall in love with actual travel and quote unquote actual adventure. And when I say actual adventure, I don’t mean to say extreme risk adventure, but I’ll give you an example. About almost 20 years ago, we went to a part of Mexico that is called San Luis Potosi.
At the time, it wasn’t as developed as it is now. So it was a lot of back roads, dirt roads. I didn’t have Google Maps. He didn’t have Google Maps. So it was literally him, his car, and me with a map. And actually, a compass. We’re supposed to be going Northwest. Are we going Northwest? Yes, we’re going Northwest. OK, let’s keep going. And let’s try to find the roads and the map. To me.
Jason Elkins (15:27.619)
Hmm?
Alex Vizcaino (15:38.97)
That was an amazing experience. I still love maps. I’m grateful for Google Maps, but I love printed maps. It’s just part of me. I have a bunch stacked back there. I work with maps when designing itineraries. I love that part of it. He was an electrical engineer. He is, I’m sorry. He is still an electrical engineer. He still does that. He hasn’t.
Jason Elkins (16:02.462)
An engineer. Hmm. Interesting. Ha ha ha.
Alex Vizcaino (16:04.434)
Exactly, you were saying you were just saying that he is an electrical engineer. He is at the verge of retiring, but he hasn’t yet. And with him, I lived some of the most amazing experiences in some of the most amazing parts of Mexico. Like I said, some parts we visited before they became.
mainstream things, at least for Mexicans, right? Those parts of Mexico still don’t get a lot of tourists because of connectivity and infrastructure and a lot of issues, but us Mexicans do visit these places a lot, but 20 years ago there was nobody there. We got there and there was nobody there. It was an amazing experience. There was this one time where we were driving this back road, hoping we would make to…
A place called Sotano de las Golondrinas de Sotano is like, it’s an opening in a mountain, kind of like a vertical cave going into the mountain. I don’t know the proper word for this in English, I’m sorry. But in this place in Mexico, there live thousands and thousands of parakeets and they go out in the morning, spiraling up, flying up.
in a spiral, they go out of the cave and they do their thing during the day, they come back at sunset. So we were rushing on the mountain, you know, driving through the mountain, trying to…
be there on time for the parakeets to head back into the cave. We managed together. We were running in the mountain. We parked somewhere. We were running in the mountain. We fell. It was so good. We watched the parakeets go in. And then we camped near the hole so that we can see them go out at sunrise, right? So we got up by sunrise. This is one of the most amazing experiences ever, honestly. I have.
Alex Vizcaino (17:57.978)
gone camping in the wilderness in New Zealand and the skies there are amazing but nothing like the sky in San Luis Potosi that night was oh my god and I think it was the Leonids. Meteor shower it was so good so many shooting stars we got up in the morning and start preparing our eggs with chorizo for breakfast you know after seeing the parakeets and then these little kids that actually live on the mountains and this little town approaches
Jason Elkins (18:10.768)
Mm, yeah.
Alex Vizcaino (18:27.538)
and they wanted to trade the breakfasts. So we trade our eggs and chorizo with their coffee and tamales. It was so good and it was just you know connecting with local people. Like a true unplanned connection with local people sharing stories about living in Mexico City, living in Guadalajara and whatnot, living in bigger cities and them living in the mountains in a tiny little town. Amazing experience.
Jason Elkins (18:44.866)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (18:56.802)
That is, I want to go and I’m curious. Do you remember, do you know or have any idea how your uncle knew about this place?
Alex Vizcaino (19:06.862)
Right, so honestly there’s a publication. It was very popular at the time. It is declining, unfortunately now, which was called Mexico Desconocido, which translates into unknown Mexico. It’s a very nice publication and he got a lot of ideas from there. It’s a travel publication, right, for Mexico, about Mexico. And he got a lot of ideas there. No, of course not.
Jason Elkins (19:30.178)
So it wasn’t Instagram. He didn’t see someone’s post on Instagram. And.
Alex Vizcaino (19:36.48)
We didn’t have even, he didn’t have Facebook. I didn’t have Facebook at the time. It was a thing. We just didn’t use it. So it wasn’t even that, you know.
Jason Elkins (19:40.587)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (19:46.012)
That’s so cool. And it comes back, you know, when I introduced you earlier, it’s, you know, authentic Mexico, right? I mean, you just, you could not have described authentic Mexico better than the kids from the, you know, the Pueblo came down and wanted to trade their tamales for your eggs in chorizo. And I mean, that’s cool.
Alex Vizcaino (19:58.054)
Hehehehehehe
Alex Vizcaino (20:07.146)
And honestly, that’s what we aim to achieve now as authentic Mexico tourists, is that very nice mix of plant and serendipity, you know, and I think that adds a very nice flavor to any trip anywhere in the world. But Mexico lends itself very nicely for it because we’re very warm people. So we want to chat with visitors, we want to exchange.
Jason Elkins (20:17.663)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (20:27.468)
Yeah.
No, I have absolutely.
Alex Vizcaino (20:36.838)
Anything. You know, ideas, conversations, our food.
Jason Elkins (20:40.214)
Yeah, it’s interesting because you mentioned that kind of like a mix of, you know, that serendipity and planning. It’s so super important in this business. There are people out there that can just like, I’ve done a bit of it myself. I travel a lot. I travel full time. I’m doing the digital nomad thing. But I’m by myself. I’ve learned some Spanish and…
If something weird happens, I just kind of feel dumb. I don’t feel responsible for anybody else, you know? So I’ll go to the bus station and just walk and look at all the different windows and just pick a name that sounds interesting and buy a ticket, you know? And get on and go and figure out that, you know, whatever. I’ll figure stuff out as I go. But that’s, you know, when you’re working a job.
and you’ve got family that rely on you, wife and kids and this and that, and you’ve got two weeks for vacation, it changes things a little bit. You might wanna have a little bit of a plan. So that’s where really, for that adventure traveler that has limited time, that wants to really go have an experience, it’s an important mix, I think for most people. I don’t think there’s that many people that would just like,
hop on the train in San Diego, go down to Tijuana and just say, I’m going to go tour Mexico for two weeks for my vacation. I mean, I would, but I don’t think, you know, that’s a totally different thing.
