Guest Bio
Dana Skogstad is the Sales Director, Canada at Travelzoo, a global members club for travel enthusiasts. With extensive experience leading sales teams in the travel industry, Dana specializes in strategic growth, partnership development, and helping travel brands connect with highly engaged audiences.
Raised in Southeast British Columbia and now based in Vancouver, Dana developed an early appreciation for the outdoors that continues to shape both his personal and professional life. From camping and hiking to road trips and sightseeing, he believes adventure is accessible to everyone—and he’s driven to help others turn their travel dreams into meaningful, real-world experiences.
Show Summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Dana about his journey through the travel industry—from early days in guiding to his current leadership role with Travelzoo. Dana reflects on how growing up surrounded by natural beauty in British Columbia influenced his love of exploration and ultimately steered him toward a career built around travel and adventure.
They explore what sets Travelzoo apart as a global travel club with millions of members seeking high-quality, curated experiences. Dana shares insights into the evolving definition of adventure travel, emphasizing that adventure looks different for every traveler. He also discusses the responsibility that comes with guiding and travel planning, and why storytelling remains one of the most powerful tools in creating unforgettable journeys.
The conversation highlights the importance of trust, community, and vetted travel offers in a crowded marketplace—helping travelers book with confidence while staying inspired to explore more of the world.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Dana views his work in travel as both exciting and deeply rewarding.
- ✓ Travelzoo connects millions of global members with curated travel opportunities.
- ✓ Quality control and vetting are essential in building traveler trust.
- ✓ Growing up in Southeast British Columbia fostered Dana’s lifelong love of the outdoors.
- ✓ Adventure travel is defined by personal perspective, not just extreme activities.
- ✓ Strong storytelling enhances the emotional impact of travel experiences.
- ✓ Transitioning from guiding to a corporate leadership role offers new ways to shape the travel industry.
- ✓ Passion and professionalism must go hand-in-hand in tourism.
- ✓ Building community is central to creating meaningful travel experiences.
- ✓ Curated travel platforms help turn inspiration into real-world bookings.
What You’ll Find on Travelzoo
- ✓ Travel deals and packages across destinations worldwide
- ✓ Curated experiences designed to feel unique and memorable
- ✓ Vetted offers with a focus on quality and value
- ✓ Inspiration for outdoor adventures and bucket-list trips
- ✓ Access to a global community of travel enthusiasts
- ✓ Opportunities to discover destinations with confidence
Learn more about Travelzoo and connect with Dana at:
https://www.travelzoo.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 (00:01.005)
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. Super excited about our guest. Today we’ve got Dana Skogstad. He is sales director for Travelzoo Dana, welcome to the show. So excited to have you here.
Dana (00:18.094)
Hey, thanks Jason, it’s great to be here.
Jason Elkins (00:21.167)
It’s going to be a lot of fun. We spoke a few weeks ago, had a really nice conversation. thought, well, we just need to come back and have a longer conversation, more in depth and record it for anybody that wants to listen. So I appreciate you coming back. Dana, before we get started.
really most interested and I think our listeners are most interested in your story. You shared a little bit of it when we spoke last time so we’re definitely gonna dig into that but before we do that let’s let our listeners know like anybody that’s thinking what the heck is Travelzoo maybe they’ve heard of it maybe they haven’t what is the 30-60 second elevator pitch on what Travelzoo is?
Dana (00:56.184)
Yeah, that’s a great question, Jason. Honestly, I didn’t know much about Travelzoo either before I started working here. And I was a little embarrassed afterwards because there’s 1.5 million Canadians that are subscribed to our newsletter, North of the Border.
I mean, that’s about one out of every 30 Canadians I know receives our newsletters and is acquainted with some of our cool travel packages. So I had to equate myself pretty quickly after that first phone call. But essentially these days we’re the club for travel enthusiasts. We’ve got global reach and we really focus on putting exciting trips and travel experiences and even some fun local stuff in front of our members, encouraging them to get out there with our unique curatorial angle.
Jason Elkins (01:41.071)
So I gotta ask, you mentioned Canada. So I don’t want anybody that’s listening to this to just check out because they don’t live in Canada, but I’m curious, do all of your members live in Canada or what is it? Tell me more about that.
Dana (01:54.274)
No, that’s a great question. Canada is where I’m focused and it’s where I’m sort of living my life day in, day out. But Travelzoo’s got a much larger global reach. There’s over 20 million members subscribed to our newsletter across the country with some of the biggest groups being in the U.S. and also in the U.K. and Europe.
Jason Elkins (02:12.046)
Good, well I’m happy we got that out of the way because I don’t want anybody to tune out and think, oh this TravelZoo thing is a Canada thing. Obviously it’s not. And as a sales director, I introduce you as, I don’t know, the sales director, a sales director, tell us more about that. What do you actually do for TravelZoo?
Dana (02:28.354)
Yeah, I I often think I’ve got the most fun job at the whole company. I my team is tasked with finding all of the fun and unique travel experiences that we put out on our network. So my days are spent meeting with different lodge or hotel operators across the country, different shows that are doing concerts, different restaurants that are opening. We get an opportunity to connect with those business owners, you know, find out where we can contribute and how we can bring new visitors to their locations. And then we craft business partners.
partnerships based on the fruits of those conversations. So it’s great. Even just half an hour ago, was connecting with a really interesting guy in Nova Scotia who’s just started a brand new adventure luxury lodge outdoors. And he was telling me about his journey, getting things up and running. And you get to look at beautiful pictures of these properties. Imagine yourself going with your family. It’s a fantastic job.
Jason Elkins (03:20.642)
No, it sounds great. Do you have the opportunity to go kind of do that? I don’t know if they call it fan trips, scouting, in-person conversations. Do go visit some of these places as well? take it.
Dana (03:32.312)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, wherever possible, we’re trying to get meetings on site with our partners for that exact reason. Whether I’m driving across Vancouver Island to go to Tofino, know, even if it’s a one hour meeting, I think it’s probably a good idea to go to that one in person, you know, take a look at the view, check out the hotel. But we also do something really neat at the company and everybody that works for Travelzoo in any role, whether it’s IT, finance or sales, every employee gets access to what’s called the Travelzoo experience where
Jason Elkins (03:47.554)
Yeah
Dana (04:02.276)
There’s one extra week of vacation available to everybody during the year and the company will pay you back if you go do one of the trips that are available on our network. So that’s definitely gotten a lot of us out there. I used mine to go to Portugal last year and we had an amazing trip overseas.
Jason Elkins (04:18.478)
Very cool. I I ask questions as they pop into bed. I have no plans, but what I heard you say was they give you an extra week of vacation, and if you go do one of the Travelzoo experiences, they’ll reimburse you. And I’m curious, do you have people at Travelzoo that, just take the extra week and stay at home? Is that even an option? Do you have to go do something in order to get that extra week?
Dana (04:41.932)
You know, we might have people that would choose that because we’re all avid travelers and in our spare time, we’re all out exploring the world. So I’m sure some people could use a break every once in a while, but no, to qualify for the experience, you’ve got to go and do something, you know, somewhere on the network. The closest one that I ever did was when I was living in Vancouver, I went to Whistler for like four days. And that’s what I used the Travelzoo experience for that year. I’d done a lot of other trips, ones that I just kind of planned.
Hawk and I was kind of close to the end of the year and I thought boy I better use this or it’s gonna go away forever so we booked an amazing two-level penthouse loft in Whistler just did it right for a couple days skied like crazy and took advantage of the appraise
Jason Elkins (05:27.48)
just submit your receipts when you get back. Sounds like it.
Dana (05:30.314)
Exactly. That one was a twofer. That was actually a partner I was working with too. So I got to go and have a meeting while I was on the Travelzoo Experience and get a full tour of the hotel. was really awesome.
Jason Elkins (05:44.494)
I hear you justify the expense. Just in case anybody’s listening, yeah, you know. I know it was a little bit more expensive than normal, but I had some business meetings and yeah, I get that. That’s pretty cool. And I love that it’s kind of a, like look, if you want to take advantage of this, you got to go somewhere because I can see some people, know, they’ve got families, lives and stuff and.
Dana (05:46.766)
Just just in case my boss
Jason Elkins (06:13.23)
Even if they really like to travel, sometimes all of sudden, boom, you’ve got an extra week of vacation. And they’re like, well, I really need to get caught up on stuff around home or whatever. And this kind of really encourages them to actually go do something instead of just, next year.
Dana (06:29.28)
It does, but I don’t think it’s too much of a hard sell. mean, every single day, every one of us at the company, like we’re immersed in travel. We’re constantly seeing cool vacations, new properties that are just opening for the first time. Like I’m pretty sure everybody that works at the company has a, you know, bucket list that’s several pages long. So as soon as something comes up through Travelzoo that one of us is excited to go do, it’s pretty easy to jump on those trips and take full advantage of the experience.
