Guest Bio
Alice Todd is the co-founder of SwimQuest, a company specializing in open water swimming holidays and events. After leaving a career in media, she committed herself to sharing the experience of swimming in natural waters, combining adventure, fitness, and personal growth. Over the past decade, Alice has helped guests from around the world improve their swimming skills, overcome fears, and connect with nature. Beyond swimming, she is an avid runner and cyclist, as well as a creative spirit involved in writing, DJing, and art. Alice also balances her professional life with raising twin boys and caring for two Siberian huskies, embracing a vibrant, full-color approach to life.
Show Summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Alice Todd about her unique role as co-founder of SwimQuest, a company that offers open water swimming holidays and events. Alice explains how SwimQuest creates inclusive experiences where people of all swimming levels can enjoy coastal and island swims around the world, from the Arctic Circle to the Maldives. She highlights the non-competitive nature of their trips and events, emphasizing community, support, and personal progression.
They discuss the growing popularity of open water swimming, particularly in the UK, and how SwimQuest caters to a diverse range of guests, including non-swimmers and families. Alice shares insights into the challenges and rewards of building SwimQuest from the ground up, her creative connection to color inspired by early travels, and the company’s approach to guiding and safety. The conversation also touches on the appeal of swimming in urban waterways like the Thames and the inspiring atmosphere of cold water swims in Norway’s Lofoten Islands.
Alice’s story reveals how she transitioned from a media career to an outdoor-focused business and how SwimQuest continues to evolve with new trips, workshops, and community-driven events designed to welcome anyone curious about open water swimming.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ SwimQuest offers open water swimming holidays designed for all levels, including complete beginners and non-swimmers.
- ✓ The company’s ethos centers on inclusivity and enjoyment, deliberately avoiding competitive racing on trips and events.
- ✓ Open water swimming has grown significantly in the UK, fueled in part by the rise in outdoor activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- ✓ SwimQuest’s trips range from warm tropical waters in the Maldives to cold swims in the Arctic Circle, accommodating varied preferences.
- ✓ Family-friendly trips are available for competent child swimmers aged 10 and up, offering shared adventures for all ages.
- ✓ Guides at SwimQuest are skilled swimmers and facilitators, fostering community and ensuring safety across all trips.
- ✓ Swimming in urban environments, such as the Thames River, is becoming more common with increased focus on clean, swimmable city waterways.
- ✓ Alice’s personal journey involved leaving a media career to pursue a passion for swimming, illustrating the value of taking risks to follow one’s interests.
- ✓ The company supports a range of creative and personal growth experiences, including color-themed workshops tied to the swimming retreats.
- ✓ SwimQuest offers both scheduled group departures and private, tailor-made trips for groups or special occasions.
What You’ll Find on SwimQuest
- ✓ Adventure-focused open water swimming holidays in diverse global locations.
- ✓ Non-competitive, supportive group environments welcoming swimmers of all abilities.
- ✓ Specialized events such as the Silly Swim Challenge, Swim the Night, and Thames River swims.
- ✓ Family-friendly trips designed for children who are competent swimmers.
- ✓ Expert swim guides who provide instruction, encouragement, and safety.
- ✓ Opportunities to join tailored private trips or unique experiences like marathon swims or swim-focused celebrations.
Learn more about SwimQuest and connect with Alice at:
https://swimquest.uk.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 (00:00.94)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. So happy to have each and every one of you back today. And I’m also very excited. We’ve got an interesting guest for you today. We’ve got Alice Todd. She’s the co-founder of SwimQuest. Alice, welcome to the Big World Made Small podcast. Happy to have you here.
Alice (00:20.384)
Great to be here.
Jason (00:22.146)
This is going to be a fascinating conversation because I was thinking a little bit about this before we met just now and I was like, you know, I’ve had guests come on and talk about biking vacations, running vacations, trekking vacations, all kinds of sport type vacations. And you do something that honestly I didn’t even really know existed until I came across you recently. SwimQuest, probably gives it away a little bit that we’re talking about swimming.
But you do, I’m not gonna try and put it my words. Why don’t you tell our listeners, what is it that you do with SwimQuest? Not how you got there, because we’re gonna get into that. But what is SwimQuest and what do you do to help your clients?
Alice (01:04.577)
Yeah, for sure. So we take people open water swimming primarily on holidays. Holidays are our bread and butter and we take people swimming between islands along coastlines, places where they wouldn’t be able to swim on their own, little adventures, their adventure holidays. And then in addition to that, we have some events as well. So we run various swimming events in the UK. So we have an island to island event called the Silly Swim Challenge.
we have an all night 24 hour Lido challenge called swim the night and we’ve got a swim, a three kilometer swim on the river Thames as well so holidays are a bread and butter we take people swimming all over the world in all sorts of different places and I’m sure we’ll come onto that from the Arctic Circle so cold water swimming right the way through to the Maldives you know at the other end yeah
Jason (01:57.519)
Wow. I know there’s some listeners like, I know people like to go swimming, but it never would have occurred to me that you could build a business out of that. But obviously you can. And that’s why I’m super excited to have this conversation. I do, before I forget to ask, you mentioned the events. Are these competitive type of events? Would you classify them as races or is it just, hey, we just all get to finish together and feel good about what we.
Alice (02:27.512)
Yeah, so one of SwimQuest’s big mottos is that we never race. So all our events and all our holidays are really inclusive, super friendly. You know, they should feel like you’re having the best day out with your best friends. That’s the kind of ethos that we’re trying to create. So no, none of our events are competitive and none of the holidays are competitive either.
Jason (02:48.512)
And I’m happy to that because that’s an important part because I know when you get into group, what I would call sporting type of trips, I think and you tell me but I think a lot of people might be like maybe one of the biggest concerns is I don’t want to hold the rest of the group back. I bet you’ve heard that before.
Alice (03:06.84)
Yeah, such a common thing. So many people think, oh, know, swimming holiday is not for me because I’m not a good enough swimmer. We get that daily. And the answer is always, yes, you are. Let us help you choose the right trip. You know, you’re not going to be holding anyone back. And the trips really are set out to cater for all sorts of levels. You know, we’ve even got trips for adults who can’t swim. So, you know, you can come on holiday and swim.
Jason (03:31.062)
Okay, so does somebody book a swimming trip that can’t swim or is it usually their partner, their spouse, their best friend that says let’s go do this and they’re like I don’t swim. Okay, well we’ll pick one that works for non-swimmers or what does that usually look like?
Alice (03:47.737)
Yeah, so often we get partners, as you say, the partner loves swimming and they bring along their non-swimming partner. And we actively take bookings from non-swimmers and they’re just involved as much as they want on the trip. So they can come on the safety boats, they can have a chat to the guides, they can learn a bit, have some extra lessons if they want to try it, or they might put on a snorkel and do part of the swim. But we always joke that by the end of the week, the non-swimmers are swimming more than the swimmers and we can’t get them out. So this is very friendly setup.
Jason (04:14.19)
You
And it’s so cool. don’t want to project my own stories on all this stuff, but I know how to swim. I’m an advanced open water scuba diver. I was in the military. We did a lot of swimming stuff. But it would never occur to me to go on a swimming trip because I don’t know. But I suspect that the people that do are probably not me. I’m probably not your target audience.
I I really want to get into the people that actually make the decision. You mentioned sometimes they’ll come with their partner, but the person that actually goes to Google and types in open water swimming vacation, if they do, I assume they do, what is that person’s typical background? Are these pretty serious swimmers, people that have been competitive swimmers in the past? What is the, I don’t know.
not even sure. What’s your typical client?
Alice (05:15.371)
and in time.