Alex Vizcaino (22:07.675)
haha
Alex Vizcaino (22:12.41)
Now, like you said, it’s not for everybody. That kind of thing is not for everybody. Like you said, you’re traveling with kids, you have a time constraint, budget constraint, and what have you, you gotta have a plan. But it’s about building those spaces within that plan where the unexpected can happen. And even I don’t know what’s gonna happen.
Jason Elkins (22:28.673)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Vizcaino (22:33.978)
You know, maybe the vendor will be there and we’ll have a very nice conversation with a street vendor. It’s going to be great. Maybe something else would happen. Who knows, but we need to build that flexibility into the experience.
Jason Elkins (22:34.456)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (22:45.05)
I think you’re so right because sometimes if your trip is over structured, if you don’t book a trip with an operator and it’s over structured where you’re with, you know, a guide all the time, there’s a, we’ve got to go because we got to be to the boat dock by eight o’clock and we got to be to the restaurant by nine. And everything is so well planned out that then when you start to see those spontaneous things happen, you can’t take advantage of them. Cause you’re like, I gotta go. You’re always thinking about where do I need to be next?
And I love a trip that has, I’m using it in some of the itineraries I’m building. It’s just flex time. It’s like, Hey, here’s some time. You probably saw something during your day here in this town that you might want to go back and check out. So let’s leave a little bit of time in the evening, or maybe you talk to somebody that said, Oh, you guys should go see the sunset up on the hill or something. So leave some flexibility so you can go do those things. And I mean, by far for me, the best experiences have always come when it’s like.
I just, you know, I walked down the street and I look and down at a little narrow alleyway and there’s a bunch of people, there’s something interesting going on and I’m like, you know what, I don’t have to be anywhere right now. I’m going to go explore. And I walked down there and there’s any kind of interesting cultural things going on that you would, you can’t really plan for. You don’t, you’re not going to find them on, you know, Facebook or TripAdvisor or that. You just, you show up in those places.
I remember I had a balloon ride business and I was flying balloons out in Arizona, but the area we flew was very remote, very kind of authentic, a lot of Mexican culture in that area and quite often when we land, the people living and working out in that valley would come over and we’d have all these really authentic experiences that I remember it was 4th of July one year. And
We flew out and we landed and the families, there were a bunch of families came out around the balloon and helped us pack it up. And this guy was so excited to see us. He had a van full of watermelons. I don’t know. You know, normally I’d expect a pickup truck or something, but now that I’ve spent more time in Latin America, I kind of get it. But yeah, he had like a mini van full of watermelons and he gave us like five or six watermelons to enjoy kind of after the balloon flight. And it was like the 4th of July.
Alex Vizcaino (24:52.526)
Nice.
Jason Elkins (25:08.362)
You know, watermelons are what’s that? Yeah, you can’t. I like it was amazing. My clients were just like, this is so cool. That guy was so cool. He was so nice. I like how would I find that guy and say, hey, every time you see my balloon, come over, you know, help us pack up and give us four or five watermelons and I’ll give you 50 bucks. You know, you just you can’t you can’t plan for that, which is what makes it what makes it so special. And I mean, it’s as I recall, I think he
Alex Vizcaino (25:11.192)
And how do you plan for that?
Alex Vizcaino (25:25.83)
Hahaha
Jason Elkins (25:38.282)
I didn’t have a knife to cut the watermelon, but of course he had a machete. So, you know, we’re chopping up the watermelons with the machete and eating watermelon. It was just a, you know, there’s so many cool experiences and so many amazing people that I’ve met because I saw a food truck on the side of the road or a food stand or something. And it’s like, I don’t know what that is they’re cooking. I’m just going to walk over and then you make friends with the people cooking or the other people. You know, it’s very, very cool. And Mexico is a great place for that. Cause like you said.
Alex Vizcaino (25:42.494)
Hahaha Nice
Jason Elkins (26:07.538)
I mean, it’s so welcoming. And the food, oh my gosh. All right. Well, you should be. It’s, I’ve been fortunate to travel quite a few places and yeah, Mexico is just so, so good. All right. I wanna, I do wanna discuss a little bit about, okay, so you’re doing these adventures with your family, you spend a lot of time with your uncle doing some really, really cool stuff.
Alex Vizcaino (26:11.75)
We are proud of our food.
Jason Elkins (26:34.69)
When was the first moment that it occurred to you, I’m gonna work in the tourism industry? Do you remember?
Alex Vizcaino (26:42.343)
Actually, I studied tourism management, so it was a little bit more intentional for me that I was going to head down that path. And when I…
Jason Elkins (26:49.59)
Okay, but when did you decide to head down that path?
Alex Vizcaino (26:53.926)
Ah, good question. I don’t remember exactly, to be honest. I knew I loved tourism. I knew I loved food, gastronomy. So in the little town where I live, the university has a curriculum that where you study tourism management, you do have
Jason Elkins (26:54.178)
Do you remember?
Alex Vizcaino (27:13.474)
three semesters of gastronomy lessons so that was very attractive for me as well. So it was a very nice mix of things for me that really called me to study tourism management. I was 15, 16 when I started thinking about yeah maybe I should study tourism management here in the university. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I graduated. I had no idea, you know. Look I have my bachelor’s and now I’m going to start at GMC. No, that never crossed my mind.
Jason Elkins (27:42.686)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Vizcaino (27:43.479)
I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but it was a more intentional thing that, okay, maybe tourism is a good thing to study.
Jason Elkins (27:50.83)
What did your family think of that? Like, I’m gonna go to school and I’m gonna study tourism management. And I mean, I think different cultures look at it differently. I’m just curious kind of what your family thought.
Alex Vizcaino (27:57.798)
Well, you know…
Alex Vizcaino (28:02.558)
My parents are very supportive of our decisions, my siblings and I. So they said, listen, if that’s what’s going to make you happy, if that’s what you wanted to go ahead and do it and find the best way to apply what you study. Right. But of course, my extended family were a little bit more decent. We live in this tiny little town that nobody ever visits. What are you going to do with a tourism degree? But fortunately for me, it was a tiny, it is a tiny little town.
