Guest Bio
Julia Nesbitt is the Director of African Safari Company, a boutique, woman-owned business with over 30 years of combined experience designing bespoke safaris to Africa. Julia’s summers as a child were spent exploring her grandparent’s farm in Zimbabwe, game parks throughout the region, and visiting family in South Africa. These experiences shaped her more than she could have imagined, and in her early 20s, she packed her bags and headed to Zambia to manage a camp in the South Luangwa Valley. After running the Africa department for another Seattle-based travel company for a few years, Julia re-joined African Safari Company as Director of Sales in 2011 and has been an integral part of the company ever since.
Show Summary
In this episode, Julia Nesbitt shares her journey from childhood adventures in Zimbabwe and South Africa to her current role as Director of African Safari Company. She discusses the importance of sustainable tourism, her experiences managing a camp in Zambia’s South Luangwa Valley, and her dedication to providing authentic African safari experiences. Julia also reflects on her extensive travels across the African continent and her commitment to conservation and community engagement.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Passion for Africa: Early experiences in Africa can inspire a lifelong commitment to the continent’s wildlife and cultures.
- ✓ Sustainable Tourism: Implementing eco-friendly practices is crucial for preserving natural habitats and supporting local communities.
- ✓ Authentic Experiences: Providing genuine and immersive safari experiences enhances traveler satisfaction and fosters lasting memories.
- ✓ Community Engagement: Collaborating with local communities enriches the travel experience and supports regional development.
- ✓ Adaptability: Embracing change and being open to new ideas are essential in the dynamic field of adventure tourism.
What You’ll Find on African Safari Company’s Platform
- ✓ Customized Safaris: Tailored itineraries that cater to individual preferences and offer unique wildlife experiences.
- ✓ Luxury Accommodations: Stays in carefully selected lodges and camps that provide comfort and authenticity.
- ✓ Expert Guides: Knowledgeable guides with extensive experience in African wildlife and ecosystems.
- ✓ Conservation Focus: Commitment to responsible tourism that supports conservation efforts and local communities.
- ✓ Comprehensive Planning: Assistance with all aspects of safari planning, from logistics to activities, ensuring a seamless experience.
👉 Visit African Safari Company’s Official Website to explore their offerings and learn more about Julia Nesbitt’s contributions to African safari tourism.
Learn more about African Safari Company and connect with Julia at:
https://africansafarico.com/
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Podcast Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.
Jason Elkins (00:00.914)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. Happy to have each and every one of you back here with us today and very excited. We’ve got Julia Nesbitt here. She is the director of the African Safari Company. Super excited to have her here. She’s got a fascinating story. I’ve had an opportunity to chat with her in the past. She’s just back while we’re recording this in early January. She’s just back from a trip to Africa in November. So we’re going to learn a little bit about that. But just
Julie is so, so happy to have you here. Welcome to the show.
Julia Nesbitt (00:33.11)
Thank you so much. I’m delighted to be here.
Jason Elkins (00:37.318)
Yeah, it’ll be a lot of fun. And so Julie, as we discussed before I hit the record button, this is really just kind of casual conversation, just kind of want to get to know you, your story, and maybe create a connection with some of our listeners. So when they are thinking about Africa, maybe your name pops into their head and they can reach out and get some more information. But let’s start with how did you get from wherever you were to where you are now? We can go back as far as you feel is appropriate and just kind of go from there. So tell us the story.
Julia Nesbitt (00:59.626)
I’m sorry.
Julia Nesbitt (01:06.818)
Great. So I was born in Berkeley, California. We’re going to go all the way back. But my parents, my parents are immigrants. So my dad is from South Africa. My mom is from Zimbabwe. They moved to the United States in the seventies. So my sister and I are the weird American cousins. Everybody else who’s either born in Zimbabwe or South Africa for the most part. So we are the odd ones out.
Jason Elkins (01:13.094)
All right, very cool.
Julia Nesbitt (01:35.862)
but my mother got her PhD at UC Berkeley. She’s a scientist. The US was where her research was, so we stayed.
I was actually a professional ballet dancer and I studied French at university. But I always went to Africa my whole life. We would go back and spend time on my grandparents farm in Zimbabwe, spend time with family in Cape Town and around South Africa. And I always had this love of travel and I think having immigrant parents who loved to travel set me up for it. So I fell into this industry because…
Jason Elkins (01:48.671)
Oh, wow.
Julia Nesbitt (02:11.77)
First and foremost, I love Africa. I was very lucky to travel to Namibia with my dad way back when, when I was still in school, and learn a little bit about the business side then. So my dad Mike Nesbitt started African Safari Company in 98.