Yeah, our typical guest has possibly found open water swimming as quite a social thing later in life. we’ve got lots of different trip types and we have lots of different swimmers come join us for different reasons. the majority of the trips I would say are people who’ve discovered COVID was huge. People couldn’t swim in pools, so everyone was forced to swim outside. have lot of people who discovered open water swimming and COVID kind of because of
of the circumstance and loved it and loved the community that came with it. So in the UK, especially, there are so many open water swimming clubs popping up all over the place. So people go and they have a dip. You know, we’ve got clips called Dip and Explore. So there’s not even so much swimming on those. They’re more about being in the water and enjoying it right the way through to people who are training for, you know, big world swims like the English Channel. So there are trips that are suitable for that kind of serious swimmer. We do get people who are serious
swimmers and they tend to come on the long swims week so they’re a bit more serious they’re a bit more about you know pushing themselves doing a bit of distance maybe a little bit more competitive with each other but generally and most of our clientele I would say are quite intermediate swimmers they may be quite a few of them come along and do breaststroke and then learn a little bit more about front crawl throughout the week so some of the more kind of short swims trips are tailored to a slower pace
Jason (06:39.47)
Okay.
Alice (06:46.156)
So yeah.
Jason (06:46.254)
You mentioned that it’s becoming popular in the UK. It’s obviously been around for a while, but it’s becoming more popular in the UK. I guess my question is, if you look at where is open water swimming the most popular? Is this definitely a UK thing or are there other like?
If you as somebody that’s swimming trips were to focus your marketing efforts on a country because you know there’s a lot of water swimmers there, what does that look like? Do you know where I’m going with this question? I’m just trying to figure out where do people do a lot of open water swimming?
Alice (07:18.678)
Thank you.
Alice (07:23.542)
Yeah, I think it is growing, but the UK is certainly the hub for open water swimming holidays. A little bit in Australia now as well, but it’s a very niche offering that is not coming.
Jason (07:34.605)
Yeah.
Alice (07:40.981)
It’s a good question. would probably say UK, Australia, bubbling up through Europe a little bit more now as well. But that may just be, you know, my blind spots. I’m sure there are open-world swimmers all over the world, you know, that would love our holidays. So yeah, please come.
Jason (07:54.498)
What?
I’m guessing that when you mentioned those places the next question I could ask you is where do most of your clients come from? I’m guessing you’re gonna say the UK Australia, maybe other parts of Europe which because those are the places you just mentioned is that pretty accurate?
Alice (08:12.822)
Yeah, we have about 10 % of our guests come from the States and then about another 15 from Europe and then the rest from the UK. A spectrum from Australia, but it’s a little bit further to travel to most of our destinations. So they’re slightly smaller part of the segment.
Jason (08:22.456)
the
Jason (08:30.626)
I’m curious, just because I grew up in the United States, your guests that come from the United States, we don’t need to go too far into stereotypes or anything like that, but I guess my question is, are they generally on the intermediate level? Are they usually hardcore swimmers or are they beginners? Could you put your finger on, our guests from the US typically want the beginner trips or they want the advanced trips? I’m just curious. Okay, yeah.
Alice (08:55.64)
No, I think it’s a real mixture. Yeah, it’s a mixture. A lot of guests do find us through referrals. So I guess people have heard about it or they’ve had a friend that’s gone and had a good time and therefore they tell other people. So that is a big part of our clean-tel people who come and they’ve heard about it from a friend.
Jason (09:11.534)
Yeah.
Jason (09:15.138)
You know, on some level, it kind of makes sense that it’s so popular in the UK because honestly, before we talked in probably even still now, if somebody said open water swimming to me, the first place I’m to think of is English Channel. It’s like I don’t know if you growing up in the UK, maybe just whatever, but like if somebody grew up in the US and I think other people around the world think open water swimming, they think English Channel. So.
Alice (09:40.62)
Right.
Jason (09:42.285)
So maybe there’s a connection there. Maybe that’s part of why it’s so popular. But how common is it to swim the channel? I don’t know if it’s something that like it’s a big deal, like someone does it once every few years, or if it’s like a lot of serious swimmers have done it. I have no idea.
Alice (09:58.729)
It’s a serious undertaking. mean, I have done a channel relay and that was enough for me. It’s hard and I’ve got so much respect for people who do these really long swims. Personally, it’s not something I want to take on, but I’ve, you know, supported my amazing colleagues. My co-founder, John’s a channel swimmer, Charlie, our operations, a channel swimmer. And I am very happy to sit on the boat and clap and cheer and feed them and do whatever I need to do. But yeah, the relay was
definitely enough for me. So I would say it’s like the top level. There’s a whole world around, but you you don’t need to go anywhere near the channel if you don’t like just come and swim in the Maldives or sit on a boat in Greece and do a little bit and have a lovely time.
Jason (10:30.082)
When
Jason (10:45.026)
Honestly, that sounds more appealing to me personally. Warmer waters, tropical or Mediterranean environment, I’m curious, because you mentioned those guys and you used the term they’re a channel swimmer. Almost in the sense that that’s, like what I hear is somebody that does it more than once, or is it once you’ve done it you’re like.
Alice (10:47.756)
Yeah.
Alice (11:00.951)
Yeah.
Jason (11:09.774)
You’re a channel swimmer, it’s kind of like you’re, if you climb to the top of Everest, you’re a Everest summiter. I don’t, how does that work when you say they’re channel swimmer?
Alice (11:16.632)
I think they get the title and it’s so deserved. They are a channel somewhere. Some people do. But once is enough for most humans.
Jason (11:23.054)
Yeah.
But do some people want to do it more than once?
All right.
I’m happy we got that out of way because somebody thinking, you know, okay, open water swimming vacation, I’m going to have to swim across the English Channel or something. That just sounds so intense as opposed to maybe, you know, somebody that likes to go trekking in the mountains might be intimidated if they think the only option is climbing to the top of Everest or something like that. So, all right, that’s a point.
Alice (11:45.656)
Yes, that’s what you can be excited about.
Jason (12:00.862)
I have so many questions I’m trying to decide an appropriate order because I want to get into your past because that’s going to answer a lot of those questions but well while we’re on the subject here how about kids I’m just curious do people bring their kids is that does that happen do you even allow that what does that look like
Alice (12:18.818)
So yeah, so we have a couple of trips that are family friendly. And at the moment, our family friendly trips are suitable, say, for kids 10 plus that can swim. So they’re usually kids that are swimming with a club and competent swimmers. They don’t have to be open water swimmers, but we do ask that they’re competent in a pool. And we have specific weeks set up for those families. So we’ve got one in Greece and one in Turkey. So the idea being that, you you can come on holiday, the kids can meet each other, have a great time, have a family adventure.
Jason (12:28.28)
Mm-hmm.
Alice (12:49.122)
We have, you know, if people come to us and say, this is our situation, this is our set up as a family, we’ve got a child, can we bring the child with us? Then we generally do whatever we can to make it possible, even if that means just checking with the rest of the people that are booked on that trip to see if they mind or not their kid’s going to be joining. And then perhaps the parents take it in turns on the actual swims. So generally, it’s not so much good focus, but there are opportunities.
Jason (13:10.412)
Is this?
Jason (13:15.18)
Are these typically always group departures, set departures that you fill into or do you have some people that will look what we call it FIT or custom tailor-made or whatever where maybe it’s a family that wants to go open water swimming so you set up a vacation for them that’s a private departure? Does that happen?
Alice (13:35.553)
Yeah, both. So we have about 60 departures set throughout the year that you can just book onto various different locations. Or as you say, if you’ve got a group and we get lots of groups come to us and say we want our own private week and we want to go to Greece or we want to go to the Maldives and we can set that group up. Or as you say, we’ve had so many, we’ve had so many random requests. We’ve done a swimming holiday wedding. We’ve done…
Jason (14:01.688)
Really? wow.
Alice (14:02.808)
Marathon swims for a man who wanted to swim a marathon in the Arctic Circle. We’ve done a family who wanted their children to be taught by an Olympian. We’ve set up a weekend in bespoke weeks for them. So really anything is possible. It’s never boring.