Jason Elkins (28:24.867)
Ha ha
Alex Vizcaino (28:31.586)
It is a tiny little university, but they have a very strong program and they have very good partnerships in Mexico and around the world. I was able to visit New Zealand basically for free studying abroad for a semester through a program with this university. You know, that was unheard of anywhere else in Mexico. And when I was abroad in New Zealand, everybody else was like, yeah, I need to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for my tuition here. And I was like, I don’t, my university is paying.
my tuition here in New Zealand. So that prepared me very well to seek something else. I always wanted to seek something outside my tiny little town and when I studied the university helped me open my borders even a little more. I came to Cancun to do an internship. It was a six-month internship and now it’s 14 years later.
Jason Elkins (29:10.507)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Vizcaino (29:30.458)
And I’m still here.
Jason Elkins (29:30.83)
Okay. So what happened in Cancun? I’ve traveled around in Mexico a little bit. I like Cancun. I’m not knocking Cancun at all. And I love the area where you grew up. So what happened in Cancun that you stayed there?
Alex Vizcaino (29:46.342)
I met my wife, that’s what happened. Yeah, that happened to a lot of us. Yeah, nearby. So she was born in Merida, which is a four hour drive away, but she grew up here in Cancun and I met her. I was three weeks in and she came to work at the place where I was doing my internship. We met, we hit it off. We now have two kids together.
Jason Elkins (29:47.826)
I thought maybe you were going to say that. So she’s from Cancun? Or?
Jason Elkins (30:12.494)
Okay, so you’re doing an internship. What type of internship were you doing? Okay, and she was working there, so she had some interest in that, or at least didn’t look down on you because you said, I wanna work in the tourism business.
Alex Vizcaino (30:16.362)
Adventure travel, of course.
Alex Vizcaino (30:28.23)
Yeah, of course, she studied tourism management as well. So at the same time that I was doing my tourism management bachelor’s on the west side of the country, she was doing it on the east side of the country, and I happened to come here, we met. It is an adventure travel park, you know, with zip lines and amphibious vehicles and that kind of thing.
Jason Elkins (30:30.799)
Okay, that’s perfect.
Jason Elkins (30:39.013)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (30:50.314)
All right. Very, very cool. So that I think it’s, it’s good when you meet a partner that has similar interests. And sometimes the tourism business can be a tricky one. If your partner doesn’t kind of feel the same, especially if you’re going to be out leading trips or traveling a lot. And they just couldn’t care less. And, and, you know, sometimes some one person wants the stability of the house and the nice car and the this and the that, and, and they’d rather.
spend money on furniture than on a trip. And I’ve always been, why would I spend money on something when I can go have an adventure and experience? So, so how has that worked? Have there been challenges that you’d like to share with us about both? I mean, I’m, I’m sure you have challenges, but I, as I said, that you’d like to share with us, um, that are related to this conversation.
Alex Vizcaino (31:21.39)
Mwahahahaha
Alex Vizcaino (31:41.722)
The biggest challenge for me in terms of, you know, my wife wanting different things than me. My wife wanted me to start my own thing earlier. That was the biggest challenge. And I didn’t feel ready at the time.
Jason Elkins (31:52.304)
Ah.
Alex Vizcaino (31:58.89)
When I felt ready to do my own thing, I started Authentic Mexico Tours, but she wanted me to start four years earlier or something like that. I just didn’t feel I had enough experience, enough of a network, etc. to be able to pull it off.
Jason Elkins (32:13.982)
I think this is important because I think somebody listening to this conversation, I suspect a lot of people that work in this industry are listening to this conversation or people that are doing something totally different that want to work in this industry are working jobs and they’re thinking when I’m ready, when I’m ready, someday I’m going to go out on my own. Someday I’m going to do it. So what advice would you give to them now based on what you just said?
Alex Vizcaino (32:37.266)
Jumping. If you’re waiting for the right time, you’ll never do it, and you’ll push it back further than you should, which is what I did. I should have started this years earlier. I mean, for better or worse, I didn’t have to live through the pandemic with my tourism business as my sole source of income, because I don’t know what I would have done.
Jason Elkins (32:47.79)
Very good.
Alex Vizcaino (32:59.506)
COVID for me is a very different story than most people, and I’m fortunate for the way COVID played out for me and for my family, but if I had started this two years before.
then I would have been in a position where my travel company would have been my sole, my only source of income to support my family during COVID and that would have been very, very rough. And I get that. I get that there are concerns and I know that, you know, there’s seasonality to overcome and tourism and all those things. But if you’re waiting for the right, not even for the right, if you’re waiting for the perfect time to jump into this, that’s never going to come. Jump in, learn by doing. I wasted too much.
too much time.
Jason Elkins (33:43.182)
So I’m curious, Alex, and just to kind of put this in perspective, because I’m trying to do the math in my head. You mentioned COVID and two years and this and that. So when did you start Authentic Mexico Tours?
Alex Vizcaino (33:49.529)
Right, right.
Alex Vizcaino (33:54.234)
Perfect timing, February 2020. Hehehehe right?
Jason Elkins (33:57.802)
Okay. But you had, but you said if you’d had to go through COVID without as, with that as your only source of income, it would have been difficult. So did you maintain employment or was something else going on that helped you get through it?
Alex Vizcaino (34:06.784)
So.
Alex Vizcaino (34:12.689)
I had, we made a very conscious decision, my wife and I, that
Listen, I launched February 2020 and I sent a handful of emails to people I knew in the industry that would be my partners, my clients. I work B2B, right? So I welcome guests that have purchased a tour with another company, right? And then I greet them in Mexico with a white label, meaning Authentic Mexico Tours does not exist for the end traveler, correct? So I sent a couple of emails, a handful of emails in February 2020 to…
Jason Elkins (34:30.44)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (34:42.71)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Vizcaino (34:48.376)
companies immediately say, yes, let’s work together, let’s plan a trip together and let’s launch. Unfortunately, three weeks, one month later, everything shut down, right? And we had to hold off on that, but my wife and I, she was very supportive. We had to make a very conscious decision of, you know what? We may dip into our savings a little bit, but we’re not gonna sweat it. We’re just gonna enjoy this time as family time. We’re gonna make the most of it.
Jason Elkins (35:12.086)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Vizcaino (35:18.618)
Six months later, I had to get a job because, you know, there’s a limit for everything. But those six months, for me, those were heaven. Heaven. I polished product. I polished relationships with suppliers. I polished my website as much as I could and started getting ready for when things recovered. Fortunately for us, quote unquote, fortunately, everything has a dark side and a light side, right?
