Guest Bio
Jon Nicholson is the Founder and Director of Product and Planning at Miru Adventures, bringing over 45 years of experience in the adventure travel industry. His extensive career includes roles in planning and operations for experiential travel, with a focus on discovering new destinations and creating unique travel experiences. Jon’s passion for enriching lives through travel has led him to visit over 100 countries across all seven continents.
Show Summary
In this episode, Jon Nicholson shares insights from his extensive career in adventure travel, discussing the evolution of the industry and the importance of adapting to changing traveler interests. He reflects on his experiences in planning trips to emerging destinations and the challenges of maintaining sustainability and authenticity in travel experiences. Jon also emphasizes the value of continuous learning and curiosity in both personal and professional growth within the travel sector.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Embracing Change: Adapting to evolving traveler preferences is essential for long-term success in the travel industry.
- ✓ Sustainable Tourism: Implementing responsible travel practices ensures the preservation of destinations for future generations.
- ✓ Continuous Learning: Maintaining curiosity and a willingness to learn enriches personal growth and professional expertise.
- ✓ Authentic Experiences: Crafting genuine and immersive travel experiences enhances traveler satisfaction and cultural appreciation.
- ✓ Global Perspective: Extensive travel fosters a deeper understanding of diverse cultures and global interconnectedness.
What You’ll Find on Miru Adventures’ Platform
- ✓ Curated Expeditions: Expertly planned journeys to remote and culturally rich destinations.
- ✓ Custom Expedition Design: Tailored travel experiences designed to meet specific interests and group dynamics.
- ✓ Field Leaders: Access to a network of knowledgeable leaders specializing in various natural and cultural sciences.
- ✓ Consulting Services: Professional guidance for expedition and tour operators in planning, operations, staffing, and reservations.
- ✓ Educational Content: Resources and insights aimed at fostering curiosity and deeper understanding of global destinations.
👉 Visit Miru Adventures’ Official Website to explore their offerings and learn more about Jon Nicholson’s contributions to adventure travel.
Learn more about Miru Adventures and connect with Jon at:
https://www.miruadventures.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 (00:38.584)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small Podcast for the Adventure Traveler. Today we have Jon here. Jon Nicholson is from Miru Adventures. He’s the founder and director of Planning and Product. Jon, so happy to have you here. Welcome to the show.
Jon Nicholson (00:55.221)
Thank you very much. Glad to be here.
Jason Elkins (00:58.212)
You know, you and I had a conversation, I guess it was last week, and it was just, you kind of planted some seeds in my head of some exciting stories to come. So I’m excited to get into that. And before we do that, I just wanna, where are you at right now?
Jon Nicholson (01:15.05)
Well, I’m actually physically in Honolulu right now. I actually live in Vancouver, and our company is based in Seattle. So I’m definitely mobile.
Jason Elkins (01:18.349)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:22.968)
Okay. And which is very, and that’s the way it seems to be going with a lot of companies these days. And it’s great to have that ability. And having been somebody that has traveled in the Northwest, I can completely appreciate why you might want to go to a place like Hawaii periodically. So I get that completely. Do you so a lot of stuff to cover. Let’s jump in with your kind of your origin story. How did you get from wherever you were to where you are now?
Jon Nicholson (01:30.594)
Yes.
Jason Elkins (01:52.341)
and don’t spare any details.
Jon Nicholson (01:54.606)
Okay, I actually have a bit of a unique story, I think, in that at six years old, my grandmother gave me an Atlas and a AAA book and made me plan a trip around the US to visit all my relatives and figure out how much it would cost. And she did it with the idea that I could learn the capitals of all the states. However, I found I loved it.
So I kept having her give me ideas on trips I should plan at seven and eight years old. And I planned our own family vacation when I was 10 years old up to Vancouver and Banff and Lake Louise. It was a driving trip. And then I flew for the first time at 11. And I made the grand pronouncement when I flew. I am working in travel somehow. And my mom sort of went, okay.
But she realized I was serious because I collected airline timetables and then I begged her to go to the local travel agency and get me an OAG, which for those of you who are younger than about 45, that was the book that had all the schedules and fares in it. So I would start planning now trips for teachers and bring them to the local travel agency. And as soon as I turned 16, they said, you’re planning trips as well as anyone in this office, do you wanna come work? And that’s what got me started.
in travel. I started as a baby travel agent in the Napa Valley. I soon was handling a lot of commercial travel for a lot of big name winery people. And at 1979 at 20, I decided to open my own agency because where I worked didn’t want to go computers and I wanted to have Apollo because to me, it was miraculous that you could type in something, hit a button and you didn’t have to hand write a ticket and get more calluses.
So I was there. I burned out a bit and I still had a passion for airlines. So in 1992, I went back to school, got my dispatch license, moved to, I got hired by American Airlines, moved to Dallas, loved the job, didn’t like Dallas as a Californian. And so after I gave it a year and a half, I thought, what do I like? And in my travel agency, I sold a lot of limblad.
Jason Elkins (03:48.069)
Wow.
Jon Nicholson (04:17.342)
And I like that kind of travel. So I started looking for companies, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and this little company called Zagram, who had just started a few years before, was looking for someone to work with there. I sent my resume over, an hour later they called and said, when can you come for an interview? I got hired on the spot. I stayed there 25 years, went on to become president of the company. We sold the company to a big travel conglomerate.
And then of course COVID came and the big travel conglomerate didn’t want to continue. I was doing planning. So of course I got laid off. Mid-60s, I should retire. Colleagues, no, you shouldn’t retire. You love planning. I do love planning. So hence, Minero Adventures was born in the depth of COVID, but it’s like buying a stock when it’s down. Great time to start.
We didn’t have our first departure until 2022. And a bit rough in the beginning with COVID, but it’s been very successful since. So I have lived and breathed travel from basically six years old.
Jason Elkins (05:31.46)
You’re right. That is a pretty cool, unique story. I asked you not to share it with me last time we spoke because I wanted to hear it for the first time with the record button.