Jason Elkins (06:58.106)
that’s that’s very cool really like that so tell me when you you mentioned that you didn’t know a lot about Travelzoo when you had that first kind of phone screening or phone interview or whatever as the conversations continued do you remember and are you willing to share what it was that seemed the most exciting to you about that opportunity
Dana (07:19.276)
Yeah, it’s a good question. mean, at the time I thought, you know, I’d worked in the travel industry probably for…
14, 15 years when Travels Who Approach At the time, I thought I knew everything there was to know about the different sides and facets of the industry. So first and foremost, it was really cool to just learn about the business model sort of sitting in between a big OTA type model and working with partners so intimately on a grassroots level. The more I learned about it, the more compelling it was. And the only way I can really describe it is if you’re working at a hotel, like you’re really immersed in the hotel
ecosystem, you’re staying at hotels, you want to go check out other hotels. But when you work at a company like Travelzoo, you’ve got access to everything, whether it’s amazing flight offers that get you into parts of the world you never thought you’d be able to afford to go, or an amazing experience over in Europe, a week long guided tour. We’ve got some amazing content in Canada right now that’s really got me excited to go traveling in other parts just domestically and check out some of these places. But yeah, at the time I kind of thought I knew how all the pieces fit together and then to
this one company where everything’s sort of available through one central hub. I was like a kid in a candy store. was like, I don’t need to just focus on hotels or airlines or cruises or some niche side of the industry. I can work at this company and have access to all of it. Get to work with partners internationally, domestically, work with hotels, restaurants and everybody in between. So for me, it was just that exciting. was like kind of going from a grocery store that only sells apples and oranges to Costco or something where you’ve got
access to everything.
Jason Elkins (08:59.672)
love that you brought this up because it’s something that I did want to bring up is, you know, I don’t know a lot about Travelzoo. I didn’t do too much research because I love the spontaneity of these conversations. I don’t want to come into the conversation with preconceived ideas. And since I started this podcast, this was always about defining, well, what is adventure travel? That has come up so many times. And for a while I was kind of describing it as what it’s not.
So I’d say, well, it’s not cruise ships. It’s not all inclusive cruises. could be maybe smaller expedition type stuff. It wasn’t all inclusive resort hotels. And what I recognize is that we all have our own definitions of that. So any of our listeners that might be listening, well, Travelzoo sounds big, club membership, OTA, you mentioned cruises, hotels, flights.
Dana (09:26.68)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (09:53.186)
reason I really wanted to have you on the show is partially because of your background but also because I got the impression that maybe there’s others out there that don’t understand what some of these companies do like Travelzoo. You mentioned everything so talk to me let’s dig in a little bit to the adventure side of it however you define adventure so our listeners can be like now I get it and you know this is not just about booking cruise ship vacations or resort hotels.
Dana (10:15.95)
Yeah, I mean the great thing about Travels is we’ve got a wide and diverse member base and they’re always looking for something unique.
one of our mandates at the company is to service the entirety of the travel community and whether that’s somebody that’s looking for a weekend away at an ice hotel in Vancouver, or if that’s somebody that’s looking to completely disconnect and get off the grid and one of our amazing wilderness resort properties across British Columbia, like the partner I was just chatting with in Nova Scotia, they’ve got some beautiful little cabins where you can just go and completely remove yourself from the modern world for a couple of days. So I’ve worked in a couple of different companies in the past that define themselves
venture travel focused and I’ve got to be honest the types of content that we put out at Travelzoo they’re not dissimilar from the packages that we would work on at some of those other places I worked at in the past. I mean as an example we’ve got you know great nine-day camping trip that’s available take you all through Vancouver Island we’re pre-booking that for the summer right now that’s available on our website right now. We also partner with local businesses like First Nations led outdoor tourism companies in Tofino.
that will take you out for a guided whale watching experience that’s super intimate, really connected with the local people and lands. so I think when it comes to adventure travel, it’s.
There’s a lot of different people that come to us looking for different things, right? There’s some people who adventure travel might be a four-day fishing package on Northern coast of British Columbia, close to Alaska. There’s other people that might want to rent a cabin in Northern Ontario where it’s just going to be their family for six days in the wilderness. They’re going to be hanging out at the campfire every night under the stars. So I think it’s really cool that we’re able to put content out there that both satiates that appetite with our member community. But at the same time, you if you
Dana (12:06.37)
to get to that cottage up in Northern Ontario. You could spend a couple days in Toronto on your way there, just heading up at a great hotel downtown and use that as sort of a bridge to adventure. But we’ve put out some really exciting stuff over the last few years and we’ve got a Northern Lights partner that works with us in Whitehorse up in Canada’s Yukon and they put together amazing packages. We can get out and sort of spend a few nights under the stars. They’ll wake you up if the Northern Lights come out so you can be asleep in your cozy bed, not standing up.
Jason Elkins (12:34.562)
Nice.
Dana (12:36.24)
So really, I mean, I think it’s anything that, you know, inspires people, whether it’s a chance to get outside and disconnect, which we do see more often, you know, people looking for that type of package from us, or it’s something that’s really hardcore, like a four-day sled dog adventure through the Northwest Territories. The cool thing is we offer something for, you know, sort of everybody in between, and we’ve had intimate conversations with each one of those partners to sort of bring their package to life on our network along the way.
Jason Elkins (13:08.142)
You know, I mentioned a few moments ago that I looked at, what is not adventure travel? I, you know, so I, in my mind, I classified those things. think it pretty much everything else is. I think if you’re pushing past your boundaries, if you’re going exploring, if you’re open, you’re curious, you wanna connect, I think there’s so many things that fit very well into what we call adventure travel, niche travel, whatever. But it’s sometimes easier to describe what I think it’s not.
So I’m curious, is there anything that you guys don’t do? Like if I say, well, what don’t you do? What’s the first two or three things that come to mind?
Dana (13:43.81)
I mean, we’re really only travel focused. I know there’s other sites and channels out there where you might be looking at a hotel stay, you click to the next page and it’s like an oil change at the gas station in town or something. We don’t do any of that stuff. No, it’s really only things that you would want to go out and be enthusiastic about exploring. So that’s kind of our mandate. But within that, mean, there’s a pretty wide range of
Jason Elkins (13:56.622)
You don’t do the oil changes,
Dana (14:13.826)
partnerships that are available to us under that umbrella. We did one recently that was like a 20 day Everest base camp adventure package.
Jason Elkins (14:23.182)
I just gonna ask you that was the question I was coming up with next. I was gonna say, you’re telling me that like if someone wants to go to whatever space camp and it sounds like, yeah. All right.
Dana (14:31.988)
Yeah, absolutely. That one actually just came down. was looking at the results for it yesterday and it did really, really well. So apparently there’s a lot of people in Canada and the US that want to hike to Everest Base Camp with Travelzoo.
Jason Elkins (14:46.742)
That’s very cool. I think I think you’ve just answered anybody’s question That’s why is Dana from Travelzoo on the big world made small adventure travel podcast That’s part of it because I do believe you guys have those opportunities and also and this is where we’re going next is just the conversation over the last time I just realized pretty quickly you’ve been around this space for a while and I’d like to walk her through our listeners through kind of how you got from where you were To where you are now in this what sounds like a dream job for many many people
How far back do we need to go Dana to get a feel for how that all transpired?
Dana (15:21.198)
Well, I’m getting older now, so we gotta go way back, I’m afraid, Jason. When I was a kid.
Jason Elkins (15:25.806)
Well, me too.
Dana (15:29.176)
Well, I mean, it’s always been in me, I think, to work in this industry. When I was a kid, I had this idea that I was going to grow up and become some kind of Indiana Jones type character, like exploring archaeological ruins all around the world. And it’s just what I was interested in as a kid. read a of books and my taste for adventure was really well developed when I was young. And I was always looking for ways to get involved in that sort of thing. I went to university, I studied history, I was well on track to that Indiana Jones career. But in the summers,
Jason Elkins (15:58.615)
Yep.
Dana (15:59.092)
you got to work, you got to a job. And I was I was working as a forest firefighter in British Columbia, which was also a great job. And I got to go to cool parts of the province that very few people will ever visit, you know, spend all days in the woods and stuff like that. But I didn’t really want to do that for long. And I applied to become an adventure tour guide. And I applied and I’d applied and I’d applied again. And and every company that I applied to is like, you know, Dana, it sounds like you really want to do this. And that’s great. But you don’t have, know, the wilderness first aid, the
class four driver’s license, this whole list of other qualifications I’d never heard of. So I thought that door was closed and I headed off back to Northern BC to firefight for another summer. And I was about halfway up when I got a call back from a company based on Vancouver Island. And they said, you Dana, you did a great job in your interview. And if you can get back here in a day, then we’ve got, you know, spaces saved for you in these classes that you need to take, you know, the…
the first aid and the driver’s class. But you gotta be here in 18 hours. So I ended up getting out of the car, hitchhiking back to Vancouver and then taking a bus and a ferry and another bus and walking to get to this interview deadline. And I got there and they gave me all the stuff and I, three days later, had all the certificates and I was on my way.