Cancun reopened very quickly. My kid was back in school in September 2020 and that was a blessing. Fortunately, we contracted COVID as most people did, but it wasn’t very tough for us. My kid went back to school very quickly and I greeted my first guests in February 2021 because everything was open already and it had been open already for a few months.
Jason Elkins (35:49.143)
Right.
Jason Elkins (36:16.574)
Mexico was interesting, kind of what happened there. And you, I don’t know anything about, I know a little bit that, you know, Mexico is one of the places that people could go earlier than a lot of other places. I started my nomadic journey kind of a little, about halfway through COVID, and I was wanting to go to Thailand. And oh no, that was real difficult. So I ended up in Colombia, but Mexico is one of those places that, you know, people were going.
as well so that’s I’m sure that helped but also you know you mentioned some you said okay I launched in February made some great connections which is probably good for your self-esteem probably like okay there’s something I got something here and then okay well I’m not going to be able to do trips right now but I’ve got reason to believe that there’s operators out there that want to work with me when this gets settled I don’t have a bunch of
freaked out clients right now that are looking for refunds because I don’t have any clients yet. So I can literally just focus on building out itineraries, building out product, building out the website, maybe getting your accounting stuff set up, whatever you got to do, knowing that, okay, when this sorts out, I’m going to have these great partners and I’m not dealing with canceled trips. So that’s pretty big because if you’d started a year earlier,
You would have spent the first half of COVID dealing with operators that had sent you deposits and money and trying to figure out, well, what are we going to do? You would have taken up so much of your time messing around with, because I’ve talked to a few operators that spent the first half of COVID just trying to figure out what are we going to do with all these people’s money and how are we going to handle this and all that. So it actually kind of sounds like you had a pretty good timing actually.
Alex Vizcaino (38:04.784)
Yeah.
Alex Vizcaino (38:09.206)
It wasn’t as bad and honestly from a family perspective it was a blessing. It was truly a blessing and these guys previous to launching my own company I had been working for Expedia and I had been traveling what for me was a lot. The busiest travel year for me I did 14 trips in one year each trip one week long when you have a three-year-old that’s a lot.
Jason Elkins (38:34.092)
Yeah.
Alex Vizcaino (38:35.942)
And so those first six months of COVID, we just spent so much time together. I taught my kid to ride a bicycle. I taught my kid, um, I improved her swimming. We spent so much time together. I taught her how to skateboard. For us, honestly, it was a blessing in disguise. Six months later, I had to get another job because my own company was not providing.
But it’s not like we suffered through COVID, fortunately.
Jason Elkins (39:08.022)
Yeah. Well, very good. I appreciate you sharing, sharing all that with us. I’m sure that I’m going to resonate with somebody that’s listening. I mean, obviously, like, as you mentioned, we all have different experiences. I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing now. If it wasn’t for COVID, I, you know, I did force some changes in my life and kind of gave me the confidence really to go do the remote travel thing. I don’t know if COVID had an app and I don’t know, you know, I mean, a lot of
A lot of very difficult challenges and things happened, obviously, and in my family as well. You know, it wasn’t all easy, but, you know, anyway, so thanks for sharing that.
Alex Vizcaino (39:48.809)
Many doors closed during COVID, but many others opened. That’s the reality of it.
Jason Elkins (39:52.554)
Yeah, yeah. Yep, and it kind of just works that way in life, doesn’t it? No matter, you know, on a small micro scale for in your life or something big that impacts the whole world, it’s always a, you know, when they invented the light bulb, there were a lot of candle makers that were pretty disappointed, you know. So anyway, so you’ve got two kids now, right? Two daughters.
Alex Vizcaino (40:14.374)
That’s very true.
Alex Vizcaino (40:20.75)
I do, yeah. Two daughters.
Jason Elkins (40:23.934)
All right. Very cool. Both of them young and I had read somewhere that you were, you’d mention in, and, um, I believe it’s in the show notes in your bio, you mentioned that your daughters have both taken long trips. So tell us what a long trip means and what was that? What was that like?
Alex Vizcaino (40:39.566)
Okay, so one of them for my, so my oldest daughter is eight years old at the moment and my youngest is two years old. There’s a little bit of a gap between them. And when my oldest was two years old, we… All right, so Expedia always has a conference in Vegas every year, right? And I always attended.
when I worked for Expedia. And we had already planned to go there. And we had already planned to attend with my wife and my kid. I had already been there two or three times on my own. And that year, we said, OK, my wife and my kid are coming with me. We prepared flights and everything. And actually, no, we had not yet booked flights. But we were thinking about just being there for one week in Vegas. Everybody would be working in the conference, taking partners and whatnot. And they would be having a good time.
Alex Vizcaino (41:36.658)
calls me up at work one day and says, hey, I just sent you a message. Look at the screenshot that I sent you. And I look and it’s tickets. It is one of the craziest offers that I have ever seen. It was round trip flights from Los Angeles to Indonesia. All right. And the return flight was Bangkok, Thailand to LA.
And this was for $350 per person round trip. And my eyes just opened big, it was, we have to do it. I will, we’re gonna be in the, the dates for that offer matched the end of the conference in Vegas. So I could be done with the conference in Vegas, take a very short flight to LA and go to Asia for two weeks with my family. So that was my, my.
Jason Elkins (42:08.542)
Round trip. Yeah. Nice.
Alex Vizcaino (42:34.998)
youngest daughter, my youngest daughter’s first long trip. We took her to
Jason Elkins (42:39.755)
That is a long trip. You started with Vegas and I thought, okay, all right, it took her to Vegas, okay. Okay.
Alex Vizcaino (42:47.262)
And then we did Bali and Bangkok. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (42:51.41)
Nice. Yeah, I was just there last year. I went to Bali and Bangkok as well. That’s pretty cool. That’s a pretty cool place to take your daughter. Yeah, yeah, that’s neat.
Alex Vizcaino (43:00.086)
It’s a very nice trip. Yeah. She loved it. She behaved very nicely during the flight. And that was it wasn’t her first trip. She had traveled inside Mexico a little bit and even to the States because my brother lives there. But that was her first long trip. She was two and a half.