I think, in 98. And I worked for another tour operator who’s sadly no longer around running their Africa department. And then I rejoined my dad. I had done some part-time work for him while I was in school. I managed a camp in South Luangwa, which is in Zambia, for the duration of my 30-day visa. I had a little six-tent camp, which is still there. It’s been upgraded to be a beautiful luxury
Jason Elkins (02:35.358)
Mm-hmm.
Julia Nesbitt (03:01.844)
but when I was there it was lovely but simple.
Julia Nesbitt (03:08.654)
It’s so important. I love travel. I love Africa. I love the people and the communities. Conservation is so important. And for me, it is an incredible opportunity to make people’s kind of bucket list dream come true. Well, at the same time promoting Africa as a destination because Americans in particularly, we don’t get a lot of good information about Africa here in the media.
Jason Elkins (03:24.896)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (03:33.67)
Yeah, yeah. I’m curious, how old were you like the first time you went to Africa? Was this something you started doing right away? Do you even remember the first trip?
Julia Nesbitt (03:42.226)
Oh, no. My very first memories are in the garden in my grandparents’ farm in Zimbabwe. So I literally don’t remember a time without Africa in my life.
Jason Elkins (03:50.867)
Okay, all right.
Jason Elkins (03:56.65)
So I guess for you, I’m guessing then, a trip to Africa probably never really felt exotic to you, did it? It’s just kind of like going home.
Julia Nesbitt (04:05.927)
No, it definitely feels like going home, particularly places like Zimbabwe where the accent is very familiar to me, Cape Town where I have a lot of friends and family still. One of my colleagues lives there, works there, and we’re in touch every day. No, I mean, when I went to Paris for the first time…
that was very exotic to me. When I went to Mississippi for the first time, I think that was the most exotic place I had ever been in my life. And it might still be the most exotic place I’ve ever been in my life. And I just got back from Rwanda, so, you know.
Jason Elkins (04:42.938)
That’s that is that is that’s very cool. What do you what are your favorite? I mean, other than kind of nostalgia, you mentioned you’ve got friends in South Africa. A lot of memories other than those things. And maybe to help other people understand a little bit about Africa, what are your favorite two or three things about? And I know Africa is huge and I know this is a tough question. But what are your favorite two or three things about Africa in general?
Julia Nesbitt (05:11.822)
So yes, Africa is a massive continent. There’s 52 countries. There’s hundreds of thousands of dialects, cultures. For me, it is the wildness. And it is being out in these vast, empty, remote places where
Sometimes they are reclaimed from human habitation. Sometimes they were never inhabited by great amounts of humans that we have now. So being out in the bush, my number one thing, I could go on safari game drives every day for a year and not get enough, because every day is different in the wilderness, and that’s true anywhere you are. And the other thing is the people.
The people are phenomenal. In general, obviously there are so many different cultures, so many different belief systems, and languages, and traditions, and food, the food also amazing. But it’s incredible to learn to meet people, and to learn from people, and that’s one of the best things about travel in anywhere in the world, I think, and Africa is no exception.
Jason Elkins (06:22.09)
What do you think the biggest, because you may have touched on it already, just with any one of those three things, what do you think the biggest misconception is for the typical, maybe a person you speak with the first time or typical, and that may be different than the typical American tourist, but what do you think the biggest misconceptions are?
Julia Nesbitt (06:44.206)
For me, it’s the biggest misconceptions are, well, there’s two actually, big ones. The first one is space, the concept of space and travel and logistics and how vast the continent really is. You can’t zip around from the pyramids to the gorillas to Victoria Falls in a day or two, let alone a week. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is…
There are great, super luxury places like you could find in any first world country with incredible en suite bathrooms. So many times I get asked about en suite bathrooms. Yes, they exist. They’re beautiful. Some of them are bigger than my first apartment, just the bathroom. So, you know, that’s probably one of the, you know, a basic one. But a thing that people, it’s a vacation, right? So they want to be comfortable en suite bathrooms. Key.
Jason Elkins (07:44.186)
Interesting. So that question actually comes up often, it sounds like. Or are they just surprised when they see it? It comes up.
Julia Nesbitt (07:48.012)
a lot.
Julia Nesbitt (07:51.606)
They are. I think Africa as a destination for travel is so daunting because
Airbnb doesn’t really work in the bush, right? You can’t Airbnb like a safari destination. And so many people are used to doing their own travel now online. And so for me, being in this industry for 20 years now, it’s fascinating and great to see travel professionals on the travel agent side come back in to say, okay, let’s guide you towards this, that or the other. Because so many people contact me and they have.
They don’t even know, like they want to do their own research, but they don’t even know where to start. So it’s nice for me to be able to say, yes, you can have bathrooms. Yes, you can have Western style food. Yes, you can, it’s not like some places in Mexico, for example, where you don’t want to drink the water or use ice. Everything is filtered, you know. So I think for a lot of people, there’s that mental hurdle to get over. Is this going to be a comfortable destination for me?