Jason Elkins (17:00.59)
boy.
Jason Elkins (17:16.642)
Sweet it sounds like they it sounds like they wanted to know if you really wanted it that bad and if maybe that was just the test if he shows up then then well you know great and if he doesn’t then well okay he never really wanted it so that’s good but I want to pick up there in a minute but I want to go back to what do think it was that inspired you or gave you the desire to be Indiana Jones when you were a kid
Dana (17:21.579)
Yeah.
Dana (17:39.79)
I mean, for one, just love those movies and the times I spent with my family, you know, watching them and laughing and, you know, imagining all these cool places in the world and interesting and exciting things to do. But for me, it’s the stories that go into sort of the historical side, both if you’re a tour guide describing an area to somebody, you know, talking about the local history and things like that. There’s definitely a parallel there to the version of myself I saw growing up. But, it’s the stories of the place that makes those
places come alive for people. It’s those stories that have always made me feel most alive and it was the opportunity to share stories like that with other people visiting a place maybe for the first time and contributing to their sense of what it’s all about that I think really got me excited in those days.
Jason Elkins (18:28.174)
You do recognize that not everybody feels that way when they’re a kid, right? Not everybody wants to go explore and share. What I hear you saying is share experience, share openness, that type of thing. So I’m curious, you mentioned watching these movies, you’ve got some fond memories of that.
Dana (18:33.89)
Bye!
Jason Elkins (18:49.71)
Did you travel much when you were a kid? Did you have those opportunities? Did your parents travel? Did you have a crazy aunt or uncle that was sending you postcards? Tell us a little bit more.
Dana (18:57.134)
Yeah, I mean, my family background is fairly international. Like my family is originally from Norway, know, relocated to Canada and to a very remote part of British Columbia, you know, growing up in the southeastern part of the province. It’s the closest towns are several hours away. So travel was a big part of our life. know, anytime we wanted to go.
anywhere. It started with three hour drive to the airport in a town through the mountain passes and then from there we would go. But my parents were big travelers and my sister’s really excited about travel as well too and my family today is is all full of avid travelers. So definitely growing up it was something that my family helped me develop and we were always off exploring the wilderness every summer. We do multiple camping trips. We go connect with other family members. We go to Norway, connect with family there. So yeah, big big part of
my life growing up was travel and I think once I started getting involved in careers it was like well you know this is just sitting in the same place every day what kind of job can I can I do that’ll bring me out into the world a little bit more so definitely looking for those opportunities.
Jason Elkins (20:06.092)
that were the because you can’t imagine those you know Southeast British Columbia that Southeast or Southwest British Columbia I don’t want to get that right yeah
Dana (20:13.947)
Southeast is where I grew up. I’m yeah, I’m in the southwest now. I haven’t moved far
Jason Elkins (20:19.554)
Yeah, yeah. So Southeast, I’m trying to think there’s the Elk River. I’ve been to that area, and we don’t need to be specific for an area, but where I’m going with this is were the other people growing up around you, the other kids at school, the other families, would you classify that? Was it like, everybody lives in Southeast, British Columbia likes to get out and…
travel because they have to drive three hours to the airport but I’m guessing that there are a lot of people that probably didn’t weren’t quite as open about exploring so what was your experience?
Dana (20:55.362)
Yeah, I know you’re right. mean, it is kind of an insular town. But the other side of it is a lot of people move there deliberately because they think it’s paradise, you know, and when you find that sort of paradise, you don’t really want to leave it that often. So it’s interesting looking back. A lot of my good friends from high school, like they’ve stayed in Nelson. They’ve built their lives in Nelson, the southeast of British Columbia. And it’s and it’s a great place to be. I make a point of going back with my family as often as possible. It just offers a completely different flavor of British Columbia.
Jason Elkins (21:16.046)
right?
Dana (21:25.296)
than where I live today on the coast. So it’s a special place for sure. And there’s very few reasons to leave. I mean, it’s a great place to live. You get four seasons. Everything’s available despite being a remote community. And the people that live there are fantastic.
Jason Elkins (21:41.9)
I grew up in a very nice area of northern Wyoming. Beautiful, the mountains there, hunting, fishing. There’s so many wonderful things to do there. And what I’ve learned about myself, and I’m curious if this resonates with you, is that some people just have a harder time sitting still. No matter how great a place is, it’s just like, this is great and what else is great. And then there’s other people that are like, well, this is great, why the heck?
Dana (21:47.074)
Beautiful.
Dana (22:01.323)
It’s true.
Jason Elkins (22:13.302)
Sounds like you’re maybe a little bit more like me in that regard because I ain’t I’m I’m in Oaxaca Mexico right now I’ve been traveling full-time for the last four and a half years I’ve been to a lot of amazing places and I show up and I usually I think oh I could live here and then a month later I’m like but where else is out there
Dana (22:21.806)
Mm-hmm.
Dana (22:30.292)
Exactly. Yeah. You know, I did do that a lot. was real Goldilockser when it came to, you where I was living, especially when I was working full-time as tour guide and was traveling 11 months a year. You know, it was always like, well, where is home and why, you know, why do even need a home at all to start with? But for me, I mean, it’s always started and finished, you know, where I live here in Western Canada. Like I, and that’s a big part of…
I think why I was so passionate for so many years as a tour guide is I love it here. I think this is like the best place on earth and I love to travel and I spent a huge amount of the year traveling and exploring new places. I have favorite destinations in the world, places I’ve gone back to three, four or five times. But my heart’s here and I love it here. I think this is truly the greatest place on earth. get, know, there’s a desert in British Columbia. If you’re into deserts, there’s the ocean, there’s the Rocky Mountains on the east side of the province. And then up north, there’s a whole bunch of other cool stuff.
going on just geographically and climatically. So it’s a really special place to be and my heart definitely lives here.
Jason Elkins (23:34.702)
That’s very cool, I you sharing that. And, yeah.
Dana (23:36.15)
I gotta be honest, Jason, there’s colleagues that travels you that give me a hard time for being such a homer and for loving British Columbia so much. like, Dana, you gotta get out here. You gotta go on a vacation beyond the borders of your own province sometimes.
Jason Elkins (23:44.343)
yeah?
Jason Elkins (23:50.766)
Well, I I could tell you’re super fascinating I don’t know fascinates right word, but you obviously love the area you’re in Sounds like just love Canada in general because you mentioned several other locations in Canada that you got pretty excited about And I think that’s it’s pretty cool. It’s good to have that grounding too. And let’s now so let’s get into kind of okay you got you took up I heard
bus, probably some walking, you got yourself from the forest fire into whatever, wherever you were working as a firefighter and you got yourself into the training, you went through the few days, you got your certifications. Let’s start there, give our listeners kind of idea. I don’t want to move forward too fast, but guess the first question I want to ask you is…
Yeah, just what were your initial impressions when you, you know, the first season that you started doing this, was it what you thought it was going to be? What were some surprises? And then of course,
Dana (24:48.738)
Yeah, it was a funny time, right? Because you want something for so long when you finally get it. You’re kind of a bit like the cat catching a mouse. You’re like, what now? Right? So I definitely had that moment. And going through the training, was pretty straightforward. Show up, learn the stuff, pass the tests. The scary part came when I…
Jason Elkins (25:01.134)
Mm-hmm.
Dana (25:11.596)
finished all the training, came back to the base where the headquarters was, you know, there’s vans being loaded up, there’s camping equipment everywhere sort of thing. And my boss came up and kind of slapped a packet of documents in my hand and was like, all right, well, you better leave in the next hour if you want to make it up to Whitehorse by Thursday. This is like two days in the future. And I was like, okay. And I went and I loaded up all the camping stuff and, you know, flipped through the manual. It was a pretty basic tour outline, like, you know,
day one, pick up the group at Whitehorse Airport. And that was three days away. So I was like, all right, step one is to get to Whitehorse. So I loaded all the camping stuff and pretty much drove, you know, nonstop for 20 hours to get up there.
Yeah, the rest is history. Honestly, this outline to this day is probably one of the most basic tour itineraries I’ve ever seen. was like day two drive to Tombstone Territorial Park. It’s like nine hours away, know, set up camp, have dinner and go for a guided hike. And that’s it. And I was like, my first day as a tour guide and I just met these people.
Jason Elkins (26:18.092)
Now…
And you were the trip leader, like there was no one else, this your first trip out was go pick these people up at the airport, you know, kind of follow this itinerary and find fun stuff to do along the way. That’s what it sounded like.