Jason Elkins (43:11.203)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (43:17.927)
She’s right on the edge of whether or not she can remember that. I’m curious, do you feel like she has any vague memories or not? Not at all. Not really. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Alex Vizcaino (43:25.602)
Not really. She claims she does, but if you try to ask her details or anything, she doesn’t remember anything. I hope that the experience is ingrained in her subconscious, right? And is building a better hair and is giving her tools to succeed in life, I hope.
Jason Elkins (43:32.619)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (43:46.486)
Well, and I’m curious, because you’ve got a unique perspective on this, is there’s like, well, what do your kids get out of it? You know, you take them money, time, whatever, what do they get out of it? And I think you just mentioned one is maybe just that subconscious part. Whenever you’re with your parents, I think you’re bonding. I mean, people’s whole personalities are very dependent on their relationships with their parents when they’re younger.
So if parents are happy, if parents are exploring and exposed to new things and sharing that, I can’t help but believe that that’s got to be good, you know, for the child as well. And then also, I think it’s good for the parents because there’s the bonding between you and your wife and of course, your daughter. But also that like sense of, you know what? I was I’m not going to swear, but hey, we did it like, look, we took our two year old.
to Bali and Thailand and da da, we did it. It wasn’t crazy. It’s a possibility. So then the second daughter comes around, you’re more confident to do that. And it just kind of starts things like, you know, because there’s a lot of people that are like, oh, I’d like to take my kids somewhere, but I’m gonna wait until they’re old enough to appreciate it. Well, by the time they’re old enough to appreciate it, guess what? Now they’ve got a boyfriend or girlfriend and they don’t wanna go with mom and dad.
Alex Vizcaino (45:09.435)
They’ve lost interest by then.
Jason Elkins (45:10.674)
Yeah, they’ve lost it or you take them and they’re on their phone the whole time or they’re on their tablet and, and you’re like, come on, we’re in, we’re on a boat in the river in Bangkok and, and you want to be on your phone. And so there is no perfect time. So I think if you do it earlier rather than later, that starts a pattern of, oh, it’s not that big of a deal. We can do this. This is something we can do. And then maybe you’re more likely to do it three or four times while they’re still at home, instead of just waiting for that one time when you take them at 13 and they don’t appreciate it.
Alex Vizcaino (45:34.564)
Exactly.
Alex Vizcaino (45:40.286)
And that’s the goal is this is something that we do as a family. We take a long trip every so often as a family. Yeah, for my.
Jason Elkins (45:48.81)
Where did daughter, where did daughter two, where did she get to go for that? I mean, she’s still pretty young.
Alex Vizcaino (45:52.726)
It wasn’t as… She turned two this past January, it is April now, so she’s two years and three months old. It wasn’t as quote-unquote exotic for her. Last year I went to WTM in London for business. So we took a two-week trip to London, followed by Paris, followed by Seville in Spain. That was her first…
Jason Elkins (46:06.038)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (46:19.622)
Oh, okay. That’s very cool.
Alex Vizcaino (46:21.326)
adventure into the world.
Jason Elkins (46:24.078)
That’s very cool. So what advice? I mean, I kind of went off on my philosophy and theories of this and that. But what’s your advice to people that have young children that might be thinking what I was just mentioning or just anything in general? What would what’s your biggest advice for? Parents with young kids.
Alex Vizcaino (46:41.682)
them out as much as possible. You know, like you said, a lot of people say, oh no, I can’t travel because of either budget or because my kid won’t behave during the flight or because he’s going to pay in the hotel. It’s not. Whatever downside you’re thinking about, I believe the upside is much greater and my kids both totally enjoyed their time abroad.
It’s trying new food, it’s visiting new places, seeing new sights. I just can’t think of a way in which this is not a great thing to do with your kids. I just can’t think of why this would be a bad idea. Escargotts in Paris. My two-year-old loved those. And who would have thought because people say, oh I’m not gonna feed my kid weird foods or things that they’re unfamiliar with.
Jason Elkins (47:29.569)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Vizcaino (47:37.046)
I didn’t get to try them because she ate them all. Not like that, right? But you know what I’m saying. She loved them.
Jason Elkins (47:40.946)
You know, yeah, it, it’s interesting because you’re right. I mean, we’re talking about, well, they don’t remember it or are they going to benefit? But anybody that’s been around a two year old can tell whether the two year old is enjoying themselves or not, whether they remember it or not, you just have to look at them and you know, they’re either having fun or they’re really pissed off and miserable. Um, so why not take them to some place where they’re going to enjoy it?
Alex Vizcaino (47:55.921)
Yes.
Jason Elkins (48:07.626)
have fun, try new things. Cause they not might not remember trying escargot, but it starts a pattern of the willingness to try because a two year old that’s never tried anything different won’t, right? They’re just like, no, they’re going to throw a fit. If you don’t give them chicken nuggets, they’re going to throw a fit. But you take a one year old and you start introducing them to things. By the time they’re 14 or 15, they’ll eat everything. And they’ll just surprise you when you sit down at a restaurant, cause they’ll order the most bizarre thing on there, which is what my son does. You know, he just
Alex Vizcaino (48:37.286)
That’s great.
Jason Elkins (48:38.282)
He’s oysters, you know, I remember I remember the first time he ate an oyster and fan will haul in Boston and He made some faces and this and that but to this day if he goes to restaurant they have oysters He wants him or sometimes at the grocery store. Yeah, can we get some oysters and take them home? I don’t even care for oysters, but you know, it’s so the point is yeah, you know expose them to things They enjoy those things and that encourages them to keep doing it
So when they’re three and they’re four and they’re five, it starts that pattern, right? Is that what you’ve seen?
Alex Vizcaino (49:11.238)
Yeah, exactly. They are willing to try new things. They are willing to push themselves to new things. And that’s such a great thing. It’s such a great skill to have, being able to try new things.
Jason Elkins (49:16.546)
that’s cool.
Jason Elkins (49:19.914)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (49:23.826)
So look forward into your, you know, your oldest daughter’s 18. And no, when I look into the future, go with me here, we’re going to go on a trip into the future. No, that’s good. Um, so imagine she’s 18, which most, most fathers don’t. I have a daughter. I didn’t want to imagine that, but you just bear with me here. She’s 18 and she’s like, you know what? I want to go to school and London. There’s a.