Lots of questions. OK, so when you sent in your resume, where does your resume start? Did you start right at six? Did you include that? Or what?
Jon Nicholson (05:50.103)
Naturally
I started with working at St. Helena Travel where I got hired at 16, working like four hours a day after school. So that’s where I start my resume. But I designed airlines in school, like I would take the OAG and create airlines, fictitious airlines that had like a regional focus. Like I created a Pacific airline sort of modeled after Pan Am in different parts of the Pacific back when Pan Am was still flying. So I did, I mean, that’s how I learned. I used to take ticket copies.
Jason Elkins (06:03.993)
That is.
Jon Nicholson (06:21.97)
and distribute how much revenue went to different airlines. I mean, I was geeky travel.
Jason Elkins (06:27.62)
I was, I hope I can ask this, but did you have a hard time making friends when you were young?
Jon Nicholson (06:34.946)
So my best friend in high school saw me typing city pairs in typing class and he goes, I like to do that too. And we are still friends. 50 years later, he worked for United for years and we are both playing geeks. So yes, I did have a little bit of a hard time because I didn’t have a normal
Jason Elkins (06:45.221)
Really?
Jason Elkins (06:54.576)
That is so cool.
Jon Nicholson (07:00.494)
teenage life of wanting to try. I never questioned what I was going to do in life, and everything was focused toward that. I mean, to this day, I’ve kept every flight I’ve ever taken with pale number. I know how many miles I’ve flown totally on each kind of aircraft, each airline in the world. So I love detail, hence why I like planning.
Jason Elkins (07:21.488)
Do you have FlightTracker on your phone? I think that’s what it’s called. Ha ha ha.
Jon Nicholson (07:23.862)
Yes, absolutely. And my husband is flying right at this very moment from Seattle to Vancouver. And I tracked him right as he took off right before we started. So absolutely, see a plane in the sky and not be sure. Look at it. I love that app.
Jason Elkins (07:41.796)
You and my son would get along so well. He’s also, he’s 17 and he tends to be interested in things that maybe not all the other kids are. And interestingly, he, because I love to travel, I travel a lot and he’s had opportunities to travel with me. And the biggest thing always getting in the way was the plane flight. We’d be like, okay, we’re going to Central America, we’re going to Asia. Oh, I don’t, you know, and he would, instead of being excited for the trip, he was stressed out about the flight. You know, all of the plane, it’s gonna be a long plane ride, I’m worried about.
plane ride or if there’s a lot of connections, oh, we got to land three times and take off three times and those are the most dangerous times and all he would kind of get fixated on that. But what’s interesting is he downloaded the flight tracker app and he started paying attention of planes flying over and he’d open up the app and he really got into the planes and all of a sudden he was excited to go on the planes. And you know, so when we went to Southeast Asia, he’s like, oh, I really hope we see it. What is it? That’s the big, oh geez, my
Jon Nicholson (08:39.703)
A380.
Jason Elkins (08:41.176)
A380, yeah, he was like, I really hope we see an A380. Most of the A380s in the world are flown by UAE, United Arab Emirates Airlines, Emirates Airlines. And oh, so he was so excited and so wanting to see that. And at one point, we were in an airport in, I can’t remember if it was in Kuala Lumpur or I think it was in Bangkok. And he got on the app and he’s like, dad, there’s one here, there’s one here. So we had a little bit of time in between our connection and we had to run over there to the other side of the terminal. And
And we just sat there and looked at it. And he took pictures of it. He was so excited. So that one thing, just that app, turned it from something that he was anxious and fearful about to something that he was able to get excited about. And now he wants to fly out of these different types of planes. And I do video calls with him all the time. And he’s like, hey, Dad, there’s such and such flying over right now. And it’s really, really cool. And I can imagine if that had been around back when you were
6 7 8 9 10 you probably would have got nothing else done.
Jon Nicholson (09:37.259)
Ah!
Jon Nicholson (09:41.818)
Right. Well, it’s fantastic that he feels comfortable. I’ve always loved flying. I have enough understanding of how it works. So I luckily have zero fear of flying. It’s not quite as fun as it used to be, the hassles. And certainly in my planning, why flights are important, I spend a lot of time on everything else. And as I’ve gradually matured, while airlines are still a huge passion, so is…
creating the entire experience, not just the air. But I very much involve the air, probably more so than most people do. And like, I still to this day track every client going to our programs to make sure I wanna see their air itinerary, like I’ll question connection times. I wanna make sure that hopefully they have as good a flight as possible.
Jason Elkins (10:11.353)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (10:29.724)
So do you, do you, cause flying is one of the things that a lot of people kind of like, I’d like to travel, but I don’t like the flying. I don’t like the airports and not necessarily because they’re scared or whatever. It’s just, they don’t like being on a plane. So do you still, do you enjoy the actual flying part? If you were to fly to Bangkok, Thailand tomorrow, would you enjoy the flight or is that just a, what do you think?
Jon Nicholson (10:53.906)
In business class, yes. In economy class, not so much. I’m good at managing miles, so I’m lucky now most of the time to be able to wrangle out or, like right now I’m looking for my vacation for next November, which is just about a year out when they release mileage space. I’ve got three options, and a bit of it will be decided where I can get my free business class ticket to.
Jason Elkins (10:59.349)
Okay, fair enough.
Jason Elkins (11:21.545)
I suspect you know a lot of the travel hacks, all the travel hacks.
Jon Nicholson (11:24.358)
Yeah, I definitely try to do that, but I still enjoy an airport, especially one like, people think I’m crazy, London Heathrow, where the world meets and you see all these different airlines. I love it. Or I love a dirt airstrip in Africa where they have to clear the wildlife before the Cessna can land. So I sort of like both ends of the spectrum. Middle-sized average airports are nothing too exciting.
Jason Elkins (11:42.007)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (11:52.6)
Yeah. Had you ever considered or did you ever like take flying lessons? You ever thought about actually being a pilot or doing any of that?