Dana (26:31.202)
Yeah.
Dana (26:35.362)
Pretty much, I mean, was really basic. I was actually supposed to do a co-guided trip with a senior guide. It’s my first trip.
Jason Elkins (26:41.792)
Yeah, that’s what I expect.
Dana (26:43.534)
And that was going to be really easy. was all excited about that. It supposed to be a four day trip with a bunch of police cadets from Edmonton. were all going to be like 80 of them. They needed four guides. I was going to be the most junior guide. It was a great chance to learn, but unfortunately it never happened because the Yukon guy had injured himself. So they needed somebody who could go and I was the newest member of the team. I was also the youngest guy. I was like 21 when this was happening. so yeah, they’re just like, well, he’s got nothing going on. He has no
and he has no family. No one’s gonna miss him. So let’s just send him up to the Yukon for three weeks with this group of Dutch tourists. And that’s, think short straw to put it simply, short straw is how I ended up up there. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (27:22.154)
my gosh.
Jason Elkins (27:26.19)
Wow. Had you been in positions either earlier as a teenager or in school or maybe even with the, I don’t know, I’m going to say the fire service. I know that’s not right. You can correct me. But had you been in kind of leadership positions where you were in charge of getting people safely from point A to point B or was this like you just, they just threw you right in?
Dana (27:49.614)
I not really. I’d been in, you know, captain of the golf team or something. That was pretty much the most experience I’d ever had. But no, mean, honestly, at the time I never even questioned it. Like 21 year old me was so confident. I was like, oh, these people will be lucky they’ve got me as their guide. Like I’ll just get up there and it’ll all be fine. And it more or less was. For sure.
Jason Elkins (27:57.95)
Okay, well yeah, you’re good.
Jason Elkins (28:14.762)
It’ll work out. had faith in your ability to figure it out. That’s cool. I remember the very first guide. Yeah, I remember the first guide trip I did. I had been wanting to be a fly fishing guide in Montana. I got myself a job at a shop and I had the boat. I had everything ready and the guys I was working with like, wow, Jason, you need more experience. You need this, you need that. And I was kind of like managing some of the guide schedules and all this stuff.
Dana (28:40.974)
Mmm.
Jason Elkins (28:41.762)
day I showed up and they said hey so-and-so called in he’s not gonna be here do you want to take you know I had my license all set up ready to go and I okay do you know so-and-so didn’t show up you got your boat out back you want to take these people and like yeah sure of course and I was terrified I was like this is my first day and at the end of the day there were a few mishaps that the clients never knew
But I knew and my people around me knew, but the clients never knew. We got to the end of the day and I dropped them off at their car and they looked at me and said, well, you know, we’d never been on a guide trip before, but you really set the bar high. And I was like, do I tell them that I’d never been, I had never been on a guide trip either. I had never been a client on a guide trip. didn’t.
Dana (29:18.611)
that’s great.
Jason Elkins (29:29.568)
And I was like, Torrin, do I tell them? Well, I’d never been on a guide trip either, but you guys are great and you set the bar high. But I kept that to myself and kind of regret it. I should’ve maybe shared with them. But I’m imagining the conversations, like when you met the group, because I know, like you sit down with a group of people, they’re like, how long you been doing this? What do you like most? What do you like, have you had any bad clients? Do you have any crazy stories? did that-
Dana (29:57.454)
It did. It did come up. remember they kept asking me how old I was and like how old do need to be to have a driver’s license in Canada? Like all these questions that made me really aware. Yeah, they’re like, hey, have you ever driven a van like this? And I was like, yeah, once for sure. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (29:58.702)
you
Jason Elkins (30:08.206)
As you’re driving the van.
Dana (30:18.402)
But I mean, it was constant moments like that. And there’s no hiding from a group like that either. was like 10 Dutch people. We were camping for three weeks in Yukon in Alaska. Like we spent almost a month together. The whole time you’re together with the people, as you would know, right? So yeah, I mean, I… Yeah.
Jason Elkins (30:37.13)
It’s easy to hide it for a day. Three weeks is a little difficult and I might.
Dana (30:41.502)
It never occurred to me to bamboozle them or anything. I was just like, yeah, that’s my first time doing this itinerary, you trying to make it sound like I’d done a lot of other itinerary. In reality, like I’ve never, yeah, never done any of that stuff, but it was great. And you know, like in a situation like that, as I’m sure you know, it’s like.
Jason Elkins (30:49.72)
doing, yeah, they… No, you weren’t bamboozling them at all.
Dana (31:01.962)
It’s the people themselves that power the trip, right? It’s their enthusiasm and they all have ideas about what you’re gonna be. I might have three lines in the itinerary for that day, know, like drive to this place 700 kilometers away, take a rest stop along the way, like where, you know? But the people all have ideas, like they all know what they wanna do. This is one lady, you know, when we go to this place on this day, I really wanna stop here and get a photo at this thing. And so you’re like, well, there’s the rest stop for the day, that works.
they kind of keep you going, you know, with their interests. They’re like, I really want to see a bear. It’s day 10. We haven’t seen a bear. Well, let’s go down, check out the Salmon Bearing River and see if we can find some wildlife down there. So yeah, I mean, a lot of it was scary for sure. Like I remember having that feeling, you where you’re like, God, am I going to be sick? Like pretty much the whole time for that month.
You know, the people were so good and the destination is so spectacular that like a guy doesn’t need to do a lot of heavy lifting in the Yukon or Alaska. Like the location takes care of the rest.
Jason Elkins (32:03.768)
Yeah, I suspect there may be some people listening to this that would disagree, I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of conversations. I’ve been around the business for long time. I’ve been on many guided trips. I’ve done many. I’ve been the guide and I’ve been on many guided trips since then. And I think the common denominator for having a good experience or a good guide is one is just the personality, just the ability to connect with people and the willingness to connect with people.
Dana (32:32.865)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (32:32.974)
You know, it’s that openness and curiosity about people because if you show up with the right attitude and personality, that’s more than half the battle right there. Whether you know all the details and the facts.
I remember I was on a pack trip with some guides and I heard one or the other. I was leading the group but I was just a trip leader. I was not a guide on that trip. was just there to, I’m not even sure why I was there. I know why I was there. But I remember one of the clients asked one of the guides, it’s like, which mountain range is that over here? And the guy spouted out something that I knew was completely wrong. But he did it with such confidence.
Dana (33:07.566)
You
Jason Elkins (33:14.91)
And I was like yeah and just so many opportunities that I’ve seen guides really overcome lack of knowledge and maybe technical ability they’ve just overcome it with their ability to just Connect with people you know like if if one of the clients knew that it was the wrong mountain range And they said it he would have just rolled with it. It would have been fine. Nobody would have then the other part of it is you kind of mentioned it and
Dana (33:28.45)
Mm-hmm.
Dana (33:37.58)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (33:43.918)
is that ability to just kind of have faith, just confidence in yourself to figure stuff out. Maybe that’s a little easier when you’re 21 for not everybody, but some people. If you were to put your finger on where you got that from, that just like, yeah, sure, I’ll figure it out. Anything come to mind or is just, just burn into you.
Dana (33:52.344)
Mm-hmm.
Dana (34:05.036)
You know, one of the things I really thought a lot about, you know, during that specific tour, but also pretty much throughout the next year that I worked to develop my guide career was this sense of responsibility, right? Like, you know, a lot of people, depending on where you live in the world, you get two weeks vacation, four weeks vacation, you know, maybe more if you live in Europe or you’ve been with a company for a long time. But I there’s just such a acute awareness for me of how people choose to spend that leisure time.
If you only get two weeks off a year and you’re going to spend one of those weeks with me as a guide, you know, that’s a lot of responsibility for me. Like that’s 50 % of your free time that you’re going to spend with me in a year. And I’d better do a good job. You know, like I, there’s a sense of stewardship there. I don’t want that week of vacation to feel wasted for anybody. It’s like, it’s gotta go smooth. It’s gotta be fun. If problems arise, we’ve got to deal with them and come out of it better than, you know,
than had things gone smoothly.
Jason Elkins (35:03.534)
Did you figure that out along the way or did you feel like you went into that very first opportunity feeling like all that responsibility or is that something you kind of figured out along the way?
Dana (35:19.628)
Yeah, that was the big surprise for sure for that first tour specifically and even for the next few that came after that was, this isn’t fun and frivolous anymore. This may have been a fun idea for me to be a tour guide three weeks ago when it was just a fantasy, but now I’m doing it and the reality of it, it kind of hit me on that side. was like, this is real, these people need to be safe and they need to have a great time.
and you’ve got to deliver everything that’s in the itinerary too. So was like those three things, know, keep people safe, deliver what’s promised and really own the responsibility of these people spending their week of leisure time with me here in this place.