Alex Vizcaino (49:30.482)
8.
Alex Vizcaino (49:34.071)
Oh, okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
Jason Elkins (49:52.622)
tourism, hospitality, da program at this school in London. I want to go work in the hotel business or the travel industry, or I want to maybe go be a scuba diving instructor in the Galapagos or something like that. I mean, how does that sound? Is that. Yeah.
Alex Vizcaino (50:12.039)
I hope she does. And this is, I’m not sure how surprising it is, but it is frequent conversation between my wife and I. We want to encourage her to explore the world. And if she has to study college elsewhere because she wants to, if she wants to live elsewhere, good for her.
I hope she does. There’s a lot to see and there’s a lot to do. Mexico is a great place. It’s an amazing country, but there are a lot of amazing places in the world and I hope she has an amazing life and explores most of it. I hope she does. Maybe that’s why I’m in tourism because I think like this, right? But… Ha ha ha.
Jason Elkins (50:51.814)
Yeah, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to hear you say that because you’re right. If you’ve gotten a lot out of it, it’s typical to want to share that. If you worked in a coal mine for 30 years and I was asking you, hey, your daughter wants to go work in a coal mine. You might have a different take on it. You know, I don’t I don’t know. But I suspect also that growing up in Cancun, there are a lot of opportunities to get even from a young age. She could.
Alex Vizcaino (51:07.535)
Hehe
Jason Elkins (51:18.134)
you know, a few more years, she could probably go work at a dive shop or she could, you know, be a crew on a fishing boat or, you know, that kind of just, you know, like for the commercial, not the commercial fishing, but you know, the tourism stuff. Um, there’s so many different things to get started with and. You know, uh, person living in Cancun becomes, you know, probably become a dive master by the time they’re 18 or 19 dive instructor, you know, and there’s a lot of amazing places in the world that people go to dive.
I mean, as opposed to growing up in Iowa, if you’re growing up in Iowa and you wanna work in tourism, there’s, you know.
Alex Vizcaino (51:51.086)
Yeah, definitely.
Alex Vizcaino (51:57.103)
She’s very, I mean it’s funny that you mentioned diving and whatnot. She’s into sailing. She loves sailing. And like I said, if we lived elsewhere in Mexico, she probably wouldn’t be able to do it. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (52:12.586)
Yeah, yeah, there’s some advantages. So do you miss Western Mexico? I mean, you do enough, you probably get to travel and you’re working with operators and sending clients there, but do you miss living in Western Mexico?
Alex Vizcaino (52:27.878)
Parts of it. I of course miss my friends that I grew up with, miss my family. That is not specific to Western Mexico, I get that. The things that are specific to Western Mexico that I can’t find here are the types of food. Going back to food, we Mexicans are very proud of our food and for better or worse the food from one state to the other and from one region to the other in Mexico is very different.
So there are things that I just can’t find here that I used to eat when I was younger, living in Western Mexico and mountains. I miss the mountains. There are absolutely no mountains here. I know, right? It’s very, very flat. I mean, the nearest mountain is about a thousand kilometers away, like 600 miles away or something.
Jason Elkins (53:06.858)
Yeah, I’ve been. I know. It’s very flat. Ha ha ha.
Jason Elkins (53:18.846)
And that’s probably in Belize, right? The Mayan mountains in Belize, I would think. Yeah.
Alex Vizcaino (53:22.154)
You’re right, you’re right. Probably Belize is closer. I was thinking about Chiapas, but yeah. Yeah, it’s so far away. I do miss the forest. We don’t have a forest here. We have a jungle. We don’t have mountains here, but on the opposite side, we have amazing cenotes, and we have amazing beaches, which we don’t have on the Western side of Mexico. It’s a very different ocean in Mexico.
Jason Elkins (53:49.363)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Vizcaino (53:49.642)
and on the western side of Mexico. So I think those are the things that I miss the most, the mountains, the food, friends and family. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (53:59.81)
Yeah. I get it. I mean, it’s Mexico is so, so interesting though, cause it just, it does have such variety. You know, it’s big enough that you can have that geographical, um, variety, but also just cultural. It’s like, just like you said, the food is like every state seems to have its own thing, whether it’s, uh, you know, a Sado or, uh, you know, just all the different types of tacos, like every state has its own taco and then.
Alex Vizcaino (54:25.762)
And people make people make fun of me because they say like that everything that we eat is corn with meat and salsa Sure, everything is corn and meat and salsa But the way you prepare that meat and the way you prepare that salsa and sometimes even the way you prepare that corn Gives it a completely different flavor
Jason Elkins (54:43.926)
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I’m not knocking anybody in the U.S. and I can’t speak for everybody. Obviously there’s a lot of people with Mexican heritage that are living in the U.S. that are probably still eating the tacos the way that their grandmother made them. But like people that look like me and…
I had some pretty cool opportunities when I was younger, but I definitely was not bounced around Mexico trying different tacos in different places. So for me, a taco growing up was all the same thing. And I suspect that my version of tacos that I ate in my house were very similar to a lot of the tacos that most people ate in their house before Taco Bell came along and made it exotic. But it was the white flour tortilla, the ground beef with the package of
Alex Vizcaino (55:28.966)
Hahaha
Jason Elkins (55:36.654)
uh taco seasoning that you get in a little envelope at the grocery store and some sliced up tomatoes and some black olives and some cheddar cheese sprinkled on top and that was that was tacos i love tacos we had a lot of tacos but pretty much every taco was the same for the first uh you know 18 years of my life and then you know as i got to travel around it’s like every little town had a totally different taco
Sometimes the taco stands were quite a bit different too. And it’s, yeah, it’s pretty cool. It’s lunchtime here. And as you can tell, I’m in Columbia. So guess what? I’m not going to find any good tacos here. I have to get up to Mexico. Alex, we discussed, I will do that. Cancun’s actually a pretty quick, easy shot from here. I think there’s, yeah, so.
Alex Vizcaino (56:11.406)
Here as well.
Alex Vizcaino (56:19.098)
You’re welcome.
Alex Vizcaino (56:27.099)
Yeah, it is.