Jon Nicholson (12:02.622)
I did, so I actually took some flying lessons. I was still only, what, 18 or 19, and I thought, well, a good way would I would work for an airline as a cabin crew and get my hours up and that would give me an in. Well, I applied to Delta and they said I was too young. So I said, well, basically, the heck with you, and went and started my travel agency, which then got me on that career path. So.
Jason Elkins (12:29.189)
Yeah.
Jon Nicholson (12:29.65)
my dispatching for American was as close as I got to actually flying.
Jason Elkins (12:36.132)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, very, very cool. It’s so tell me about, so you said your grandmother got you into this to help you learn the state capitals. So I’m curious about her. Was she kind of that adventurous spirit or what would, when you look back at it and kind of unpack it, did she have some other motivation or some other interest in travel as well? Or what do you think?
Jon Nicholson (12:58.594)
I think she did enjoy travel. She liked the world. She was a real estate agent, a single woman as a real estate agent in Chicago in the 20s, which was highly unusual. So she was pretty much there. And then my mother had never traveled much but wanted to. So I actually, she was the first person I traveled with when I took my, I skipped my high school graduation and went to Africa. And I took her to Africa. We drove through various parts of Europe.
Jason Elkins (13:09.86)
I would imagine.
Jon Nicholson (13:27.97)
did Russia, things like that. So they were a good base to always encouraging me. I was never discouraged from not following my passion.
Jason Elkins (13:40.192)
That is super cool. Did your mom enjoy the traveling as much as you did? Yeah. It’s a cool thing to travel with adult parent or well to travel as an adult with your parents. I took my mom to Africa as well at one point, you know, once I got into the travel business and had that opportunity to have taken her to Alaska and the Bahamas and it’s one of my fondest not one of because it’s several memories, but yeah, it’s a pretty cool thing to be able to share that with a parent.
Jon Nicholson (13:43.75)
Yeah, she really did. Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (14:10.018)
So, very cool.
Jon Nicholson (14:10.038)
Yeah, and she was a teacher. So she had a lot of knowledge she could impart to me as well from her background. And so it was really good. No, it definitely, definitely was great to have her interested. Plus at 10, she let me plan our driving trips, which now I look back, I’m not sure I would have a 10 year old plan my driving trips, but I let her, she let me, so.
Jason Elkins (14:33.744)
Things were different back then, you know, I think you and I grew up with some things were just a little bit different. I was, I’m a balloon pilot and I grew up in aviation. I was like that about ballooning when I was, you know, I started learning to fly when I was 12. And I remember I did my first solo flight in the balloon at 14 and it was cool, but I didn’t really get my head around until I got a little older. And then my kids were approaching the age where they might be driving a car by themselves.
And I remember my dad was perfectly fine with me flying the balloon up to, you know, we flew along and landed, he got out and said, I want you to take it up to 10,000 feet, come back down and pick the first landing spot at 14. I didn’t think that much of it. And then when my kids got to the point where they were around 15 or 16, I’m like, I don’t even want them to drive around the block by themselves in the car. And so it’s kind of interesting. And of course we didn’t have seat belts and stuff.
as we traveled clear across the country, hanging out in the back of the pickup truck most of the time on the freeway and I survived. Go figure.
Jon Nicholson (15:36.982)
No, ballooning is a great way. I’ve ballooned several places in the world. Awesome experience. Yep.
Jason Elkins (15:40.568)
Isn’t that cool? Yeah, yeah, it’s hard to beat. So thank you for the endorsement, because I always encourage people to do it. People sometimes are afraid of it. It’s not, I don’t know. You tell me, what do you think? Should people be afraid of ballooning?
Jon Nicholson (15:55.946)
I think people, we run into clients who are afraid. I think they feel that without a motor or an engine that there’s not control over where you go. But with a good pilot who knows the winds, I’ve never felt insecure. I mean, these companies want to be able to land in a good place. They analyze the winds and they come up with a workable plan.
Jason Elkins (16:08.134)
Mm-hmm.
Jon Nicholson (16:24.146)
So the trick is going with a reputable balloon company wherever you do it in the world.
Jason Elkins (16:24.644)
Yeah, it’s like sailing.
Jason Elkins (16:30.556)
Splitting is a lot like sailing. You get on a boat that doesn’t necessarily have a motor, but you’re not dependant. Well, anyway, yeah. It’s an interesting thing. I can’t remember where I was going to go with that. So let’s change the subject. All right, so Jon, you’ve been doing this. So let me do the math. How long you been doing this, working in the travel business?
Jon Nicholson (16:49.134)
So in working, officially in travel from when I first was hired, I’ll be 50 years next July. So I started in 1974, so 2024 will be 50 years.
Jason Elkins (16:55.952)
Wow. See.
Jason Elkins (17:04.656)
So you’ve seen a few things change, and we’ve touched a little bit on it, but I’m curious, what are the most profound changes that, I’d like to kind of hear what you think about the profound changes that we’ve experienced, and then kind of project that into the future and share with us a little bit, what are your concerns or thoughts about where we’re going with maybe adventure travel specifically, or just travel in general into the future? What do you think?
Jon Nicholson (17:07.624)
Ah, just a few.
Jon Nicholson (17:31.202)
So I think, I mean, the profound changes I’ve seen obviously are connectivity of the world. It used to be you couldn’t get from North America, for example, to almost anywhere in the world, nonstop, which means you can then get into a smaller place probably from there. So connectivity, huge. The fact that when you used to travel, you were totally gone and remote. Now, again, it’s connectivity of a different type.
Jason Elkins (17:50.303)
Mm-mm.
Jon Nicholson (18:01.23)
through internet and I find for me I have to at times block that. I used to love African safaris because they were one of the last that you couldn’t have, that you couldn’t but didn’t have internet, now they have it. So I see that. I see the increase of middle class around the world increasing the diversity of travel. It used to be primarily Europeans, North Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, maybe some South Africans who traveled.