So yeah, all those things together, I think, kind of became like the bedrock that my guiding philosophy grew out of over the next few years as I started to, you know, visit new destinations and take bigger groups and different types of groups around the world for sure.
Jason Elkins (36:20.59)
So if you go from that first opportunity until, you you said over the next few years. So if you went from that moment in time, fast forward to three years later, you’ve been doing this for a few years. Can you walk me through, I’m just curious and I suspect other people would need to hear this as well. It’s like, what was the typical emotional, if, boy, I really don’t know how to ask this because I wasn’t planning to, but.
From the moment you’re like, okay, I just got my manifest and I’m meeting these people in a couple days to you’re dropping them off at the airport. What is emotionally what is going on as far as your levels of stress, enjoyment? How would you kind of describe the process of what you were going through? And it might be different for other guides, obviously.
Dana (37:10.796)
Yeah, I mean, it’s really cyclical, right? Like after you start getting into it and you’re doing either the same itinerary a bunch of times, you’re doing a few variations that are really similar. Like you feel like you’re slipping into the river. You know, get in at the beginning, you get out at the end, go back to the top and repeat it sort of thing. So there’s almost like an expected emotional cadence you get into when you’re doing it all the time like that, right? And there’s always like a bit of panic at the beginning when you got to get everything ready to be gone for three weeks.
Like you got to step out of your life for almost a month. So, you know, what do I need to do? I’m make sure the bills are paid. I gotta take out the garbage so the place doesn’t smell bad. you know, I used all my blister band-aids on those new shoes I had on the last trip. Gotta get new ones of those. So there’s like kind of a frenzied preparation stage and then you get into it and there’s always a bit of, okay, what’s the group gonna be like? Who’s gonna be the one guy that, you know, causes problems on this tour? Try to feel them all out at the beginning.
Jason Elkins (38:06.51)
and just hoping it’s not you. Please don’t let it, because every group has one guy or one person and if you can’t, I’ve heard this said, if you can’t figure out who that one person is, it’s probably you.
Dana (38:12.686)
Yeah.
Dana (38:18.67)
Exactly. So you got to figure out the guy, the one who’s going to be like asking for extra pillows or the room’s too small. You got to figure out that guy. But then you also got to figure out the other guy who’s going to be like the one that jumps in with jokes here and there. That bounce cone mountain because it’s shaped like a triangle. There’s always a guy who gives the comments. So you want to figure out who that guy is pretty quick and get to know him too. But yeah, then you get into it and just kind of this feeling of always you’re hovering, right? You’re like, everything’s going good.
Jason Elkins (38:32.014)
Mm-hmm.
Dana (38:48.884)
you know, the person was there to meet us for this, the lunch went smooth, the breakfast was in the right room, the bags were all there. And so you’re kind of hovering in that like things are going good so far type of mentality. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (38:57.912)
So far, could change very, one flat tire could change it all.
Dana (39:02.254)
Exactly. And honestly, like I’ve had a flat tire everywhere you can imagine. even had we were driving up to Prudhoe Bay one time with a group like going way up in Alaska, right up to where they extract oil right on the Arctic Ocean. We were driving up there one day and the bus driver was like, Dana, we got a problem. And I was like, oh, no, what’s going on? And he’s like, come look here. And I look in his big rear view mirror down the side of the bus. There’s a streak of fluid behind the bus as far as the eye could see. And I’m like, oh, my God, man. I’m like, we’re we’re like 300 miles from the place. We’re on a dirt
road there’s there’s nothing going on we haven’t seen a car in hours and it’s like okay how are we gonna fix this we get everybody out of the tour group you know to find a creek got to put a plastic bag in the radiator the cap had come off and all the fluid had drained out so it’s like bucket chain from this river the whole tour group’s participating you know filling up the radiator plugging it with a plastic bag and then 300 more miles to prudhoe bay sort of thing so yeah i mean things do happen but you’re grateful when they’re going well uh you’re ready for them to go wrong
and you just keep your fingers crossed, right? Hopefully you don’t need to deal with a problem, but I’m sure you know, like you’ve always, you’ve got like five solutions to every potential problem in the back of your mind at all times. So, you you hope nothing goes wrong. You’re grateful that it goes smooth, but you’re ready if things go off the rails.
Jason Elkins (40:19.438)
curious. I suspect that group of people that were doing the water chain from the river to the radiator. River to radiator. Yeah, I suspect that most of them, maybe all of them, you tell me, but I suspect an awful lot of them. That was probably one of the things they remembered about the trip and probably not in a bad way. It was probably, you know, because I find, unless things go horribly wrong, as long as you end up back at the
Dana (40:24.904)
Yeah, was a great group.
Dana (40:38.955)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (40:48.012)
the airport with the same number of people you started with, that’s a good thing. That’s the first rule in the guidebook. But what do you think? When you think things like that go sideways, do you feel like it creates more of a bond in the group and more of a sense of adventure?
Dana (41:02.498)
100%. Yeah. mean, especially if the outcome is a positive one, like in that scenario, it would have been a different story if we all had to sit there for eight hours and, somebody’s got to come and get us and we got to go back there. You know, we’re getting to the hotel like four in the morning. You know, things could have gone really badly there. But when things work out, like in that scenario, yeah, I mean, the group all comes together. People laugh about it. I mean, groups from different parts of the world impact that as well, too. This specific group,
Jason Elkins (41:16.237)
Yeah.
Dana (41:30.446)
They were all from Australia. There was a handful of New Zealanders in there and some people from New Caledonia. But that tour group of all the groups I’ve led, and this is 14 years ago, you know, this is a long time ago, that group still hosts annual get togethers in Australia where I think about half the group still gets together. They all camp out in some part of Australia and they all tell stories. I remember when we did get to the end of the road on that trip.
It was one guy’s birthday. was his 80th birthday that day. And he had an Australian Speedo on.
and he got me to take him down to the Arctic Ocean and him and I went swimming. It was like ice flows and black gravel. It looked so cold and uninviting, but this 80 year old dude, was his birthday that day and he was like, I’m going swimming in the Arctic Ocean in these way too revealing Australian flag speedos. And he’s like, Dana, you’re coming with me. And I was like, God, dude, like you go over there, but okay. All right, I’ll get in the water at the same time as you. You’re just gonna be a hundred feet out of sight down the beach.
Jason Elkins (42:21.23)
you
Dana (42:31.412)
And we did. that guy, he was a really, really cool guy. And he was kind of the leader of all those get togethers for the group and everything afterwards. But yeah, absolutely. Through adversity, people come together. They still tell that story. Something had happened earlier on that trip in the Rockies where this really short lady on the tour had struggled to get in her bed. And five other members of the tour group came and hoisted her in. So there was little things like that that would happen along the way. And yeah, the group just comes together.
And it’s funny they zoom call me every once in a while from Australia It’ll be like around Christmas time and they all get together and it’s like all sunny there and they’re like, you dana What’s happening mate? And i’m like, wow good to see you guys. They’re like, how’s archer? He’s talking about my son
Jason Elkins (43:15.214)
that is so cool and I suspect I mean those things I remember I was on a fam trip in Namibia with a lot of other a lot meaning maybe eight to ten
Travel Trade Association World Summit and we had an opportunity go out and spend a few days with one of the local operators and they took us on this multi-day journey through the mountains and deserts of Namibia. It was incredibly fascinating, it so much fun and one of the things I remember the most
was we were gonna go from one side of the mountains over to the coast. So we’re gonna go up over the mountains down to what they call the skeleton coast because there were a lot of shipwrecks there. It’s a very rugged place. And anyway, but there were no roads. We were just literally just gonna find our way across the mountain is what it was put out to us, right? And of course, this is a new area. We’ve really haven’t been in this area, but we’re really excited about it because we wanna open it up and whatever. And the day that we drove over the mountain,
Dana (44:10.488)
wow.
Jason Elkins (44:21.866)
stuck in the sand two or three times and I remember thinking and I’m pretty adventurous you know but I remember thinking holy crap like this is serious we’re out in the middle of Namibia which is like the second most sparsely populated country in the world and we’re out in the desert there’s no tracks anywhere I mean we’re literally just driving across these sand dunes to get to the next not even a gravel road just the next
hard surface, guess is the best way to describe it. And we’d get stuck in the sand and like, and they turned the wheels and the car, the vehicles just kept getting deeper and deeper in the sand. And I was like, holy cow, this is pretty intense. And we’d spend half hour, 45 minutes an hour with the guides underneath trying to do stuff and then.
We’d all get behind and we’d push it and we’d get it out of the sand and oh, we’re gonna live. Oh, this is great, we’re gonna live. And then we’d get stuck again. And we’re like, oh man, we’re pushing our luck here. Moral of the story is we got to the end of that and I realized, holy crap, if they could replicate that every week with a new.