Jason Elkins (56:29.622)
Alex, we’ve discussed a lot of things and there’s a lot of things we didn’t discuss because I don’t know how we could discuss everything in an hour, but I’m curious, is there anything I forgot to ask, should have asked you or anything you want to make sure that our listeners know about you, your business, Mexico or your daughters or anything that we just really need to make sure we cover before we wrap it up.
Alex Vizcaino (56:53.138)
I’m not sure. I mean, I think we covered a little bit of everything. Um, we didn’t go to deep into, uh, my background because people ask me a lot about that and how my background working for 10 years or so in tourism prepared me to have my own tour company. And
Jason Elkins (57:09.43)
Yeah, share that. Share that, I’m curious about that as well.
Alex Vizcaino (57:12.226)
I mean, it did provide an advantage because my first big job in tourism was with toy. You know, and we prepared multi-day itineraries to sell B2B, not just to other toy firms, but to different tour operators around the world. And that’s what introduced me into the world of multi-day travel. And people ask me, why do you sell B2B instead of B2C? Well, there’s different reasons. But one of them is simply that’s the way I learned it. And…
I just wanted to share, don’t wait until you get all of this experience, don’t wait until you get all of these contacts to get started with your own tourism business if you have the itch. Just go ahead and do it. When I was about to start my own tour business, I was still very hesitant about it. And I was listening to a lot of different stories about people that had travel related companies that…
I was previously a yoga instructor. I was previously working at a restaurant. I was previously working at whatever. It can be done. Yes, yes, probably I did have an advantage because I had connections in a network and what have you, but it’s not impossible. And it’s a beautiful, beautiful industry.
Jason Elkins (58:29.514)
It is nice sometimes to kind of, sometimes it’s nice to kind of learn on somebody else’s dime. You know, you can still be a yoga instructor and, you know, get a job working in the tourism business for a year or two, maybe to kind of figure out what, what things like DMC mean, itinerary, FIT, you know, there’s a few things that might be kind of a little bit easier if you’ve learned some of those things. But you know what, with the, with the internet and YouTube.
And the Big World Made Small podcast, there’s all kinds of resources out there to listen to. If you want to get your get your head around. And I honestly believe there, I’m sure there’s some, you know, some folks listening to this, to this show that are, you know, sitting on the sidelines, waiting, wanting to get in, or maybe they’re already in, but they’re in a job and they want to start their own business or whatever. But I’m curious. So somebody that has no real tourism experience and they’ve already decided I really want a job.
Alex Vizcaino (59:01.48)
Exactly! Very nice resources.
Jason Elkins (59:26.358)
Because that’s challenging. If you go to LinkedIn, or if you go to Indeed, or some of the job boards, and you type in tourism jobs. I don’t know. Last time you did that, I do that every once in a while. But you get things back that are like, is this real? Is this legitimate? This whole be a travel planner, coordinator, da-da-da, no experience necessary. We’ll teach you everything. And you can use our platforms. And then I suspect that sometimes when you sign up for that, you’re going
Maybe you shell out some money for training. There’s no paycheck. It’s all commission-based. And then all of a sudden, three weeks later, I see folks on Facebook saying, oh, I just became a travel agent. And I can teach you how to be a travel agent as well. It’s amazing. And I’ve got all these great perks and plans and opportunities. And I’m so excited to be here.
If anybody’s interested in being a travel agent, let me know. They’re not saying if anybody’s interested in booking a trip, let me know. Like, if anybody wants to be a travel agent, let me know. So I think there must be some multi-level marketing stuff going on out there. But anyway, so what’s your advice for somebody that’s, I really want to work in the, whether they’re 18 or 40, I really want to work in the travel business. I want to find a job. Do you have any particular words of advice?
Alex Vizcaino (01:00:21.03)
Hahaha! Yeah, right there.
Okay.
Alex Vizcaino (01:00:40.246)
If you can, definitely lean on a well-known brand to begin with. Like you said, that sounds like a pyramid scheme more than a travel agency to me. And I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing. There’s a market for everybody and everybody has their own strategy. But if you want to work in travel industry, first, if you’re looking for a job, try to find a job with a well-known brand or a
one of the better known brands.
Jason Elkins (01:01:12.642)
How would somebody figure out when you say well-known brand, if you really are kind of new to this, I mean, because there’s a lot of probably well-known brands. I mean, Sam’s Club probably has some sort of, oh, that’s not a good example. But I’m just thinking, how would you figure out what is a legitimate brand? If I saw a job posting that said, hey, we’re hiring trip planners, and it sounds amazing, and you see the brand, how would I figure out is that a well-known brand or not?
Alex Vizcaino (01:01:40.754)
Fair point. That’s a fair point. Identifying a well-known brand is difficult. I think for the most part, it’s a matter of whether you can, do you know anybody? Can you find anybody who also knows that brand? Can you find anybody who has traveled with them, whether that is a tour operator or a hotel? Do you know anybody who has stayed there? Any kind of travel…
company too.
Jason Elkins (01:02:11.27)
You know what’s coming up for me is when you say that is, I’m hearing you say treat it almost as though you were considering booking a trip with them. Like go read reviews, go look, you know, do a little bit of research. And like, if you wouldn’t consider booking a trip with them, then maybe that would be an indication that maybe you shouldn’t be trying to apply for a job with them or what, I don’t know. What do you think?
Alex Vizcaino (01:02:19.486)
That is, yeah.
Alex Vizcaino (01:02:26.374)
Ahem.
Alex Vizcaino (01:02:37.166)
I think the way you phrased it is very accurate and for more than one reason. If I wouldn’t book a trip with them, I wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t want to work with them, but for two reasons. First, there’s the side that, you know, maybe it’s not legitimate. Maybe they have some odd practices and whatnot. But on the other side is if you don’t feel passionate about what they’re doing.
Is it worth it working for them? Find a job that speaks to you. Find what the values of the company are and how they treat the travelers. If you can’t figure that out from a good website and a good job posting, maybe that’s not the right company. Find a company that has a calling that you identify with.
Jason Elkins (01:03:20.355)
I love.
Jason Elkins (01:03:24.398)
I love it because you know for what comes to mind for me there is not knocking. The cruise ship industry has encouraged a lot of people to go places they wouldn’t otherwise go so I’m not knocking it but I personally have never booked a cruise. I have no real desire to book a cruise or go on a cruise. There’s a lot of job postings out there for cruise planners.