Now it’s worldwide people traveling to different destinations. So those are big changes. So obviously also at the heart of all a lot of this change is the internet, which changed the way we do business from a, from a travel, not just the way we travel, but the internet has changed the way we have to do business from the 1970s where we would have to write for a small hotel in France to now
just go online and book it. Or it might even be in the GDS. Interesting thing is the GDS came out in 1980. It really hasn’t changed that much. I still work in what’s called native.
Jason Elkins (19:12.804)
So Jon, what is the GDS? Help us out. For those of us that didn’t memorize all the timetables when we were six, help us out.
Jon Nicholson (19:16.198)
It is Saber, right, so it’s Saber, WorldSpan, Amadeus that airlines all use, Expedia uses as their behind the scenes information provider. It has all the availability, has the ability to ticket. It’s far faster than doing things online, especially if you work in native. And native is…
code and that’s how you had to work in the beginning. They don’t teach people that anymore but they still let you work in native. So I can look up availability in about 10 to 15 seconds what takes probably close to a minute online and within a moment do a fare everything much faster and you can scan you can see all the availability of all the different buckets so you can know which flights will have better fares just visually.
I love working in that. I work in Amadeus because it’s the best international one. But those of us who still can work in what’s so-called native, we’re getting fewer and fewer between. But that was a huge change in the travel business.
Jason Elkins (20:25.468)
You know, this might be a good point to ask you the question that I think you and I have both probably heard or seen online social media. Why would I use a travel agent when I could go to kayak or Travelocity or any of the online booking software? You mentioned one thing is you can do it faster. And I just, I would love to hear your answer to that question.
Jon Nicholson (20:47.098)
So a couple of reasons. One, I think if you’re just booking a domestic ticket from San Francisco to Denver, you really don’t need to go to a travel agent. They’re not bringing that much to the table. Even if it takes a minute or two longer, you can look at everything and see it. So that, I agree, still go. I’m not a huge fan of Expedia Kayak because when things go sideways,
Jason Elkins (21:04.816)
Okay.
Jon Nicholson (21:13.302)
They’re not always in your court because they get slammed. Not that airlines are a lot better, but they handle their own passengers first. One advantage as you start getting more complicated when things go sideways, then a travel agent can help. Where a travel agent super excels is if you’re gonna go spend six, eight, 10,000 on a trip, you need expertise. And the travel agents that have succeeded focus
whether they focus on adventure travel, whether they focus on Hawaii, on honeymoons, those are the people you should go to. General generic travel agents, as I was when I first started, are few and far between. They still offer a lot of service when it’s a more complicated trip. And so I think there’s a big value there, but it’s not across the board in travel that, oh, you should always use a travel agent. Probably not. But the times for the bigger ticket items
I often read these people in troubleshooter and I’m just thinking if you’d had a travel agent who knew, not who knew, if you’d gone to a travel agent who could have warned you of these things like missing a cruise but they’re arriving three hours before. You don’t arrive in the port the same day, not with the current airline situation. You’ve got too much invested to not pay an extra hotel night.
Jason Elkins (22:28.528)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (22:35.049)
OK, gotcha. No, great response, and thank you for sharing that. And I’m curious what your thoughts are. So I see in social media, a lot of my friends, I’ve got a lot of friends that are interested in travel. And I’m noticing a real uptick in the number of them that are posting things online like, oh, I’m a travel agent now. And I can help you be a travel agent. And it kind of reminds me of the MLM thing.
And I don’t know, but I suspect you’re closer to it. So I’d love to hear your thoughts about if someone really wants to get into the travel business right now, and they’ve got a friend who’s been a travel agent for three months that is introducing them to a platform and a webinar where they can also become a travel agent and they can work their own hours and get all kinds of discounts and all of these perks and benefits of being a travel agent. What do you want them to know?
Jon Nicholson (23:24.646)
say be careful. This is an extremely complicated business with lots of ways that you can get bit. I’m still learning, always learning. It’s continually changing. If you want to get into travel, it’s a wonderful, wonderful occupation, but I would encourage them to work or affiliate with a larger agency who can offer someone who is really experienced to guide them. Someone who’s been in it three months.
probably doesn’t have a lot of depth unless they’ve done a huge amount of traveling themselves, in which case that actually can be very good. I mean, if someone doesn’t have travel experience but they’ve traveled, I have someone who I know did it who had cruised on like 25 cruises, he’s actually quite good at that and that’s all he does. So if you have someone who had a passion for cycling trips and now wants to do those, yeah, I think they could do it. But for
Jason Elkins (24:15.289)
Okay.
Jon Nicholson (24:23.286)
Just becoming a travel agent without a focus. I think that’s a, you need to find a good agency and then find your passion and work within that.
Jason Elkins (24:32.636)
Do you find that if when you go to the webinar and listen, and maybe they say, oh, we’re the biggest, one of the biggest, we’re members of Saber, we’re this, we’re that, we’re this, if during the presentation they mentioned that part of your earning potential or part of the opportunity is that if you bring in your friends to become travel agents as well, then you build your downline or uplining, I don’t even remember the terminology, is that a huge red flag or are there legitimate?
Travel companies out there that work that way.
Jon Nicholson (25:02.402)
to me because I’m not looking for anyone. I don’t know if there are or not but anything that’s MLM multi-level thing I would be suspicious of because it looks like they’re more focused on that versus focusing on we’ll get you up and running and to help you sell travel. It’s almost like oh, yeah that’s a side and in the meantime also go get your friends to be travel agents and very honestly and I think probably people listening to this in the travel business Yes, there’s discounts
but they’re not as good as they used to be and you shouldn’t go into travel just for the discounts. That’s not a reason to go into travel.
Jason Elkins (25:39.94)
I appreciate that. Actually, and a couple of things there. I mean, I actually believe that a podcast like this is a good opportunity for travel agents to meet people like yourself and to meet tour operators and to kind of expand their knowledge of the industry and some of the kind of players in the industry. So I love any travel agents that are listening to this. Absolutely love to have you here. And yeah, it is just, I wanted to ask you about that because I see people posting on Facebook or other platforms.
and 80% of their posts are, I’ll help you become a travel agent instead of I’ll help you book an amazing travel. I’m like. You know, because people tend to do the things that they feel they’re going to do to bring them the success. So if they’re constantly trying to recruit, that’s a pretty good indicator that that’s where they’re making their, what’s closest to the money, I guess. And I’m not knocking it, but I just thought it was worth having that conversation.