Dana (45:14.966)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (45:29.842)
it was such a bonding experience you know the adrenaline gets going and then they come in and save the day like a good guy is supposed to do and I was like if they could repeat that safely you know for every group they take new area we don’t know where we’re going but you know whatever and then and then you you get to the coast and you’re like my gosh I’m so happy we made it we’re alive and it was really really cool so anyway yeah yeah yeah and
Dana (45:36.63)
It would be.
Dana (45:53.72)
That does sound cool. A real adventure. Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (45:58.926)
but it’s sometimes hard to, but it’s also the way that the guide, actually here’s a question I’ve been wanting to ask someone for a long time that’s familiar with guiding in the Northwest. I went with a fly fishing guide and I it was either BC, yeah, I think it was Southeastern BC, and we were gonna go to this river we had to hike down in, and pretty much the entire time we were hiking, he was hollering.
Hey bear, hey bear, hey bear. And he was telling us, well, if I say that, then the bears will hear us coming, they’ll leave us alone.
Dana (46:26.712)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (46:37.998)
Is he just full of crap? mean, is he doing this for us? Because it definitely raised the adrenaline level. It was definitely made it a much more intense experience. Just having him constantly reminding us that there’s bears in this area. And he’s there because he knows what he’s doing. He’s there to protect us from the bears. And I remember at end of the day, I was like, wow, this guy’s pretty cool. He’s a stud. Or do you think he was just full of crap?
Dana (47:03.854)
I mean, I would never throw a fellow guide under the bus.
Jason Elkins (47:08.556)
No, no, no, and I might, you me too. But I remember thinking, even if he had no need to do that, I was like, wow, he really made an impression with that because it just, takes it from a walk in the woods to something like, this is intense and look at us, we’re doing something really, really cool. And yeah, so anyway, I just.
Dana (47:17.495)
Yeah.
Dana (47:27.606)
No, that’s, I mean, that is legit, right? Like that’s something I do here, living in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island with my family, when we go on hikes up at Mount Washington, for sure. I usually do the clap, like I’ll go out in front and like clap loud, cause I think the sound travels further that way. But my wife is a hay bear enthusiast. Hey bear, hey bear. So it’s absolutely real. Like it’s a good thing to do it with a group. I mean, in a group, oftentimes people are making enough noise.
Jason Elkins (47:36.6)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (47:42.424)
Uh-huh.
Dana (47:57.42)
that you don’t really need to do it. But I did that once with a group in the Yukon and we heard the bear. It was like 60 feet away. We got close and just heard a huge crash in the forest, heard it running away. And then we got to a clearer part, I don’t know, maybe 10 minutes later down the trail and we could see it down in the plane, like still running away. So yeah, it’s necessary sometimes and it definitely works for sure.
Jason Elkins (48:23.418)
that’s cool. mean as someone who grew up in northern Wyoming spending a lot of time in the mountains and by the point I’d been on that trip I guided anglers into Yellowstone Park and all that stuff and I just I had never done it. mean I saw it but I think I think the further north you go.
Dana (48:33.73)
Mmm.
Jason Elkins (48:41.406)
serious it gets. I don’t know why in my mind that’s the way it is but you know I do remember a joke that we used to tell that was something like how can you tell the difference between grizzly bear poop and
Dana (48:43.298)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (48:56.568)
them has bear bells in it and the other one smells like pepper spray. Meaning that it doesn’t matter if you have the bells on your belt making noise or if you’ve got pepper spray, the bears don’t care. But the tourists…
Dana (48:59.65)
the bear families. Yeah, exactly.
Dana (49:13.74)
The bells are funny.
Jason Elkins (49:15.342)
The tourists, you know, because I was working in a fly shop on the Yellowstone River. We sold a lot of Bear Bells and pepper spray, even though I seldom ever had that stuff myself. But anyway, so it’s fun.
Dana (49:26.018)
Yeah, totally. The bells are funny. Like, we would often joke about the bells. Among the other guides, it’d be like, it’s just so they know dinner’s coming, you know? Like, the bell jingling down the way. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (49:35.212)
Yeah, yeah, that type of yeah, exactly. And then maybe the pepper spray just kind of add some flavor to the meat. I’m not sure. boy. All right. So I want to get back to kind of what you’re doing now and figure out, you know, what are the other steps you as far as we got as you guided for a few years, but maybe it was a lot more than that. So kind of walk us through that.
Dana (49:43.758)
Just a little mild seasoning.
Dana (50:02.946)
Yeah, so I turned it into a full-time thing. I was going to law school at the time. was sort of what I was going to, know, was working towards being a lawyer when I eventually got all the guiding out of my system. And I remember, sorry.
Jason Elkins (50:15.694)
All right, don’t go any further. That kind of requires me to ask some questions because I’ve spoken with some people that went to law school, maybe were even lawyers, and decided, holy crap, this is not for me. And then they went and became adventure guides. So hearing you say I was an adventure guide trying to pay my way through law school, which seems like two very different things.
Dana (50:35.149)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (50:44.686)
I got to dig a little deeper than that. I’m not sure where to go with that. But as you were out enjoying nature and this and that, and you wanted to be a lawyer, what was behind that?
Dana (50:45.87)
Hahaha
Dana (50:53.806)
I don’t know. I realized in third year university that Indiana Jones was not actually a job. And so I realized I would eventually need to do something else. And the law has been a big provider for my family. My dad’s been a lawyer. There’s some uncles that are lawyers and stuff like that. it seemed like something. Like my dad was a small town lawyer. it’s not like a big.
Jason Elkins (51:11.054)
Alright.
Dana (51:16.814)
corporate guy or anything. You’re doing like wills and like property disputes and stuff. And so, you know, it was cool that he was connected to all these people in town. And I thought, it’d be nice to be that connected where I live. And, but yeah, I mean, I realized sort of towards the end that, you know, I was lucky as a guide, I got to spend, you know, every day with people having
the best day of their year, right? Like people don’t go on vacation, have a bad time. They’re excited about where they’re going. They’re committed to having a good time unless things go really wrong. So I was having a great time. I love being a guide. I’d really sort of built up a business around it where I’d incorporated myself and I would lease out my personal guiding services to different companies. So it was becoming a good professional job.
And at the end of law school, what do you do? You go be an intern. So I would have been making less. And then I realized that if I did go down that road, that people would only be coming to see me on like the worst day of their lives.
Jason Elkins (52:12.846)
Yeah, they’re not, nobody’s excited to go talk to their lawyer, any lawyers. It’s only when things are really uncomfortable, difficult, as opposed to, like you said, being a wilderness guide or a…
Dana (52:17.312)
No.
Dana (52:28.302)
Yeah, so, you there was that realization and the fact that, you know, financially it would have actually been a step back for at least the first year. So, um, I, yeah, had no interest very swiftly pivoted and then just kept on, kept on going and in tourism until today. So it was a blessing for sure that I, that I made that, that good choice because it was only
Jason Elkins (52:39.982)
Alright, cool.
Dana (52:51.096)
you know, a year after making that decision that I ended up meeting my wife at one of the hotels I was bringing a group to. So, you know, the rest is history, as they say. And she would have never married a lawyer.
Jason Elkins (53:00.344)
Cause
Dana (53:04.034)
Hahaha
Jason Elkins (53:04.302)
You found you found a good one. I can tell just I shouldn’t say that because I’m sure there’s lawyers listening to the show but a woman that would choose an adventure guide or an outdoor guide over a lawyer just on those two things obviously there’s so many more things involved and finding the right person but if you said you know that’s I respect that that’s pretty cool so let’s talk about that because actually that can be a real challenge for people that work in tourism especially if they’re
Dana (53:10.178)
Ha ha ha.
Jason Elkins (53:33.186)
going away for a month at a time here or there, whether it’s, you know, even if it’s local in the same country or international or you’ve got a lot of people that end up, you know, they spend six months here, six months there, you know, flipping their time between Chile and Canada, and it can make relationships really, really challenging.
Would you like to share with our listeners about that?
Dana (53:55.118)
Yeah, it’s all true. I mean, I shouldn’t say that. know a lot of people in the industry to this day that have been married for 20 years and they’re both guides and they’re off all the time and stuff like that.
Jason Elkins (54:08.546)
Wow, see, see that’s, you touched on something there because that’s the thing. They don’t necessarily have to both be guides, but there’s, if there’s not some alignment or some appreciation for that type of work, it can feel like, you know, if you don’t care anything about tourism, adventure is not your thing. And your partner and your partner keeps leaving to go do it. And then he comes back, my gosh, we had a great group. It was so much fun. And the whole time you’re gone, she’s like.
Dana (54:16.662)
Mm-hmm.
Dana (54:27.982)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (54:36.248)
Why am I stuck here by myself and he’s not here to help with the kids or whatever, whatever, you know, so yeah.