So I’d say if you aren’t the person that’s inclined to go do something like that, maybe that’s, you know, like you use the word calling, question yourself, if I really want to work in the travel business, why do I want to work in the travel business? Working for a cruise line. If you’ve never been on a cruise, you don’t have any desire to be on a cruise. Is that really going to meet your needs and your ambitions to work in the travel business? And if you spend five years working for the cruise lines,
it’s not necessarily going to prepare you any better to go work for, you know, G Adventures or Intrepid Travel or Abercrombie and Kent, because they’re going to look at you and say, what do you know about this is a totally different thing. So figure out what part, what niche of the business you’re really excited about. Go after that. That’s kind of what came up for me is that sounds like what you’re saying, right?
Alex Vizcaino (01:04:32.114)
That is exactly what I’m saying, but much better articulated by you.
Jason Elkins (01:04:35.958)
Well, I don’t know about that, but thank you. Well, I appreciate you sharing that, because I think that is important. I think some listeners are going in that direction. All right, so anything else that you want to make sure we cover? That was a little bit more. That was good. That was really good.
Alex Vizcaino (01:04:53.915)
No.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. Jason, I don’t think I have anything else at this stage. Do you have any other comments, questions for me?
Jason Elkins (01:05:04.146)
No, I just appreciate you spending your time with me. And if you’re up for it, love to do it again. Cause I think we actually, I have been thinking a little bit about doing a podcast about Latin American food. And so it wouldn’t that be fun. Just, you know, all over just, just Latin America and not one country in particular, and just, um, interviewing people about, you know, different places and food and stuff like that. So I’ll put you down on the list for that one. Okay.
Alex Vizcaino (01:05:31.706)
My mouth watered just thinking about it. So yes, please.
Jason Elkins (01:05:33.358)
Uh, my, you know, I, I just, I love, I love the food culture in all of Latin America, even in, you know, in Columbia. I remember I was sitting at an Airbnb. Um, I was getting close to my checkout, kind of trying to figure out where I need, you know, where maybe I’d go next. And I was sitting watching Netflix and they had a street food, Latin America. I was on and one of the episodes was Columbia at a place called Percival.
Proussavarinsriya, I probably just totally messed up the name, but it’s in Bogota. And it just looked so cool. So the episode ended, I pulled out my phone, I went to kayak, I booked a flight to Bogota for the next morning and you know, I was 30.
Alex Vizcaino (01:06:11.215)
Hehe
Jason Elkins (01:06:16.374)
30 bucks or whatever booked a flight booked an Airbnb in Bogota and went over there and that after the next afternoon less than 24 hours later as in that place eating food and it’s like that’s one thing I just love about Latin America there’s so many cool places like places that are worth going to just for the food and I think there’s Yeah, it was like one of them one of the best it’s like my favorite place on the you know, my favorite restaurant the whole planet I don’t know if you know if the food was that great, but it was just the ability
Alex Vizcaino (01:06:18.33)
Right.
Alex Vizcaino (01:06:32.206)
I was gonna ask you, was it worth it?
Jason Elkins (01:06:44.026)
and the culture around it and you go there and you just feel like, man, I just love, it’s so different. You know, you’ve spent time in the States. I’m not knocking the States, but you go have an authentic, oh, you know, remember I’ll show you the area where I used to fly my balloon up in the Phoenix area. There was a little truck stop area where we’d go through every day on the way. And there was this little restaurant and
Alex Vizcaino (01:06:55.562)
Hahaha
Jason Elkins (01:07:12.458)
It was a little Mexican restaurant. And they had a big sign out front that said, authentic Mexican food. But what was, OK, that’s fine. That’s cool. But what was so funny about it was they had the word authentic with quotation marks around it. So I just never really, yeah, it’s like, is it really authentic or is it quotation mark authentic? But every time we’d drive by there, I’d point that out to my clients. I’d say, oh, there’s some authentic Mexican food with the air quotes.
Alex Vizcaino (01:07:28.838)
That’s not a good sign.
Jason Elkins (01:07:42.182)
And yeah, the place had burned down a couple years later. So they didn’t bother to rebuild it. So I don’t know how much business they were getting. But anyway, so I’ll wrap it up with that since we’re actually speaking about authentic Mexican Tours. And thank you for sharing your experiences with us. And I’m sure that somebody listening to this is gonna be reaching out to you or through your network of partners and will experience maybe, oh, I did wanna ask.
Alex Vizcaino (01:07:47.495)
Hehehehe
Jason Elkins (01:08:10.562)
The parakeet cave. Is that something that still happens, number one and number two? Is that something that you’re sending clients to?
Alex Vizcaino (01:08:12.772)
Oh yeah.
Alex Vizcaino (01:08:21.21)
you’re putting me on the spot. So that’s something that still happens. I don’t usually send clients there for two reasons. One is you have to build an itinerary that is authentic enough that people actually enjoy it and can feel the authenticity of your itinerary. But if you push too far out, you just won’t be able to sell it. That’s the truth of it. And on the other hand,
Jason Elkins (01:08:38.039)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:08:43.85)
Yeah, I got it. Yeah, no, I got it.
Alex Vizcaino (01:08:48.726)
And this is something that I mentioned before, infrastructure and connectivity to that place is very, very complicated, very lacking. So yeah, still. So it is logistically complicated and it drives the price up.
Jason Elkins (01:08:58.058)
still. Okay.
Jason Elkins (01:09:05.046)
So it’s more of an expedition for someone that really wants to see parakeets. But you know what, after listening to your description of it, I think there might be something there. I think there might be something. So anybody that’s listening to this that is inspired by what he said about the parakeets, reach out to Alex and encourage him to set up a trip. Let’s set up a trip for you. Thanks, Alex.
Alex Vizcaino (01:09:13.387)
Maybe more people will come.
Alex Vizcaino (01:09:22.258)
Yeah, it’s.
Alex Vizcaino (01:09:26.613)
Thank you. It’s honestly worth it.
Jason Elkins (01:09:31.89)
I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you and thanks for taking your time out of your day and away from your family to spend it with us. Thanks, Alex.
Alex Vizcaino (01:09:37.734)
Jason, thank you very much.
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