Jason (14:19.542)
So on a private departure, imagine this type of thing. You’ve got a swim expert, instructor, somebody that, so even if it’s a couple that wants to go on their honeymoon and they want to do some swimming in the Maldives and they’re booking it through you, does that mean you’re sending along somebody with them or is that generally the case?
Alice (14:45.654)
Yeah, absolutely. we have an amazing selection of swim guides. So generally all the trips will be run by two swim guides and our swim guides are, they are amazing swimmers, but they come from all walks of life. And we always say they are really the beats of the business because they’re such great people and they’re interested in people too. So it’s not just the safety or getting really good company. So yeah, all the trips would have two swim guides or beach lifeguards.
They really are experts in their field and we have different guides who maybe have different specialities as well. Some as you say would be the longest swim guides. We do the crazy channel stuff. Some will be more teaching adults how to swim. We’ve got guides who specialise in people who are aquaphobic, so people are actually scared of the water. We’ve got guides who can help with that. So it’s an amazing team and usually those guides will also work alongside
the local host or a boat pilot who knows those waters particularly well or sometimes yeah. And that you’re a diver so in the the Maldives we work with a dive company so they they use they’re used to dealing with divers and they love it when we rock up because they don’t have to do any other tank stuff. We’re like yeah the swimmers are back.
Jason (15:51.576)
Very cool. So interesting.
Jason (15:57.39)
Hmm?
Jason (16:03.724)
Right, yeah. yeah, it’s probably much easier for them.
I managed a dive resort in Belize for a while and there’s a lot of work involved with divers when it comes to all the equipment and the safety stuff. I mean, obviously there’s safety stuff in swimming, but as far as time intervals and how long you can be in the water and all that stuff, it can be logistically a bit of a challenge.
Alice, I I spoke with someone actually just a few days ago that’s an expedition leader that’s spent a lot of time in the polar regions and we discussed the polar plunge. And since you mentioned swimming in Antarctica, in the Arctic, in cold places, what I remember from his story was he talked about the guests. I’m trying to remember all the details, but basically they get all psyched up.
They jump in and then the race is to see how quick they can get out of the water again and into the hot shower. So what you’re describing, so I want to hear what’s the, that’s the people that like to go on a nice expedition boat and they want to have the experience of saying they did a polar plunge. But you get people that actually want to go to the Arctic specifically to swim.
Alice (16:59.0)
Okay.
Jason (17:19.062)
and that blows my mind a little bit. what is, tell us, most people listening to this have probably never heard about somebody that actually went there to swim. So what is that like? What is it like?
Alice (17:27.735)
Yeah, right.
Alice (17:32.377)
So we go to place called the Lofoten Islands. Do you know the Lofoten Islands in Norway?
Jason (17:38.486)
do not. I bet it’s cold there.
Alice (17:40.665)
you ever get a chance, it’s incredible. It’s such an amazing archipelago of islands. And as swimmers, we love archipelagos because that means that there’s like a splattering basically. And it means that whatever the wind’s doing, we can find a little sheltered part to swim in. So it’s an incredible splattering of islands. because of the Gulf Stream, the water’s not as cold as you might think. So we go in August as well. So we swim at midnight in daylight.
light, which is incredible. And the water temperature’s around, you know, can be anything between 10 and 17 degrees, which is actually very swimmable, whether you want to wear a wetsuit or not, depending on what you’re used to. That’s, not sure about Fahrenheit, you’ll work your Fahrenheit. I mean, I would say like nippy, but not freezing.
Jason (18:32.066)
Yeah, it sounds like 60 or something. I don’t know, but yeah.
Alice (18:35.753)
It’s very cool and we can swim, you know, can end up swimming for up to an hour in that kind of temperature and it’s just glorious.
Jason (18:43.81)
But some people, right, but some people will do the wetsuit. I take it.
Alice (18:48.822)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, very much where it’s at.
Jason (18:51.95)
And the wet seat has some buoyancy to it as I recall so it actually can probably feel a little bit less. I don’t know. don’t know. You swimmers, people that are doing that probably are not worried about sinking. I guess. I don’t know if that sounds okay. Are most of, do you see anything interesting about the mix between men and women on the groups? Is this something that appeals more to women? Because in my mind it does.
Alice (19:06.059)
Yeah.
Alice (19:21.32)
Yeah, we are about 65 % women, so there are more women on our trips than men. Yeah, it’s always been that way. think across the board generally open water swimming in the UK is more female. But yeah.
Jason (19:38.671)
Do you want to share why you think that might be? Because I’m curious. I have an opportunity to ask someone, why do more women swim than men? Why is it a female-dominated sport? So I’m curious what your thoughts are. And maybe it’s not appropriate. Maybe we’ll edit this out later. Nobody will ever hear this. But I’m just curious what your thoughts are.
Alice (19:47.613)
It’s such a good question.
Alice (19:57.305)
It’s a really good question. I would think…
In terms of our offering, it’s very sociable. So I wonder if there’s something around, you know, the social side. We get a lot of solo travellers too. So female solo travellers who are coming on a trip and they want that level of support and that level of community and the fact that they’re looked after and they don’t have to worry about travelling alone. But in terms of open water swimming as a sport, I’m going to look into it. I don’t know a good answer, but I’m now intrigued.
Jason (20:31.202)
Well, well, what you said makes absolute sense because I think, you know, I actually spoke with someone recently that a company running to her company and they would go around and it was she was, think, as I recall, was all women. That’s what she did. That was women’s groups. And it makes sense because I think you’re right. There’s a social element involved. And well, do you also do you offer women only departures? I’m just curious.
Alice (20:32.233)
haha
Alice (21:00.328)
No, we never have and I think, I mean our tagline is that everyone is welcome and genuinely everyone is welcome so yeah we don’t do that.
Jason (21:00.48)
Okay.
Jason (21:06.979)
Yeah.
Jason (21:11.052)
Okay, and that makes sense. I get that. But I also can imagine if you’re a woman that does open water swimming, most of the people in the clubs are women. You go on a trip, it’s probably gonna be mostly women. And I know everyone’s welcome, I get that. But I think that social aspect of it is pretty important. I’ve seen that come up a lot in the.
conversations I’ve had, guess is what I’m trying to say. Whereas when you think, when I think of a stereotypical men’s trip, it might be a fishing trip. And not that women don’t fish. Women are some of the best anglers I’ve ever been with are women. But men tend to go on like a fishing trip or something like that. Maybe if they’re really into bicycling, they might go on a bike trip.
Alice (21:51.096)
Right.
Jason (21:57.711)
be swimming swimming or anything really but I I see the social the social element makes sense that’s enough of that okay here’s the other thing I want to ask before I forget because you mentioned swimming in the Thames and I don’t know in London what it like cuz cuz to me as someone grew up in the US that’s like swimming in the East River in New York City it’s like kind of a joke like yeah nobody would ever do that just because of the population and
Alice (22:04.818)
Thanks.
Alice (22:09.848)
Mmm.
Jason (22:25.824)
what’s in the water. So I just have to ask you about swimming in the Thames. Is that common? that normal? Is that safe? What can you tell us about that?
Alice (22:30.848)
Yeah.
Alice (22:38.006)
I live just outside of London and there people who swim in the river by me, the Thames, every single day, know, every day of the year. And because I live so close and I walk this beautiful stretch pretty much daily with my dogs, I’ve always looked at it and gone, I really want to bring, swim here. It’s such an amazing stretch of river. And there’s so much more, I think, education, push now for clean waters, Swimmable Cities is an amazing organization called Swimmable Cities. And there’s a push now for these spaces,
water spaces within cities to be swimmable and a lot of them are a lot of the time. think we have to be sensible obviously we have to do water testing we have to make sure we’re not swimming after heavy rain for our events you know we’re in touch with water companies and we’re really monitoring carefully and there’s always going to be an element of risk with open water swimming but generally it’s a beautiful stretch of river and the fact that we can get in swimming it and have a lovely time I mean it’s the most glorious day in June and we had about 300 swimmers it’s three kilometers swim
from Hampton Court, so Henry VIII’s palace, all the way down and we got out onto a private island, we had a party and music and it’s just a celebration of London, you it’s an incredible place to be and why not swim in it?