Dana (54:40.654)
Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think that’s where things get complicated, right? Is where you, you know, if you do want to put down roots, then it means being around more, you know, not being literally everywhere else 97 % of the time. So, you know, for me, that’s, that’s kind of what it was. It was,
done the job for a long time. I traveled around and kind of checked off lot of the places I wanted to visit and work in at that point. And you meet the right person and it’s a great reason to spend more time in one place for sure. And so for me, that was the real catalyst for spending all this time on the road, being everywhere but British Columbia to really looking for reasons to spend more time at home and more time in the province and looking for careers that would be a nice jumping off point for somebody working.
as a tour guide to transfer those skills into a sedentary workplace for sure.
Jason Elkins (55:33.816)
Sedentary interesting interesting choice of words Because I was just getting ready to ask you so tell me more about travel zoo does that But I don’t I don’t know if I’d use the word sedentary, but I get I get what you mean by that so Yeah, so talk about the transition from the the constant moving around the guiding to a job like you’ve got now that’s
Dana (55:35.427)
Hehehehehe
Dana (55:47.244)
Yeah, just not moving around.
Jason Elkins (55:57.87)
or sedentary that probably works better for relationships. How did you get from that spot to your job at Travelzoo?
Dana (56:07.266)
Yeah, it’s, you you gotta, I’m the kind of person that has to love, you know, whatever I’m doing for me to be successful at it. And, you know, at this point I’d been a guide for a long time and I’d seen…
colleagues that had maybe been doing it for too long. I’m sure you’d recognize the same signs I did at that point. You get a little short with the group or your heart’s not in it. You’re starting to think more about what you’re going to do at the end of the day or wishing you were somewhere else or something like that. So I’d kind of seen those signs in a few colleagues and thought, boy, that guy, you know, they shouldn’t be leading groups anymore. And and I started to see a little bit of that in myself. I was like, you know, I sure wish I wonder what, you know, I what she’s doing. I wonder what’s going on at home.
So yeah, you’re gonna start moving in a different direction. Fortunately, there’s a lot of good opportunities for you to kind of transfer the skill set from being a tour guide. mean, you have to be good at so many things and there’s so much going on all the time as a tour guide. There’s a lot of good careers you can transition into. For me, the first and easiest step was to move from being like a nomadic concierge to being a…
concierge at a hotel. And so I did that for a couple of years afterwards. Absolutely loved that job. It was everything I loved about being a tour guide, only at one place every day. So you’re still planning adventures for people and making sure that they extract the most from their leisure time on vacation. But you get to go home and sleep in your own bed. And I got to work with some amazing people and really bring some special moments to life for people when I was doing that job. So I loved it. But then, you I’d always had a bit more
ambition on the business side of things and I was looking for ways that I could develop some opportunities of my own, which I did. And then I worked with a visionary guy at a Canadian FIT luxury tour company for a little while. from that business experience came the Travelzoo opportunity.
Jason Elkins (58:09.486)
to say this edit edit edit because I might need to go back and we lost the connection for just a second can you hear me okay now? All right cool so you were let’s pick up to somewhere around you were looking for ways to kind of be more business you were the concierge working at a hotel and then you decided that you wanted to look for ways to expand business become more of a business person is what I was hearing so just jump in anywhere and we’ll all make it work so edit edit edit
Dana (58:40.726)
Yeah, so coming out of the concierge experience, it was looking to develop something a little bit more robust that I could work towards and kind of start leveraging some of those relationships I had in the industry in a different way to bring people into different places. And during that time, I worked for a really well-regarded luxury FIT tour company based in Vancouver with a visionary owner who just
totally turned my perception of the industry on its head and showed me, you know, what’s happening in the really highest levels of the Canadian tourism industry, like amazing lodge vacations arrive at by helicopter type stuff. So that was a really fun, fun time, fun learning experience. And shortly after that, I started up with Travelzoo and the world just opened right up.
Jason Elkins (59:33.71)
It’s very very super cool. We’ve got a lot of people to listen to this that want to be in your shoes or maybe they want to be an adventure guide. Maybe they’re fighting forest fires and they want to go be a guide somewhere. What are just just real quick give me one or two tips suggestions or realities. What should they consider before they take any steps or what is the best first step? I know that’s a very broad question. I’m curious where you what you’re gonna come up with.
Dana (01:00:02.626)
Yeah, I mean, it’s a good question for sure, because it’s the type of job that’s definitely not for everybody. I I absolutely had some moments that first year where I was wondering if I’d made the right choice, if I was up to the task, you know? And it’s being away, right? It’s being away from everything and from everybody in your life for that long. And that’s the first thing that you’ve got to be up for is just, you know, understanding the toll it will take to be away from your life and living a very different life for most of your time.
Jason Elkins (01:00:03.862)
You
Dana (01:00:32.66)
But I mean, if that’s not an issue, mean, maybe that’s you’re someone who’s looking out at the world more than you’re looking in at your own life. And that’s appealing. So that’s probably the first thing. The second thing is, is you’ve got to love something about it, right? You’ve got to really love something about it, whether it’s the constant momentum of just doing the job and being on the go all the time, or if you love the people in the groups, you you really love that element of hospitality where you’re welcoming people in and making sure they have a great time. Or if you love the place that you’re visiting, and you just want to spend as much
time there is possible in whatever capacity you can. It’s got to be something like that where you because it’s the kind of job where it becomes a grind over time. Like you could be doing anything. And if it’s like a 30 day trip by day 24, you’re going to be tired. doesn’t matter what it is. So it’s it’s that passion for the role that’s going to carry you to the end of the trip. And that’s definitely the second major qualification, I would say. But beyond that, I mean, I there’s really no one size fits all for
guides. Like in my time in the industry, like you were saying, you work with ex lawyers. One of my favorite co guides ever was a retired Canadian RCMP officer who was in his early seventies. This guy, Gary, like he was my best friend. We did all these tours together. Absolutely love the guy on paper. We couldn’t have been more different. I was like 24, 25. He’s like 73. He’s so serious. I’m super goofy. But, you know, we became best friends and he’s one of the best guides I’ve ever worked with. And there was a
Jason Elkins (01:01:33.134)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:01:42.03)
Hmm.
Dana (01:02:02.336)
kinds of people on the spectrum in between our two careers, know, people that had been a nurse for 12 years or someone who’d been a waitress for three years. There was one guy who’d been a doctor, like some kind of pathologist at the hospital. He’d gone off to become a tour guide. beyond those those first two things, like where you need to be ready to be away from home and you’ve got to have some kind of passion that’ll carry you throughout the itineraries, I would say it’s a pretty, pretty vague beyond that. I mean, it’s, it’s, anybody can do it.
Jason Elkins (01:02:26.7)
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. I mean, we’ve had conversations with people about, you know, what type of person, you know, what if you were going to go out and recruit guides and the rule was it has to be a brand new guide. It has to be somebody who’s never been a guide. Where would you go looking for them? And we’ve we’ve discussed, you know, I’ve had guests discuss school teachers or bartenders is one that comes up quite often or anybody that works in the service industry.
Dana (01:02:54.134)
Mmm. Yep.
Jason Elkins (01:02:56.374)
And I thought, yeah, bartenders probably would make pretty good group leaders because they’re so used to managing a bunch of different people. And sometimes they have to set boundaries. sometimes, you know, as long as maybe some bartenders at the end of their shift just want to drink a lot. But you know what? The reality is sometimes a lot of guides do that too.
Dana (01:03:00.983)
for sure.
Dana (01:03:16.564)
Yeah.
Dana (01:03:20.79)
That’s true. That is absolutely true. But that’s, I mean, that’s a really good example. Like somebody, a bartender, they would be a great fit for a big. So you get a thousand things happening at the bar. What’s that guy doing? What’s that guy doing? And then you still have to be professional throughout. You’ve got your safety requirements with not over serving. Like that’s a great parallel for sure. You’re chatting with people and you got to be hospitable. Yeah, that’s.
Jason Elkins (01:03:38.242)
And you can, yeah. And I think one of the challenges that maybe people don’t recognize when they get into, I mean, I’ve run into lodge managers, hospitality people in the small space. Let’s say, let’s imagine a safari camp in Africa and you’ve got 12 guests there. one of the most important things I think is just to make every single guest.
This is the challenge is make every single guest feel seen heard Appreciate it because maybe you’ve got one guy who’s really funny makes a lot of jokes and it’s really easy to get along with So the camp manager might just always want to sit down with that guy because he’s fun. It’s easy I don’t have to work because because this guy is kind of entertaining the whole crowd But then you’ve got the more quiet reserve people that are staying behind They’re not staying behind, but they’re just not as vocal
Dana (01:04:20.651)
Mm-hmm.
Dana (01:04:24.546)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:04:32.278)
and it’s easy to forget about them. you know, just because they’re quiet doesn’t mean they don’t want to be seen.