Jon Nicholson (26:18.779)
That to me is a red flag.
Jason Elkins (26:39.196)
because I do believe there’s people listening to the show here that would like to get into travel and I’d love to help them avoid any of those pitfalls. So let’s talk a little bit about your, because you’d mentioned to me that you have kind of unique philosophy or your own philosophy on traveling. Some people like to do things a certain way and you’ve been doing this for a long time. You’ve been working with an awful lot of clients. So what is your kind of overarching philosophy on travel? What do you think is the best way to experience it?
Jon Nicholson (27:07.33)
So overarching, mine is, I don’t know if you want to use the term slow travel, maybe slightly medium speed travel. I do not generally plan trips or discourage highly from doing trips and at Miru you won’t find trips that visit six countries in ten days. I think to really appreciate a destination and if you’re really interested in traveling,
whether it be the culture or the natural history of the destination, you can’t run through it, so to speak, in three nights. You need to have more time. You need to have multiple night stays when possible and feasible. And you need to, I like to have then sort of a theme or something to tie that together. So I’m a big believer in like putting together
combination maybe of two countries that have something in common or Doing something for example. I do an East Africa trip which gradually progresses from it has four different climatic not to say climatic zones, but sort of different areas from the dry north of Kenya to Mara North Conservancy, which is the richness of the Mara
to the Ngong’o crater, which is a unique largest, the largest extinct volcano crater in the world, to then, if you go at the right time of year, ending in the southern Serengeti for the migration. That gives you four very distinct parts of East Africa. It actually, the one I mentioned was a vacation of mine. It was the first one that we went on after COVID, and it’s now become our best-selling trip.
I also feel people should take the balloon trip in the Serengeti because seeing the migration of 200,000 or 300,000 wildebeest from a balloon is absolutely amazing. But this trip doesn’t have any single night stays. It has three night stays everywhere except the crater which is two nights. So it moves slowly. It doesn’t whizz along and it has a reason for the direction it goes ending with
Jon Nicholson (29:31.426)
sort of the peak of seeing the migration. Direction and how you assemble a trip is extremely important. You don’t, for example, go to the jungles of Ecuador after you’ve been to the Galapagos, where it’s animals in your face. You’re gonna be frustrated. If you go to the jungles first, you’re wow, it’s awesome. You’re seeing these birds, even though it’s hard to see, then the Galapagos are there. So all of those things are important as far as…
philosophy, it’s putting more important things toward the end, it’s looking the flow of the trip, it’s looking at connectivity not by air, but connectivity as far as why you’re doing what you’re doing. Not just, oh that’s a place we should go, this is a place we should go, but a reason for why you’re doing each one.
Jason Elkins (30:18.416)
What I heard from all that, Jon, was storytelling. Honestly, what I heard was storytelling. So planning a trip is a lot like a story. You got to kind of build, you know, kind of set the stage and build, and then you’ve got kind of a climax near the end, which, of course, as somebody who’s written a ton of itineraries, is storytelling as well. So it’s, yeah, that’s cool. I like the way you kind of describe that.
So I’m curious, if somebody comes to you though, because I think there’s some value in just recognizing, look, what I do is not for everybody, right? Especially in adventure tourism and adventure travel, I’m not for everybody. So if the person comes to you and says, you know, I’m up to 74 countries and my goal is to get to 80 before the end of the year. So can you put together an itinerary for me that helps me do that? Boom, boom, boom.
and I’ve only got 10 days, what’s your, how do you handle that? I’m curious, is that something you can do or do you just say, you know what, let me refer you to somebody else or what does that look like?
Jon Nicholson (31:22.393)
I will actually not.
Jon Nicholson (31:27.19)
That’s what I do because most of my time is spent planning obviously the company trips we do a Fair number of FITs for families and other special groups Which is probably 40% of my time, but they all tend to fit within this type of travel and not If you have six days and you want six countries, I’m not going to do that
Jason Elkins (31:38.032)
Mm-hmm.
Jon Nicholson (31:55.682)
There’s a few other types of trips I don’t do. I don’t do big ship cruising. I don’t do resort travel to the Caribbean. And interestingly, and you’ll notice on the website, we don’t handle Europe. And we don’t do trips to Europe. And actually, Europe is my weakest continent when it comes to knowledge. My strength is Africa, Asia, and Latin America by far. And those are my passions, always have been. I like Europe, but I love the other destinations.
Jason Elkins (32:26.032)
Yeah, and that’s why I wanted to ask that question is to really kind of flesh out what is your bread and butter and because I think it’s important to there’s a lot of tour operators out there that offer trips to everywhere of every type imaginable. And I’m sure many of them are good and I’m not knocking the companies, but I love the idea of working with somebody that’s really passionate and really, really knows about a particular area. So, you know, so I mean.
Jon Nicholson (32:53.334)
Right, so our sort of motto is curated for the curious at Miru Adventures. And so I very much want to curate a trip that either is one that’s one of our group trips, one that’s for our We White label for other companies. And I want it to be in this sort of realm. And I’ve been in the business long enough to know when I don’t know something. And like Europe, much as I like it, I’m not going to.
plan even a slow trip probably across France because I’m not going to be able to give you the type of knowledge and service that probably you can find somewhere else. But you want to go to Malaysia and see orangutans or you want to go see lowland gorillas in Central African Republic, I can help you. And so I think it’s knowing when to say no.
Jason Elkins (33:43.936)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, I love that. That’s, that’s a very cool. So, um, you, you spoke a little bit about how you like to combine trips. I think we covered that pretty well. Was there anything else you wanted to add? Cause you were telling me about some pretty cool trips that kind of outside the box thinking, um, you touched on a little bit just now, but is there anything you want to add to kind of this concept of combining, uh, you know, different unique countries in ways that other tour operators generally don’t? Or do you think we’ve covered that?