Jason (23:50.959)
I’m just curious is this upriver of the city of London right in London downriver? Where?
Alice (23:59.403)
Yeah, so it’s not the tidal terms, it’s just before you get to the tidal terms, so before you get to kind Teddington Lock, so yeah, west I guess, yeah.
Jason (24:10.894)
Alright, that’s very cool. Okay, let’s figure out how the heck you got into this, because I know there’s a story there. I know a little bit of the story, but I intentionally don’t know the whole thing, because I like surprises. Let’s go back, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go back to learn a little bit about kind of how you grew up, and if there’s some elements in there that impacted what you’re doing now, I’d love to touch on those. But did you…
Where did, yeah, I’m just gonna ask you, where did you grow up? Let’s start with that.
Alice (24:42.816)
Yeah, so I was born in Sheffield, so north of the UK. And then we moved to North Lincolnshire, which, you know, very quiet part of the country because my parents were teachers. But we always holidayed to either Cornwall or Whitby. So Cornwall, beautiful coastline. had a trailer tent. My dad used to drive us through the night and we used sleep in the back of the car and then wake up and my parents would put this trailer tent up. And then Whitby was about a two hour drive from where we
lived. So we’d go on these amazing day trips to Whitby. And I just, I love, I just, you can never get me out of the sea. And I just loved it. I was just splashing around and it was hours would go past and I’d still be splashing, you know, blue and freezing, but I’ve always loved the sea. And then, then I think when I was 12, we went aboard for the first time, Thessalonia, one of the Greek islands. And I so vividly remember that trip. And it was like this, I just couldn’t believe the blue.
And I have this obsession with colour. I’ve done various talks on colour and adventure and the way colour erupts throughout my life. But this blue, this green blue that I experienced when I was 12 in Greece has just stuck with me ever since. And that’s part of the joy of it. And I knew when I was 12, was like, the ocean is so powerful for me and it’s something that I need in my life. It’s incredible. It’s healing. It makes me feel alive, you know.
Jason (26:08.43)
When you go back to those memories, do you have equally vivid memories of mountains or the towns along the coast, or was it just like 80, 90 % the water?
Alice (26:22.52)
That’s a really good question. mean, we had such an amazing childhood and we did some incredible family trips to the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District. But you’re right, the real, the passion for me has always been the ocean. And if I was to book myself a holiday, even now, I would never consider an inland holiday. I just, it has to be by the sea, otherwise it’s not a holiday to me.
Jason (26:45.934)
So I’m imagining you when, if you were 15 and if we had Instagram and all that stuff and you had your phone running around, if I were look through your Instagram profile, there’d be 90 % pictures of you standing in the water, looking at the water, swimming in the water, and very few in front of mountains, monuments, street scenes. All right, cool. Hey.
Alice (27:05.944)
I would think so. Thank goodness there was no Instagram when I was 50.
Jason (27:14.35)
You mentioned colors, I wanna dig into that, cause that’s interesting. Obviously you tied it to the blue water and grease and stuff like that, but tell me a little bit more about the color part. Was it all water focused or what, like, why colors?
Alice (27:30.465)
Yeah, it’s a really interesting one. So I have what I call a colour bank. Maybe this is getting even more niche. We’re moving away from swimming an hour into the world of colour. yes, every trip, every trip I go on or every adventure I associate colour with. So I don’t have synesthesia, but I’ve always had this connection with colour. And my dad’s an artist. He was an art teacher and he’s incredible artist. And I’m… Yeah.
Jason (27:56.303)
That was going to be the next question, what did your parents teach? But okay, it’s starting to make sense, okay.
Alice (28:00.6)
My mum is an English teacher and she’s also really creative. So I think there’s a huge creative side to me and the way I try to live my life. And I often say I’m trying to live life in full colour, know, trying to maximise it. And part of the holidays is trying to let others do the same and experience the same, you know, vividness of life and passion for life. So, yeah, so my colour bank is a collection of memory associated with colour.
Jason (28:28.152)
So this is a color bank inside of your head or do you actually journal or paint things to remind you of experiences tied to color or I’m just curious.
Alice (28:39.05)
Yeah, it’s actually all in my head and we’ve done various workshops around colour. We’ve done some retreats and I’ve done some workshops around colour and people can try it for themselves in different ways. So you can journal, you can collect your own colour bank of memory and colour and see if you can weave those two together.
Jason (28:58.542)
Is this on the side from the swimming business or do you tie it into the swimming? So when you say we’ve done these workshops and these things, is that tied to the swimming as well or is it completely separate?
Alice (29:11.028)
Yeah, it was actually tied to the swimming. We’ve we’re not running them this year, but we ran some retreats called Save Me From The Waves, which are very niche. We just ran we ran one in Scotland in December and we ran another one this May gone past in Formentera. And they’re really about people who are, you know, they might be coming and they’re needing a fresh perspective on life or they want to either gone through some troubles and they want to find a way to kind of move on from that. And the retreats themselves focused on
creativity, which we did through the colour workshops, the water, is always so levelling and healing for everyone. And we did some movement and some walking and talking and yeah, they really weren’t neat strips, but they’re amazing.
Jason (29:43.182)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (29:57.455)
All right, that’s super cool. You mentioned a word, I’m guessing what it may be a map, but I can’t even remember the word now. You said, I’m really into color, I’ve got the color bank, I don’t have something which I assume means like color fixation, I don’t know what the word is. Do you remember what word you said?
Alice (30:11.852)
Yeah, it’s a synesthesia. Some people will kind of mix up their senses. I think I’m describing this right. So they will maybe see blue and hear a bell, or they will feel an emotion and it’s kind of connected to colour in their brain. Yeah, it’s really interesting. It’s a fascinating topic, but I don’t have that. I just love colour.
Jason (30:36.526)
I know you’ve met people, spoke with people, you may even have people on your trips that are colorblind. And for someone like you, if you lost your color vision, that would just…
Alice (30:43.213)
now.
Jason (30:51.79)
I know I shouldn’t even put that out in the universe, I, but I.
Alice (30:55.016)
I’ll have to use the music or something instead.
Jason (30:57.88)
But yeah, but it’s an interesting concept because I recently, actually one of the guests on the show, went out and visited his finca in Columbia and there was this tree with these big red flower balls on it and we were far enough away I couldn’t tell exactly what they were. said, what is that tree over there? And he’s like, what are you talking about? The tree with the big, it looks like flowers. And he’s like, he just could not even see them.
And it was just a moment, like I just thought it was so beautiful. thought, wow, this is so cool. Look at that tree. he appreciates nature. It’s his vinka, but he couldn’t see it. And it was just like, I guess if you grow up that way, you you’ve got other things that stimulate you. But it was, it was definitely a moment that I, that I was thinking about color. So anyway.
Alice (31:34.861)
vote.
Alice (31:45.132)
Yeah, it’s huge part of traveling the way we experience, you know, places and cultures.
Jason (31:54.255)
It is for me. mean definitely that’s that’s part of why I enjoy Latin America so much is there’s so many vibrant colors and all that stuff but So if I had a time machine and I was able to go back and have a conversation with you and you were 14 or 15 And I say Alice, what do you want to do when you grow up? Do you know what your answer would have been?
Alice (32:16.844)
I actually do. want to say funny. I wanted to be a dolphin trainer. That’s what I want.
Jason (32:21.801)
That kind of makes sense based on everything we’ve discussed so far. I’m yeah, that makes sense. Where did you, I know you like the water, but what was it about dolphins specifically that caught your attention?
Alice (32:25.804)
Thank you.
Alice (32:36.386)
Bye.
They just always made me cry. mean, I know it’s probably not the best place to go see them, we went to around that age. We went to go to Florida and we saw them at SeaWorld, which, you know, possibly not the best place to see dolphins. But I just watched it they made me cry and they still make me cry when I see them like jumping in front of boats. Then it’s just, yeah, it’s amazing. So yeah, I’m not a dolphin.