Dana (01:04:34.551)
Mm-hmm.
Dana (01:04:38.179)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:04:39.03)
And that’s a trick. mean, one of the jobs I got in the business, I got a job managing a small fly fishing and scuba diving lodge off the coast of Belize. And it’s because the first time I went there, the guy who was kind of the fishing coordinator there, I recognized half the people at the lodges, a maximum of 20 guests, and he couldn’t remember half their names, you know, after a week. And there were some people that he would just buddy buddy with, and other people he couldn’t even remember their names. And it was obvious.
Dana (01:05:01.027)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:05:09.104)
them you know five days and he’s like tell me your name again and I’m just whoa so I went to the owner of the place I said hey when when this guy doesn’t work out because it was obvious I would love to come do the job and you know I got a call a couple months later so so when I took the job I made a real point of memorizing everybody’s name before I ever met him
Dana (01:05:12.642)
Yeah.
Dana (01:05:18.488)
Yeah.
Dana (01:05:23.469)
good for you. You’re like, already know all their names.
Jason Elkins (01:05:33.026)
You know, I’d have the manifest, I’d go into town to pick them up on Saturday. I had memorized everybody’s name and then all I had to do was connect the name with usually what they were wearing or something identifiable about them. And we’d all meet on the boat before we took the boat trip out and I…
group on the back of the boat and I’d introduce everybody and everybody thought, wow, he just met us and he already knows all of our names. Then we’d get back to the lodge about an hour and
first thing that I’ll do is go to the room and change. Change their clothes, take a shower, do their hair, whatever, and then they come back up to the lodge for cocktails and it was like, that was the challenge. Yeah, it’s like, darn, man, he’s no longer Bob and Blue. He’s, you know, but yeah, so anyway.
Dana (01:06:05.742)
Yeah
Dana (01:06:13.814)
Yeah, for sure. Post wardrobe change, do you still recognize him yet?
Dana (01:06:21.656)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:06:25.934)
Dana, we’ve discussed so many things. want to make sure that we’ve got to, you know, if there’s anything extra you want to share about Travelzoo, you, life philosophies, anything like that. So I’m going to ask you, what did I forget to ask you? Or what do you wish I would have asked you before we…
Dana (01:06:41.672)
It’s been a fun chat Jason, honestly it’s fun to talk about the guiding days and just a general industry hang is always well appreciated on my side. I the only thing I would leave your listeners with is just a reminder to check out Travelzoo. What’s happening with us at the company is super exciting lately. We’ve moved away from being that sort of one-size-fits-all company to being a really kind of concentrated club-based entity that really listens to the members and looks to produce the type of content that aligns with our members’ vacations.
needs and that transition has been super exciting. You we’ve seen a real community grow out of our paid membership side and some of the promotions that we’re doing around like our member days events. Next one’s coming up in just a couple of months. You know those exclusive travel opportunities that we’re putting in front of our club are not to be missed. I mean my family’s vacations, I’ve got three booked that came from our last member day event and Travels is a great place if you’re a traveler that wants to get out and just check
out as much as you can in the span of a year. You save a little money on two or three of your vacations and all of a sudden you can afford a fourth one this year. So it’s a great way for people to you know get out with
a fun travel package, but relying on us to do the curation. We’re only gonna put really top-notch world-class experiences in front of our members. So you can always rest easy that our producers, our editors, our publishers, or maybe even our salespeople have been to the place and checked it out, really vetted it before it ever shows up in an email from us.
Jason Elkins (01:08:15.742)
What you’re saying right now, what I’m hearing is there are OTAs out there, there are websites out there, you can go find a lot of different stuff, right? But what I hear the difference, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that because…
Dana (01:08:24.812)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:08:32.342)
You the people you work with, I think you use the word vetted. Honestly, that’s where it came down to because I’ve learned as a full-time traveler for the last four and a half years, I’ve learned that there’s a wide range of things and quality levels that you can book on some of these other websites. And you quickly realize that, holy crap, if I was the CEO of, I’m not going to mention any other websites or companies, but if I was the CEO of this and that, and I realized that we…
Dana (01:08:49.376)
It’s true, yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:09:01.611)
this on our website it would be embarrassing and that seems to be the difference right?
Dana (01:09:04.086)
Yeah, it really is. And I mean, it’s both a curse and a blessing, right? And it’s a blessing as a member and as a subscriber and user of Travelzoo myself. It’s a huge relief to know that anything that shows up on the website or appears in my inbox as a promotional email is something that has been vetted by our team. It’s a curse on the sales side because I can’t just approach anybody in Canada about a partnership.
They all have to have, you know, 4.0 or higher on TripAdvisor, on Google reviews for me to even have a conversation with a partner. So on the working side, that definitely presents some limitations. But as a, you know, avid user and enthusiast for TravelZoo myself personally, it’s something I appreciate the most about the company. I mean, even the behind the scenes, like we had our weekly top 20 meeting just yesterday. We have it every Wednesday and it’s a whole community of us, you know, meeting both virtually and in person. And we go through all the upcoming deals.
Jason Elkins (01:09:34.23)
Uh-huh. Yeah, yep.
Dana (01:09:59.864)
for the next week and we get like really hyped on them. Like I usually see somebody yesterday we were doing a promotion for the Azores which is one of our best bets for this year.
And one of the ladies was like, I stayed at that resort last year. It’s awesome. All you guys got to go. And it’s, it’s funny because you’re working at this company and it, and it is a company. It’s like we’re, we’re traded on the, you know, the U S stock exchange and there’s a corporate entity that underlies Travelzoo for sure. But at the end of the day, it’s a bunch of Travelzoo, travel enthusiasts in a room talking about trips they’ve done or trips they want to do or trips they think their aunt would like to do or some, anything like that. So it’s a, really fun place to work.
and everybody’s just solely focused on putting the best possible experiences in front of our members.
Jason Elkins (01:10:46.606)
Since you mentioned specifically TripAdvisor, I’ll just say this. I’ll say that, I don’t think there’s any meetings going on at booking.com, for example, where they’re all sitting around about, ah, look at this new place that we came across and this. You just can’t even imagine that. I get it. I mean, when I worked at Orvis, I ran their fly fishing international, really their international travel business for a while.
Dana (01:10:57.134)
Exactly.
Dana (01:11:06.583)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:11:14.124)
jobs was to go scout places to see if they qualified for endorsement. They you know they really had to meet some some requirements and unfortunate and sometimes it was just like did I like it would I be proud would I be proud to send our guests there would I be proud to bring my mom there you know whatever if you know not everything’s right fit for everybody but honestly if I’d be proud and sometimes I’d visit these places and it was just like my gosh I’ve got three days here by myself with the lawjone
Dana (01:11:33.922)
Mm-hmm.
Dana (01:11:40.258)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:11:41.534)
and he’s standing there pissing off the patio telling me crude jokes and I’m like, man, already, like I’ve got, I’m supposed to be here three days and then I know that I have to write a report because anytime we go visit a place and we reject it from the program, we gotta, you’ve gotta say why. And that was the hard side of the job that most people don’t realize. So it resonates with me here and you say what you’re saying. I’m like, okay, yeah, I get it. So,
Dana (01:11:45.081)
no.
Dana (01:11:53.941)
Yeah.
Dana (01:12:00.759)
Yeah.
Dana (01:12:08.558)
It’s true. is, it is a, it’s it’s an interesting trap to be in for sure.
Jason Elkins (01:12:14.062)
Very cool. So there’ll be some people listening to this that are either maybe would benefit from being a member of Travelzoo as I guess a club member. Is that what you call them? Yeah, yeah But I suspect we also have some people listening to this that have some pretty cool operations that they’re working on a lot of tour operators and stuff like that that maybe in the past would think You know, we’re a small operator. We do this we do that and they may not have thought that something like Travelzoo made sense, but
Dana (01:12:23.672)
Yeah, yeah, club member, exactly.
Dana (01:12:43.213)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:12:44.014)
If you listen to this conversation and you heard Dana speaking, if you feel a connection and a resonation at all, I would encourage you to reach out to them. Obviously, there’s a lot of ways to get in touch with you, but we’re going to have a link to Travelzoo right in the website. I’m sorry, a link to the website right in the show notes. So very cool. Dana, it was a fun conversation. I knew it would be, and I appreciate you taking time to do it. And I look forward to collaborating with you on some stuff in the future.
Dana (01:13:10.456)
Yeah, thanks so much, Jason. It’s been a blast. It’s been great to connect with you both here and in our previous conversation. It’s always fun seeing where you’re beaming in from for the different episodes. I wish you a great time in Mexico.
Jason Elkins (01:13:23.618)
Thank you so much, Dan. I’ll chat with you real soon. We’ll stay connected. All right.
Dana (01:13:26.734)
All right, take care.
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