Jon Nicholson (34:12.486)
What I look for is I’m continually watching like new air service where we might you might be able to bridge two locations that have a common theme Or if there isn’t any and it’s a small group. I look hey is there some airplanes we can we can charter And put those two together Which we do like with Palau and Yap Which no one not say no one to my knowledge most people don’t offer
Jason Elkins (34:21.316)
Mm-hmm.
Jon Nicholson (34:40.59)
because it’s challenging to connect as long as you have a small group or a group, you can connect with a charter. So those are the kind of things that we look for as far as combinability, or I look for as I’m watching for potentials. Plus, obviously it’s not just because there’s a new flight between two places, it’s because there’s a common theme that you can build upon a common story that is told between the two destinations.
Jason Elkins (35:04.076)
Mm-hmm.
Jon Nicholson (35:09.398)
Then other destinations, for example, I do things in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is sort of its own unique place. So Ethiopia sort of will stand alone. But if things ever change, well, unfortunately, Sudan is not a place you’re going. But I had the idea that actually a lot of what is in Egypt all started in Sudan. And it’s actually older. And you could actually work your way up the Nile and do a land crossing between the two.
Jason Elkins (35:31.963)
Hmm.
Jason Elkins (35:35.758)
Mm-hmm.
Jon Nicholson (35:38.338)
That’s not possible right now because unfortunately what’s happening in Sudan, but that’s something that is sort of outside the box, but links with a common story from one place to another. I hope maybe in my career I’ll be able to do this, but I had the idea a couple of years ago and then everything sort of went sideways in Sudan a couple of, shortly thereafter. So it’s on the back way on the back burner for now.
Jason Elkins (35:51.684)
I would imagine.
Jason Elkins (36:05.048)
I get it. I would imagine you have a few of those trips kind of like on the back burner waiting for politics, because politics is definitely plays a role in all this stuff. And.
Jon Nicholson (36:13.782)
Yeah, I mean, I’ve seen that in my career. We couldn’t go to Vietnam. Now Vietnam’s a very interesting destination. We were doing a lot of trips to Iran for a long time. Now Iran’s a bit dicey for Americans and Canadians and Brits. So yeah, the destinations ebb and flow. I mean, we used to go to Syria, which was an amazing place to go and even pushed all the way to the end until we had to actually the last group.
couldn’t actually get in and had to go to Cyprus. So I took it to the very end when we couldn’t go anymore. But whether something like Syria will come back, I don’t know, we’ll see.
Jason Elkins (36:53.128)
I’d love to ask you about that when you say come back, because so I’m sitting in Columbia right now, and it’s definitely coming back, I believe. And what I’ve noticed is even when I left the States and my family is like, you can’t go to Columbia. No, you shouldn’t be going there, because when the news was on about Columbia, it was all the negative stuff, all the horrible things that were happening here. And you don’t get like these, you know, blast, I’m trying to think.
You know, like there’s child actors and then sometimes they’ll come back 20, 30, where are they now? And they’ll tell their story and hopefully it’s an uplifting positive story. It’s usually not, cause that’s not what sells in the news, but you don’t see like, Oh, Columbia really, really struggled. And now look at all the amazing things that are doing and all of these, um, these projects and, and the tourism and all these amazing reasons to go to Columbia, you just don’t see that. So it’s kind of like, you’re left with this idea of the negativity.
So maybe Syria is like that, OK, well, right now we know maybe it’s not a good time to go to Syria. But what has to happen? Let’s say the politics tomorrow is like, OK, everything’s good. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? But let’s just say that. What do you think has to happen for a country like that to get back in the positive favor of tour operators and travelers?
Jon Nicholson (38:13.782)
I think their tourism office, first of all, has to indicate we want visitors. Much as I have mixed emotions about Saudi Arabia, they have done a phenomenal job of being a place that wouldn’t take visitors to now. We have our first trip there in 2025, but the Saudi Tourism Office has embraced it. They were at ATTA summit in Hokkaido.
Jason Elkins (38:20.732)
Okay.
Jon Nicholson (38:41.474)
and they show that they want visitors. Now, Saudi didn’t have violence or unrest the way Syria’s had. Syria would, if the tourist office starts running, then from my perspective, I need to see what the infrastructure’s like, like how much is still good that you can do things. I mean, Vietnam, when it first opened up, was very much sort of take two steps forward, one back and slowly worked its way.
Jason Elkins (38:45.222)
Hmm.
Jon Nicholson (39:11.446)
So I think it’s a difference whether it’s just been sort of a closed destination like Saudi or whether it’s had a war or other things to sort of destroy infrastructure. Where is the infrastructure? I mean, an example of a place we’re finally going back to is Mozambique after they had a civil war or close to 20 years ago. But if you’re going to Garangosa, which is a high point Garangosa National Park, definitely you want to go. So much of it was wiped out.
Jon Nicholson (39:41.258)
imbalance with wildlife in Garongosa, but we’re doing our first trip to Mozambique in 2025. So I’m happy to be going there and combine it with parts of South Africa.
Jason Elkins (39:42.533)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (39:54.928)
So what I heard really sounds like it’s a combined, the infrastructure that the government or the communities need to work on, but really it’s a PR thing, from the regards of the tourism boards, the whichever organizations really need to get out there and put it quite a bit. Cause otherwise is all we’re left with is whatever negative stuff was going on 20 years ago.
We don’t hear anything else because the news isn’t interested in promoting it unless it’s negative stuff. So it sounds like it’s kind of the tourism boards and stuff.
Jon Nicholson (40:27.522)
And we run it up. For example, we’ve done Columbia trips. I would say every Columbia trip there’s a couple of people before they will book will question is it really safe now or are these safe places to go? Still are asked that from the news in the past. So we’re very used to that of dealing, of reading State Department advisories, sort of interpreting them using the Foreign Office because it sometimes has a different look on things.
Jason Elkins (40:39.074)
No.