Jason (33:03.277)
Sorry.
When you say they made me cry, there’s different things that cause us to cry. What emotion would you attach to that as opposed to just saying it made me cry?
Alice (33:16.258)
I think it’s the awe. It’s awe. Yeah, it really is just that connection with things in the world that are so amazing that we don’t understand. It just makes you feel a little bit small, which is good, I think. I actually was a trouble.
Jason (33:32.76)
Have you had the opportunity to be really up close? I think there’s people listening to me, well, they shouldn’t have SeaWorld. They shouldn’t have dolphins in captivity. I get that. And I’m still going to ask you this anyway. Have you had an opportunity to get really close? They’ve got some places you can go do the dolphin experience where you can swim with the dolphins and stuff like that. Did you have that experience?
Alice (33:55.225)
Yeah, so no, it’s really annoying. All the trips where you could possibly swim with wild dolphins. I am never there when the wild dolphins come to say hello. So every time my colleagues are swimming with dolphins swimming all around and I’m like, no, it’s not my list. it’s, you know, it’s on my list.
Jason (34:11.263)
Ha ha!
Jason (34:16.238)
All right, were you the type that did you like, okay, so if I asked you what do want to do, you don’t want to be a dolphin trainer. Some people like myself included get pretty hyper focused on things. And that’s all we want to talk about. If like for a while I was going to, you know, be an astronaut. So that’s all I wanted to talk about. My room was sky blue with pictures of space shuttle all over it. I was totally fixated. Were you like that as well or was this something you just kind of kept to yourself?
Alice (34:41.688)
No, I don’t think I’m a kind of fixated type of person. I think I’ve got so many interests and that’s part of the problem through life is that I just want to do everything and there’s not time to do everything. You know, I love music, I love art, I love… So I just… Not enough time, you know, I need about 25 million lifetimes to do everything. no, I studied English at university, not dolphin training. English literature. Yeah.
Jason (34:53.486)
Wow.
Jason (35:01.933)
Well.
Jason (35:05.87)
What was it you ended up studying? okay. Did you, at what point did you decide you wanted to study, not be a dolphin trainer, what point did you give up on that plan and decide I want to study English literature because those are two very different things?
Alice (35:22.89)
Yeah, so I feel like my brain is definitely more focused on science and I realized quite quickly that in order to do marine biology that side of things I would need to lean more into the sciences which I wasn’t really about. So yeah, I did what I was good at and what I enjoyed and that at the time was English literature and I had not got a clue what I wanted to do after that really.
Jason (35:45.432)
Did you like to write? Were you into writing and reading and stuff like that presumably before you went off to uni?
Alice (35:51.989)
Yeah, always. Yeah.
Jason (35:55.599)
Okay, so you went English literature. Well, let’s back up. You said your first trip outside of the UK was the trip to the US?
Alice (36:05.4)
No, was the trip to Greece and then we… Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason (36:08.06)
the trip to Greece, right. Yeah, Okay. Where you saw the blue water and then you saw the dolphins in Florida and okay. Very, cool. Was there ever a point in time that you, do you remember when the whole idea of tourism first came on your radar? did you even, could you even imagine that someday you’d be working in tourism?
Alice (36:30.132)
No, not really. So the story of how I got to be working with John, who’s my business partner, and we’ll talk a bit more about John. I left university, tried to get a job in London, it was the recession 2008, and I could not get a job for love and money. I had this amazing first class degree and I was literally going around London with my CV knocking on doors going, please, please employ me.
Jason (36:52.878)
What kind of jobs, at that point in time, I I recognize there weren’t very many jobs, but what kind of jobs did you envision doing as an English Lit major?
Alice (37:01.57)
What?
Alice (37:07.05)
Yeah, so at the time I was trying to get into advertising because I mean I don’t quite know why now looking back and my first job actually which I loved ended up being for a West End theatre marketing agency. So finally got a job after working in Wetherspoon to pay the bills for months and months and months and…
Jason (37:29.432)
What is Weatherspoons? Just so…
Alice (37:30.808)
It’s a good job you don’t know what one spins is. It’s basically a pub, it’s like a pub chain in the UK.
Jason (37:39.471)
Alright, well there’s, we can discuss that. I personally, and I’ve had some conversations around how working in a bar, pub, in the service industry is very closely tied to tourism. Because if you can manage a bar or a pub full of happy people.
Alice (37:49.324)
Yeah, it’s people.
Alice (37:59.257)
Let’s give it up.
Jason (37:59.639)
not always happy, a variety of personalities and states of inebriation, then that’s good training to lead a group trip somewhere later on in life. But all right, so your first job outside of Wetherspoons, you got the job doing the…
Alice (38:07.126)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, so my first job in London was for this West End theatre marketing agency, which I loved. was in my early 20s and I worked in partnerships. So I was trying to get partners involved in Western shows that were coming out. So we had Sister Act in the West End and I would go and try and get, you know,
partnerships involved or Legally Blonde, the musical, and I would go out there and speak to hair companies and try and get them to help us promote the show. And we were out every night watching West End Theatre, which again, fantastic. It was such a great time. And I still get on really well with the colleagues that I met there. And then…
Jason (38:37.752)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (38:51.394)
When you say West End theater, the way you just kind of described it little bit, it sounds like the equivalent of Broadway? Is that a, yeah, okay. All right.
Alice (38:58.368)
Exactly. Yeah. So it was such a great job to have in my early 20s and I was new to London, loved it, really sociable job, super creative, get to see all these productions that I would never be able to afford to go see at that age living in London. And then from there, I went to work for
Jason (39:14.862)
Mm-hmm.
Alice (39:19.274)
of the 20th Century Fox, actually, the film company, doing partnerships. So similar kind of thing, but for film. And then from there to a big UK newspaper called the Telegraph newspaper. I worked there for think about three years. And then I always say I had my early life crisis. just I was going up these great escalators into the Telegraph offices every day. And just it was like I knew I couldn’t do that for the next 10 years.
Jason (39:30.872)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (39:47.087)
All right, before we get to your meltdown or whatever word you use to describe your crisis, I do want to ask you, do you feel like you legitimately used your education in English literature in those jobs? I’m sure it helped you get those jobs, but did you feel like on a daily basis, you’re like, oh yeah, I’m using the stuff that I actually learned in uni? Just.
Alice (39:51.202)
Hey, that’s crazy.
Alice (40:13.24)
I mean, an extent, yes, because I do think the ability to express and write is really powerful. And it was, you know, even more so before AI, things have changed. I think it did help. Yeah, I think it did, but perhaps not so directly as you would expect.
Jason (40:32.14)
because it also sounds like, especially with the theater marketing company, I mean that sounds like a pretty good fit for somebody that’s into the arts and all that stuff. Did you do theater or, I mean you mentioned your dad was an art instructor, art teacher, did you do a lot of artsy stuff other than writing? Which is artsy, I’m not sure why I’m using that word, but I guess did you do theater? Did you do…
Alice (40:38.594)
It was really fun.
Alice (40:55.006)
Yeah.
Jason (40:59.16)
were you a painter because we talked about colors and stuff like that before school.
Alice (41:03.68)
Yes, so my amazing form tutor at school, so right the way through, all the way through secondary school you have a form tutor who was also a drama teacher. This lady called Mrs. Warmsley, who I’m still in contact with, she was the most incredible teacher and I love drama, I love drama at school, I was in all the productions and it was, yeah, it was a big part of my life.
Jason (41:28.876)
Me too, Alice. was, you know, I was the the the most talented boy in my senior class doing the theater and the music and and then I ended up in the army and people are like what? So alright, very cool. So now let’s get back to you going up the elevator into the telegraph offices thinking I don’t know how long I can do this. What did what did that look like and walk us through that?
Alice (41:47.756)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alice (41:52.503)
Yeah.