Jon Nicholson (40:53.426)
I mean, yeah, we use those a lot to sort of help make people feel more comfortable in going plus using operators, local operator or people who know the lay of the land helps a lot.
Jason Elkins (41:03.984)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (41:12.176)
Yeah, and that’s a big part of why I think, you know, podcasts or opportunities like this, where we get a conversation, opportunity to have conversations with locals that are in the areas or familiar with the areas is helpful as well because, boy, there’s so many opinions out there. You really want to listen to somebody that’s been around because, you know, I’ve spent most of the last two years here in Columbia and I feel like I’ve learned a lot and I still,
to this day, I’ll go get a coffee and a croissant at the coffee shop. And I look around, man, there’s so many people that are missing the opportunity to be here right now because they spoke with, or they heard a story about some guy that came here to do something illicit that has nothing to do with tourism. It’s just some dumb ass goes does something stupid. And they’re basing their decision on whether we want to go to Columbia based on experience or a story of someone that, it’s almost like a different world in a sense. So I don’t mean, you know, I don’t know.
Jon Nicholson (42:09.962)
And sometimes it’s parts of countries. And so that’s where, for example, I like the Foreign Office. For those of you who are looking for things, their advisories are, I think, better than the US ones, because the US tends to paint a whole country as good or bad. Whereas the Foreign Office will have parts in red. Ethiopia, before the little recent war that has existed there, had that with.
The area around Eritrea not being an area you go to, but the central main part, Otis and some of the other areas, La Bella, were okay to go to. And so we invariably had to tell people, because the US State Department had sort of a, not a complete warning, but a pretty strong message about going there. We have this now with a trip to central African Republic. The southern part near Bangui, where we arrive, is not overly a good place to be.
Jason Elkins (42:46.716)
Mm-hmm.
Jon Nicholson (43:06.114)
We get out of there very fast and go very far north up to Sanga Lodge, which is up in the jungle, a great place to see lillies and gorillas, and it’s fine up there. So oftentimes, you’ve got to nuance the country as to where you go.
Jason Elkins (43:16.4)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (43:24.493)
Yeah, you’re right. And then also just realize the politics behind the State Department, for example.
Jon Nicholson (43:30.19)
Correct. I mean, if you look at Indonesia, a perfect example is Indonesia had a warning on it for years and years and years and years. Nothing changed, but we had President Obama, who had lived in Jakarta, and boom, the advisory went away.
Jason Elkins (43:34.012)
I’m going to go to bed.
Jason Elkins (43:45.272)
Yeah, it’s fascinating. I know when I started my travels and I was coming to Columbia, my dad, he was very adventurous. My dad’s a balloon pilot, scuba diver, mountain climber, cave, all this stuff. And he copied and pasted the entire State Department warning into a text message, which I didn’t even know you could do a text message that long. But he sent that to me and said, son, I really want you to reconsider. And I’m not knocking him. He’ll come visit now that I’m here. But it’s, yeah. And then I get here.
If you read the State Department warnings or a lot of the snooze, you’d think, OK, if you’re going there, you better have a burner phone. Don’t take your phone out in public. Don’t go out after dark. All these things, like generally countrywide. And then I go up on the metro or a bus at 10, 11 o’clock at night, and every single local is sitting there with their phone in their hand, scrolling through Instagram or whatever, dressed all different types of ways.
And you just kind of, I don’t know. It’s important to do some research. It’s important to speak to somebody that you trust and that’s knowledgeable. And I just, I would love to see more people travel more and experience things, which brings me.
Jon Nicholson (44:59.67)
side. I mean, picking a local vendor is critical to this equation. I tend not to work with what I call multinational vendors that work in various countries, but in a vendor. So if we’re going to two countries, I work with two operators, a little more work, but you’re getting someone who’s local and they are the best ones to know what’s going on. And there are some amazing local operators who have, I think, some of the best guides.
Jason Elkins (45:04.676)
Mm-hmm.
Jon Nicholson (45:30.118)
around and they’re willing to be a little more creative because they really know where they are versus and it’s not saying that the companies that do multi-countries are bad they do they do an okay job but they don’t get down to the granular detail that a local vendor can so almost exclusively around the world we use in local we use local operators
Jason Elkins (45:52.588)
I think that’s great to mention both because of the, you know, we’re just discussing safety and all that, which is important. And also with the local vendor, maybe you’ve got somebody that’s running an inbound tour operation business in a country and they’ve been doing it for 20 years. And they’ve got a group of guides and drivers and people. And they’ve got the time to develop these relationships and these connections with these, the elders in the small villages, the, you know, the tribal leaders.
to where you can, everybody else is on the bus driving on the road by and you’re sitting in the, you know, the tribal elders house eating, you know, crickets or something, I don’t know. And just having a totally different experience because you’ve got that connection. You get to go places you’d never get to go. The guide is taking you home with them to meet their family. The guide is…
actually bringing their kid. And we could have discussions about professionalism, whatever, but some of the best tours I’ve ever had are with a tuk-tuk driver in Guatemala with his seven-year-old son, in the tuk-tuk with us and my son. And it’s like, and you just don’t get that if you book a tour through some of these organizations that you’re discussing. So I think that’s, yeah, it’s very cool. And along those lines, I also want to touch on, before we go, I want to touch on
Jon Nicholson (47:09.202)
I agree 100% with what you’re saying.
Jason Elkins (47:16.784)
Kind of that conservation and different places take different approaches. Before I pushed the record button, you were mentioning kind of a contrast between Machu Picchu and Angkor Wat and how they approach tourism. And I’m gonna let you continue that conversation because you know what you were.
Jon Nicholson (47:37.23)
So obviously as someone who’s been in travel 50 years, probably my biggest concern now is over tourism and how do you manage? And I’ve had all sorts of ideas from you need to be egalitarian and people should be allowed to go if they can go to I’ve really sort of evolved for sustainability to more a model of you need to limit the number of people in many parts of the world.