Alice (41:55.917)
So there was a pivotal moment which I can remember quite vividly and I used to sit next to our department designer called Nick who we still use. He still does our swim quest brochures actually, we’re still in touch. And I can remember we’d been working for God knows how many hours, we used to work late a lot, like long hours trying to get this stuff ready for press. And he was just like, Alice, are you worrying? It’s gonna be chipped paper tomorrow. And it was one of those moments I was like, my goodness, I’m so sorry.
Jason (42:24.238)
It’s gonna be what?
Alice (42:25.464)
Chip paper, like fish and chips are wrapped in chip paper. Yeah.
Jason (42:28.882)
A chip. Chip paper. It sounds, for those of us that don’t use the word chip very often, it sounded like a different word. Okay.
Alice (42:34.954)
Yeah, maybe I’ll go to backtrack. So, fish and chips? Like in the UK, we have fish and chips a lot. often… It’s wrapped in newspaper. Yeah, okay.
Jason (42:44.654)
Yeah, no, get it now, because I’ve eaten fish and chips, but when you said it, it sounded like it was going to be used for something else tomorrow. But OK, go ahead.
Alice (42:51.16)
Okay. Yeah, so Nick said this and I was just like, oh my goodness, I’m getting so stressed about this. it, you know, what does this mean? I’m, you know, pumping all my energy into this and it’s going to turn into paper that someone’s going to eat that fish and chips off. So I had a bit of a think and I thought, right, I’m just going to take a summer out. I’m going to take a summer off and I’m going to work by the sea somewhere. I’ll go be a lifeguard. I’ll go work for Nielsen. I’ll go do something, but it has to be outdoors.
as I was recently. Nielsen is quite a big sports adventure holiday company. So they do very family focused, you can go and learn to windsurf or sail.
Jason (43:21.154)
What is Nielsen?
Jason (43:26.946)
Pub? Is it a pub also? okay, okay.
Jason (43:36.915)
yeah, sounds, yeah, that’s a cool break.
Alice (43:39.673)
Very cool. yeah, so I started researching these kind of outdoor jobs. I was just going to plan to take a summer out, reset myself and came across, stumbled across this idea of swimming holidays. I was like, wow, this is right on my street. I want to go guide. I want to be a swim guide. I’ll be a swim guide for a summer. Super fun. And then we’ll think about life after that.
So I called around, I think there are only like three companies at the time I could find called around. No one was interested in me, swimming guide, being a swim guide. And then I stumbled across a man called John Cunningham Rolls who answered the phone and we had a long chat and John is now my business partner and the most wonderful man. And he was involved in the very start of swimming holiday travel in early 2000s. And John had just set up his own company and was starting out.
So it was great timing. So John had all the safety experience and the location experience, but not perhaps any of the marketing or, you know, computer-y side. And so I said, this is really fun. So I was like, John, I’ve got…
Jason (44:42.328)
Mm-hmm.
Alice (44:47.448)
I’ve got no money, but I love the idea. So what about I work for a year for free to match what you’ve invested and then we can split the business 50-50 and we’ll do this together. I was 27 at the time and we haven’t really looked back. So that’s how it all started.
Jason (44:57.55)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (45:03.222)
So was the company, had he already started the company SwimQuest or was that a name that came about later?
Alice (45:10.004)
Yeah, so he didn’t have a name yet. Well, it had a name. was John Cunningham Rolls Swimming Holidays. he’d registered the business and did a lot of the research into locations, started the locations. But yeah, then I came along and in 2014 we did a whole kind of rebrand and research and launched SwimQuest as it is now.
Jason (45:16.172)
Okay.
Jason (45:30.606)
Okay.
I’m imagining your conversation with your parents. Of course, I’m imagining it through my filter and then I’m going to let you correct it. But I’m imagining, okay, I went to school, got my degree in English. It sounds like a pretty good school. You said it was a thing and you’re working for the London Telegraph. It’d be like working for the New York Times probably. Right. So you’re working for the London Telegraph. I’m going to quit my job. I’m going to go to the coast without any
Alice (45:37.836)
Thank you.
Alice (45:49.321)
I’m dying.
Yeah.
Jason (46:01.154)
money and I’m going to work for free and help this guy build up a swim tour business. Well how did that go over with your parents or other people in your life? don’t know who all was involved in your life but how did that
Alice (46:01.784)
you
Alice (46:07.489)
Yeah.
Alice (46:13.056)
Yeah, that’s so true. I can remember the conversation. I was on the number 19 bus on the way home from seeing John. I was like, Mom, we just met this guy and it was amazing and he does this and this and I’m going to get involved. you know what, I’m not sure what was going through their heads, but they’ve always been so supportive. They’re amazing. We’re so lucky. They’ve always been supportive. So, yeah.
Jason (46:26.348)
And she’s like, how much does it pay? Well.
Jason (46:33.678)
Yeah.
Jason (46:38.866)
very cool and had you completely resigned your position or did you just take a furlough I don’t leave with absence or like did you have to go back and quit the job or
Alice (46:49.61)
Yeah, I quit. Yeah, it was a kind of phase out. And then as you go…
Jason (46:55.714)
But you quit, but you quit like before you went and talked to John, you’d already quit or was the idea that you were gonna go back and, but you decided not to go back it sounds like.
Alice (47:01.75)
Bye.
Alice (47:06.752)
Yeah, no, I quit. Once I decided that John and I were going to try and make some quests work, I quit. They were so nice. The people I worked with were amazing. And again, I’m still in contact with them. think they just, I think they knew that that’s what I needed to do and that I was going to give it a shot. Yeah, so still in touch with them, still send them Christmas cards with a Swing Quest brochure in the middle.
Jason (47:12.302)
What did your boss say?
Really?
Jason (47:23.736)
That’s cool.
Jason (47:31.758)
Do you think that your age played a role in it? If you, it’s hard to imagine what could, it would have happened, but if you’d stayed at the Telegraph another 10 years, maybe got married, had a family, all that stuff, could you imagine?
Okay, I’m gonna go start a business with this guy named John.
Alice (47:53.729)
It’s so hard, isn’t it? I think it’s funny what life throws at you. on the first beach lifeguard course that I did with John in order to get qualified to do some of the swim guiding, I met my now husband who’s downstairs.
Jason (48:06.894)
ha ha, love it.
Alice (48:10.072)
We now have five-year-old twin boys. So yeah, I mean, I can’t imagine starting a business with five-year-old twin boys. It blows my mind. fact, I was listening to your chat with Sally, who was talking about her experience setting up the business. And it’s just, that is impressive. I think it’s been difficult, the juggle, the kind of parenting, motherhood, twin juggle, it’s been really hard. So to be setting out when you’ve got that as well, I don’t know. I don’t know how she managed that.
Jason (48:23.778)
Yeah.
Jason (48:34.892)
Yeah.
Jason (48:39.608)
Does your husband work in the same business? What kind of work is he doing? I don’t know if that’s relevant to the conversation, but I’d love to ask.
Alice (48:49.888)
No, he’s a mathematician. I’m just praying that our children get my creative brain and his maths brain and not the other way around, otherwise they’re in trouble.
Jason (48:52.224)
Okay.
Jason (49:00.91)
But it sounds like a pretty good pairing. I think it’s good to have a couple that has very different unique skill sets. So, you know, even just a business partner sometimes like you mentioned with John was good at this and you were good at that.
you know, to have somebody that maybe actually likes to balance checkbooks and look at investments and look at profitability. And then you’ve got the other person that’s like, we could do this cool thing. We’re going to get together and talk about colors and go for walks and go for swims. It could be a good, batch. sounds like so. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Because you met. So was he going through the course as well?
Alice (49:24.065)
Yeah.
Alice (49:31.992)
You’re so nice.
Alice (49:36.344)
But here’s also a reading swimmer, so that’s nice.
Alice (49:43.736)
Yeah, so he’s known John for years and years and I think at the time he doing it to do a little bit of guiding on the side, just, know, because it’s fun. So yeah, how we met.