Is this a bit elitist tourism? It is, and everyone may not agree with it, but to me it’s more important that a place like Machu Picchu is preserved. I’ve been in Machu Picchu in the last few years, right before COVID, and I was in Angkor Wat, and the difference was stark. Angkor Wat has no restrictions. Machu Picchu, for those who have been there the last few years, has a lot, and it’s a much better experience. I also think you need to look at
sort of the places you’re going, what are they really doing for the local community? A lot of places say they give back, but I’m a big fan in Africa, for example, of the conservancy model. Conservancy model is one where they take land that has been used by local people. It’s usually connected or bordering an existing national park, and they come up with a long-term contract that says to the local people, okay, wildlife is going to be here.
You can still live on the edge. We’re going to build a couple of camps. You’re going to be employed and manage them and provide an income stream. You can graze your cattle in a few places, but it’s going to be decided where so you don’t overgraze. And it’s a win-win. It preserves wildlife. It allows the visitor, because they tend to restrict the number of people, a better experience. Like I think Mara North is a far better experience than the Maasai Mara, which is right next to it.
Jon Nicholson (49:33.642)
area but completely different experience. And the lodges you stay in are all staffed with the Maasai people. So they’re getting a return. So they have a vested interest in making sure poachers don’t kill wildlife because they know that people are coming to see that wildlife and in the end, when people come, they make money. And Botswana has done a fabulous job with this. Kenya has.
There’s a few other models that are coming along with this. And I think that’s a great way to go for future of sustainable tourism. There’s a lot other things with sustainable tourism I can go into of like what is sustainable as far as flying. I have my sort of opinion there, which, but yes, there’s a lot out there.
Jason Elkins (50:26.896)
Well, let me ask this if you don’t mind me asking. And you can answer it however you want to answer it, because I know it could be a touchy subject. But when we speak of conservancies and some of these different.
methods of preserving, especially in Africa, probably other places as well, but I specifically think of Africa, is the big game hunting. So that’s something you’d like to touch on, because I know there’s different views on we can conserve, we can preserve and conserve more animals if we let a few of them be harvested by rich guys from the US. Do you have any thoughts on that you want to share? If you have any thoughts on that, please let me know.
Jon Nicholson (51:04.718)
I’m opposed to it. I’m a part of.
Jason Elkins (51:06.66)
If anybody’s listening to this, now I didn’t edit it out. And what do you think, Jon? Is that something you want to touch on?
Jon Nicholson (51:13.55)
I’m 100% opposed. I think they need to take those lands and make them into conservancies for photographic safaris. It takes a little while because the animals are skittish, but generally I think that any culling that is needed needs to be done by the National Park Service or the conservancy service that is there and they make the decision because generally
The culling tends to be impala’s gazelles, not necessarily elephants and big cats. So, and that’s what these big game hunters would really like to get. So I realized people make money from it. So it’s not something that you can turn tomorrow, but I think there should be a goal. And it has definitely been declining to go more toward a shooting with a camera versus shooting with a gun.
Jason Elkins (52:11.46)
Well, and I think a lot more people get to experience it.
Jason Elkins (52:17.788)
I appreciate your courage to share your thoughts and opinions on that because I know there’s different ones out there and some people feel very strongly on both sides of that. So I appreciate your educated insights into that. So Jon, is there anything else that I forgot to ask you or that I should have asked or anything at all that you want to make sure our listeners know either about you, about Miru, about just travel in general?
Jon Nicholson (52:20.555)
I’ll go out there on that.
Jon Nicholson (52:47.022)
I think one couple of last things. One is like where travel is going, sustainability is a huge thing should you be flying. That is an I questioned myself because I try to be like, we don’t allow plastic water bottles from the local operator on our tours. People have to bring a water bottle. We use vehicles where possible. We do lots, but obviously everyone is flying to these destinations.
You can do carbon offsets, but I’m not sure how viable that is. Airlines certainly are working on SAF, sustainable airline fuel, but I heard a very good point, and maybe because it made me feel good is why I liked it. But Ahmed from WhoOwnsEncountersAsia in India made a statement of, Eyes on a tiger is a tiger saved. And I feel…
really strongly that yes, we are not just doing sustainable things with flying. But if you stopped and the pandemic was the perfect example, you have huge parts of the world that the wildlife, what people go there to see, would slowly disappear because there wouldn’t be the funds to keep them alive. So
Jason Elkins (54:12.61)
Mm-hmm.
Jon Nicholson (54:13.65)
For now, I feel go ahead and fly.
Do your local travel, local being in that destination or in North America, make that sustainable and make sure that you support the type of organizations, whether it be conservancy or NGOs that are working to preserve this wildlife. That’s what I think will keep then the future of travel viable. I think slowly over time, everyone’s working on
more sustainable ways of moving you from A to B, that will gradually come. But if we all stop flying today, in 20 years there wouldn’t be a lot of wildlife in Africa, India, orangutans in Malaysia. So keep going. And if you are going and you have small groups and you want adventure travel, I’m happy to help you out at Mirrored Adventures. You know I don’t do Europe, but the rest of the world is pretty much my oyster and interested in
doing experiential travel to more remote parts of the world.
Jason Elkins (55:26.04)
Well, I think that anybody that’s considering any of that type of stuff and has listened to this conversation today would feel very comfortable working with you and your team. And I just really appreciate you coming in and sharing everything. We touched on a few topics I didn’t plan to discuss, and I appreciate your openness and willingness to share. And I look forward to having more conversations with you in the future, hearing more about your upcoming trips and finding ways to collaborate.
Jon, thank you very much. Appreciate having you here.
Jon Nicholson (55:55.515)
Great, thank you very much, Jason. I enjoyed it. Just want to rehash through 50 years of travel.
Jason Elkins (56:00.152)
Yeah, no, it was fun and I love your story and I can’t wait. I’m going to share it with my son. He kind of latches onto things the same way you did when you were young. And I love seeing that going successfully all the way through to creating 50 year career in the travel industry. That’s very, very cool. So thanks for sharing it with us. All right. We’ll talk to you soon. Thanks.
Jon Nicholson (56:17.226)
Okay, thank you very much. Okay.
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