Jason (49:55.363)
Does he enjoy people as much as you do as a mathematician?
Alice (49:58.041)
I think it’s quite hard to enjoy people as much as I do. I just don’t get bored. But yeah, he’s pretty social, I’m a mathematician.
Jason (50:07.574)
Alright, very, cool. And your kids are, you mentioned, did you say five year olds? can’t remember exactly.
Alice (50:13.61)
Yeah, they’re almost five. Yeah, they keep us on our toes for sure. Two, they’re twins, yeah.
Jason (50:18.91)
How many? You’ve got two? Yeah, okay, I was doing the math, but I’m not as good as your husband at it. So, five-year-olds, okay, all right. I know it’s too early to tell, right? But what you see so far, can you imagine one or both of them growing up and at 15 saying, I wanna be a dolphin trainer?
Alice (50:25.43)
Yeah.
Alice (50:41.96)
No.
Jason (50:46.946)
No? Okay. All right. We’re going to come back and have another conversation in about 10 years. Because I want to hear what they’re interested in now. Because I’m always fascinated about like the influences that we have on our kids, both positive and negative. But yeah, all right. Okay. That’s, that’s pretty cool. Would you knowing what you know about tourism, would you incur, I mean, if they’re interested in it, would you try and…
Alice (50:53.164)
Yeah.
Alice (51:03.096)
Yeah.
Jason (51:14.818)
get them to go to uni to do something else or would you encourage them to maybe take over your business someday? I know it’s way too early to ask this question but I’m gonna ask anyway.
Alice (51:21.524)
goodness, think… Yeah, I think, and I’d like to think that I maintain this, that I just want them to do whatever they want to do, and it’s, you know, like I’ve been given the opportunity…
Jason (51:33.974)
You say that now. When they want to quit their job at the Telegraph and go join a band, you might have different ideas.
Alice (51:40.088)
Yeah, I just feel like I’ve been given that opportunity so it’s a jump to provide it for them too.
Jason (51:45.57)
Yeah, no.
Jason (51:50.051)
Alright, so you get going with John, you’re presumably handling some of the marketing sales, set up stuff, he’s scouted out all these, he’s kind of, you know, got his head around his side of the business. I’d love to hear what it was, you know, what were your major takeaways for maybe the first two, three years or something of the business. Were there some ah-ha moments that like, wow, never would have thought of that.
Alice (52:14.656)
Yeah, I mean, it’s blood, sweat and just become, I mean, it’s still a complete roller coaster, but you’re just, it takes over your life, setting up a business, you know, we didn’t make any money to pay ourselves for the first kind of six years. So I was freelancing and doing bits and bobs, you know, it’s just the way it is when you’re powering everything back in.
Jason (52:16.64)
Everything, maybe everything.
Jason (52:30.399)
Uh-huh.
Jason (52:36.558)
What kind of freelancing were you doing? Were you doing swimming type of freelancing or marketing or writing or? I’m just kind of curious.
Alice (52:42.922)
Yeah, so marketing. So again, it’s all those amazing people that I met along the way through the agency and through the newspaper.
We’re all really supportive and I got various, you know, bits and bobs of jobs through them. you know, I always, I always promote the value of the network. It’s so valuable. And I really liked this idea that we can take experience from different industries to improve our own offering and improve our own industry. So an example, we’ve just had our website completely redone by an amazing designer and developer who I met through an event run by a lady who worked at
Jason (53:01.048)
Mm-hmm.
Alice (53:21.938)
one of my first jobs in London, which was geared towards marketing and theatre events. I went along and it was so valuable, know, so think having an open mind and learning from different industries is important, especially when things are changing so fast with technology at the moment.
Jason (53:23.896)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (53:27.894)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (53:38.51)
I’m curious, were you also able to work for other tour operators, other tourism companies, because I can imagine working with some of them might be helpful to learn some things that you could apply to your tourism business as well. Did that opportunity present itself?
Alice (53:55.263)
It didn’t actually, I’m sure that would have been useful but no I was yeah didn’t do that.
Jason (54:01.153)
Okay, yeah, just curious about that. so was, you said maybe six years before you were able to pay yourselves, was there an aha moment or something like that you just figured out maybe five or six years in that all of a turned it profitable and you looked back and said, wow, I wish we would have done this two or three years ago? like anybody that’s listening to this maybe that might pick up a tip or like, geez, I’m starting a business and I want to learn from Alice.
Alice (54:21.758)
Yeah.
Alice (54:29.943)
Yeah, do you know 2019 was a really good year for us, the year before COVID. And I think it was just the case of, well actually we did have a, had a really big project in the UK with Channel 4, it’s a big TV station in the UK. And we did a big project with some celebrities and Stand Up for Cancer. And we did all the training behind the scenes for that, for that project, which was huge. So was a really big summer. We had more guests than ever before, more trips than ever before.
and it was probably a combination of that project and also you know however many years of graft and repeats and referrals and repeats and grind which is not the answer anyone wants to hear and then cope.
Jason (55:08.622)
brain.
Jason (55:13.292)
Well, I get it. I have a podcast. grind. I grind. I get it. And I’m hoping six years in, I’ll start to make some money. But let me, when did you start doing the international stuff? Was that right off the bat or did you have to kind of wait, do local stuff before you got to the point where you had a big enough mailing list and followers to go do the international stuff?
Alice (55:38.389)
Yeah, the trips were international at the start. So we had Greece and Norway and then we had a trip to the River Arran. The River Arran was like a small swim in West Sussex in English countryside and that’s basically what we started with, know, Lake Annecy as well. Year one, so like four trips, three or four trips, about 20 guests or something.
Jason (56:01.326)
Okay, did you have a, like you were on the coast, I’m not familiar with the geography, but my understanding is you were somewhere on the coast where you met, well, just like living, like you were working with John, you said something, you went to the coast for the summer, you met John, so I’m envisioning, did you guys have what I would call, let’s use a surfing analogy.
Alice (56:11.736)
for the trip.
Jason (56:28.16)
If you’re doing surfing trips, you might have a surf shop on the coast somewhere and you might do surf lessons and you might do local surfing excursions as well or you don’t and you just take international groups.
Alice (56:31.0)
Alice (56:41.29)
Yeah, no, no, we don’t have an office. So we all work, even now we all work remotely from home or the head office team. And then in the early days, John and I were just traveling and doing all the trips ourselves. So there weren’t any swim guides. It was just us. So we were doing business, guiding, travel, travel, travel, know, living out of a suitcase.
Jason (56:54.222)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (56:59.566)
What was the biggest, there’s probably some personal impact that it had, but when you got to the point where you could hire other guides to go lead these trips, what did you notice about that? What was, you know, maybe a takeaway or two from that transition? Cause I’m familiar with, I’ve led a lot of trips and then I’ve had other people that worked on my team lead the trips. So I’m just curious kind of what your experience was. Did things get, well, you just tell me, what was that like?
Alice (57:25.56)
Yeah, it’s a good question. And that was, that was a big departure away. That felt like you were growing a little bit when that happened. And obviously putting your trust in your brand and everything in someone else’s hand and you’re not even going to be on the trip. That was a funny feeling. And I think at that point we started to do annual staff weekends. We just did one a year at the time. And those weekends were solely focused on right, who we are as a company, what are our values? What are we trying to create? What, you know, what experience do we want our
guests to have. But we’ve been so lucky all the way along with, we just seem to be a magnet for fantastic people. So we have been really, really lucky with the teams and the swim guys. They really are amazing. And that has continued.
Jason (58:02.894)
Thanks
Jason (58:08.462)
It’s cool. Because I remember when I was leading a lot of group trips, my boss was like, you know, yeah, I want you in the field with the clients as much as possible. It wasn’t my job per se. My job was to run that way, the fly fishing part of the travel business. But he was like, I want you out in the field with clients. And he would say things like the best place to sell a trip is on a trip.
which is true, I still believe, in the sense that if I’m leading, maybe I’ve got 12 fly fishing guests.
and at dinner the first night it’s, know, hey Jason, how did you get into this? What were you doing before this? da da da, tell me about Orvis travel. And it was, and you create those connections, then by the end of the week they’re like, okay Jason, where are we going next? You know, they were kind of ready to sign up. And I know those conversations happen. So then I can imagine like when you just start hiring guides, you know that this guide is going to be the one having those conversations.
Alice (58:53.228)
Yeah.
Alice (59:07.725)
Yeah.
Jason (59:08.052)
you know, and is he going to present it kind of the same way you would? Because you’re like, my story is I went and I met John and I quit my job at the Telegraph and people connect with that. And your guide could potentially, I’m not saying your guide, but a guide could say, you know, it could just basically be, yeah, I started working here six months ago.
You know, before that I did this, I did this, I did that, but you know, the company almost kind of becomes a little separate. Whereas when they’re having the conversation with you, the company is part of who you are. So I’m just rambling on, but did you think about that? Is that part of why you had the weeks or the weekends with everybody to kind of get everybody on the same page?
Alice (59:53.685)
Yeah, exactly. think it’s part of that.
you know, people need to understand what we’re offering and the way our trips run and what makes us so special. But I think I think we’re helped by the fact that people are swimming and water is such an amazing tonic. It’s a leveler. You know, you people on these trips who would never sit down and have a dinner with each other. And suddenly you’re all in your like swimsuits with a swim hat on, complete leveler. And the conversations are, you know, fascinating. So the guides are real facilitators and
part of the reason why they’re such great guides is because they’re such great facilitators as well and they’re interested and also interesting people.
Jason (01:00:34.222)
Do your guides kind of have an idea of what their upcoming trips are? So for example when that conversation comes up and they’re like, Jason, where are you going next? And they say well, I’m gonna I’m gonna be in the Maldives in October You should go with us so the clients were able to kind of I’m guessing where I’m going with this is to some of your guides kind of a Following and have you been able to facilitate it that way?
Alice (01:00:55.254)
Yeah, definitely. So the guides kind of they get their yearly travel slots in roughly about October for following year so they can get their favourite guests and follow their favourite guides.
Jason (01:01:12.888)
I think that’s smart as opposed to, we are doing a trip in the Maldives. I don’t know who’s leading it, but you know, it’d be a fun trip. If you’re like, I’m going to be leading a group in the Maldives. That’s a totally different conversation. I believe in my experience and maybe it’s not that way for every company, but okay. So do you want to talk about COVID? That’s a conversation that comes up because you said your best year up until that point was the year right before COVID.
Alice (01:01:26.338)
Yeah.
Alice (01:01:40.064)
I know, I know. Who wants to talk about K-Vid? We’re it’s all good.
Jason (01:01:42.926)
All right, so let’s go to post-COVID. So the last few years, what have been the major shifts or differences for you?
Alice (01:01:55.809)
Yes, I’m sure like a lot of the travel industry, had such a huge bounce back after Covid, which was great. And I think Testament, all our supplier relationships were so strong. And I will bring up our amazing colleague, Charlie, who’s been with us right from the beginning. So Charlie looks after operations and suppliers, and she is like an absolute spreadsheet powerhouse. And the business really wouldn’t exist without her.
Jason (01:02:23.384)
That’s an important role. For anybody that’s never dealt with overseas suppliers and yeah, that’s a big, big job. So all right.
Alice (01:02:25.451)
my goodness, yeah.
Alice (01:02:35.072)
Yeah, I always thought I was quite an organized person and then I met Charlie and she’s like another level.
Jason (01:02:41.164)
Now does she lead trips sometimes, go on trips with clients as well?
Alice (01:02:46.538)
Yeah she does, she’s got small kids like me at the moment so travels less frequently but she does do some guiding. Yeah it’s nice to have that experience too so you know the products as well as doing all the work.
Jason (01:03:01.902)
Do you have any upcoming stuff or new things that you’re getting really excited about right now that you, I who knows when somebody’s gonna listen to this? could, know, somebody might be listening to this two years, we’re recording this in July of 2026, I should say that. But what kind of new exciting things are on the horizon for you?
Alice (01:03:14.231)
Yeah.
Alice (01:03:20.886)
Well, my colleagues have banned me from having any new ideas for the rest of 2016.
Jason (01:03:30.05)
Don’t let them listen to this. We don’t have to tell them.
Alice (01:03:35.001)
We’ve got a couple of new projects coming up. There’s going to be some city breaks coming up. So you were talking about Swimming the Thames in London. So we’ve got some city breaks coming up. And we’ve got a new breaststroke to front crawl trip. So loads of guests say, I really want to come, but I can only swim breaststroke. And they’re very welcome to swim breaststroke. But this trip will be about improving confidence and teaching them how to go from being a breaststroke swimmer, maybe like a head up breaststroke swimmer to a front crawl swimmer.
And then.
Jason (01:04:07.564)
trying to envision what exactly we’re talking about but what I hear is a progression somebody that wants yeah breast breath it’s a breath stroke or breast stroke it is breast okay all right yep okay
Alice (01:04:10.538)
Yeah, so breaststroke. Yeah, that’s right. fine. breaststroke.
So yeah, that’s new and we’ve got a new trip to Estonia actually which we ran just there in June which did really well and that was kind of a dips and sauna trip so less hardcore swimming, more dipping and experience. So yeah, some more of those coming up next year too.
Jason (01:04:41.56)
Very, very cool. And presumably, you mentioned the new website. I think I looked at your website a few weeks ago. This is just launched, right? The new one?
Alice (01:04:50.553)
It should be all spangly and lovely now when you get on it. Yeah.
Jason (01:04:54.638)
Cool. Well, so everybody that’s listening to this, there’s a link right in the show notes. So go take a look at Alice’s new, exciting, did you say Spangly website? I don’t know what, okay. I guess I know what that means. But anyway, yeah, so they can reach out to you through there. Alice, we’ve discussed a bunch of different things. I appreciate you sharing your journey and something really that’s fascinating for me that I didn’t even know existed, honestly.
Alice (01:04:59.564)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jason (01:05:20.28)
But I’m curious, what did I forget to ask you? What do you wish I would have asked you so we can share it with our listeners before we wrap up?
Alice (01:05:28.44)
I think we’ve covered most things. guess the only thing I would say is that if you like the water and you are intrigued by spending a week in the water, then a swimming holiday absolutely is for you. It’s just this idea that you don’t have to be an amazing swimmer to come on a swimming holiday. Think of it a bit like a skiing holiday. You get lots of adults who would go and learn to ski as adults and you can do exactly the same thing with a swimming holiday. was a trip to see all styles.
Yeah.
Jason (01:05:58.318)
That’s a really good analogy is like you think of a ski trip. Well, I’m not much of a skier and I don’t know if I want to ski for six days but usually there’s a pretty nice lodge to sit down and next to the fire and drink hot cocoa or you know other things going on. So somebody that thinks they want to try swimming but they’re not sure they want to swim for six days it sounds like there’s plenty of other options to be part of the group and they’re not.
Alice (01:06:24.492)
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Jason (01:06:28.11)
Very, very cool. I’m totally intrigued. actually after this, I know early in the conversation, I like, I can’t really imagine wanting to do that. But after this conversation, it actually sounds like a lot of fun, especially probably in the Maldives or the Miniaturine. And I’ve spent too much time in the tropics the last few years. I grew up in Wyoming where it’s really cold. So that’s part of why I’m not super excited to go swim in really cold water.
Alice (01:06:39.255)
Yeah.
Alice (01:06:43.275)
Yeah.
Alice (01:06:51.692)
Yeah.
Jason (01:06:51.704)
But it sounds like a lot of fun. Alice, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming in and joining us and sharing your story. Let’s stay in touch.
Alice (01:06:57.88)
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Jason (01:07:01.582)
Thanks, Alice. Bye bye.
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