Jason Elkins (08:29.908)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (08:52.246)
Okay, got it, got it. What’s, I’m curious, what do you like most about working in this business? Cause you kind of touched on something about people kind of lifelong dreams and big stuff like that, but set Africa aside. Let’s like, whether you’re helping people go to Africa, Malaysia, wherever, what do you like most about working in the tourism business?
Julia Nesbitt (09:13.762)
So for me, I’m very niche. Everything I do is custom. So I love to be able to take, like, for example, I have a phone call later today who is a person traveling with their partner and their partner’s 11-year-old daughter.
They’ve not traveled together as a family yet. They want to make sure that everybody gets a little bit of everything. This person’s interested in history. This person’s interested in cooking. The daughter’s really keen on animals. So for me, I’m like, great, how do I put this puzzle piece together and make this literally the trip of a lifetime for these individuals, but also as a family? Because this is going to be making memories. And I travel, I have a seven year old and we’ve been to Africa as a family four times
seven years of life and it’s so impactful. So for me, it’s making that dream kind of happen is the best possible thing for me and customizing it to be this is what you want.
Jason Elkins (10:05.75)
That’s so cool.
Jason Elkins (10:17.13)
Do you think that you would get just as much joy out of if you specialized in South America? If you just really just like, just were able to just download a bunch of information about South America, do you think you would enjoy it as much or how important is the connection to Africa for you and your job satisfaction?
Julia Nesbitt (10:38.722)
So for me, I mean, I don’t ever want to not work with Africa because it is home away from home. These are people, we are a small industry on the safari side. I’ve known a lot of the people that I work with for many, many years. So that personal human connection is important. The promotion of Africa is important. Obviously, I love travel. I love to make people’s great dreams come true in that kind of big picture.
glib sort of way, right? But I have sold some South America, I’ve been places in South America, and I love it. I mean, I personally am dying to go to New Zealand. I want to, I would love to do a trip where I do, you know, lead a group, right, in the dream world of we spend a week in New Zealand and we see the penguins. We spend a week in South Africa and we see the penguins. And then we spend a week in South America, Lake Ushuaia, Patagonia, and we see the penguins. Three weeks of penguins. Brilliant.
Jason Elkins (11:11.036)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (11:36.298)
That’s pretty cool. I think there’s a unique itinerary there that I have not seen. Penguins three ways or something. You can come up with a clever name. That’s pretty cool. Alright, that’s super cool. No, no, it…
Julia Nesbitt (11:36.566)
You know, that’s very… right?
Julia Nesbitt (11:49.602)
I don’t know if that answered your question. Basically, yes, I love selling tops. I have a question for you guys.
Jason Elkins (11:54.106)
It did, I can tell and for anybody that’s just listening to this that doesn’t have the benefit of seeing your face I can share that the joy and the excitement is on your face as much as it is in your words and in your voice so it’s very clear that you really enjoy what you do and that’s super cool and I’m also going to ask what’s the part you don’t like? Because I suspect that people think everybody that works in the travel industry is always happy, always on vacation
Julia Nesbitt (11:59.95)
I’m going to go to bed.
Julia Nesbitt (12:06.53)
Thank you.
Julia Nesbitt (12:17.415)
Oh, that’s so easy.
Jason Elkins (12:23.758)
Always, you know, and the reality is sometimes there’s stuff behind the scenes that maybe is not as much fun or, you know, so let’s give everybody a glimpse into that. What’s the part that sucks?
Julia Nesbitt (12:35.182)
Accounting, accounting sucks. Accounting sucks, no matter what. And I’m very lucky, I have a really great team. But yeah, the accounting part sucks. Sometimes it is a little bit tough to go on vacation because I love having a personal touch. I don’t turn over my clients to somebody else unless I’m like literally in the…
Jason Elkins (12:35.598)
Or is there? Yeah.
Julia Nesbitt (13:02.23)
back of the bush and I cannot access my emails, but being in touch with my clients all the way through the process is super important to me. So sometimes that means I work weekends, I work vacations, I work holidays, I work all the time. Good thing, bad thing. But those are the two biggest things. I am a spreadsheet nerd, so I love a spreadsheet. So that part, I think a lot of travel professionals don’t love a spreadsheet and maybe the organization part of it, I love it.
Jason Elkins (13:16.319)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (13:29.098)
That’s interesting, because I get the whole accounting part kind of is not my favorite, because frankly, in my experience, most of the people that get into tourism are just really people and maybe not the same person that typically would go to school to be an accountant. Not that accountants don’t like people. But then you mentioned the spreadsheets and I thought, oh, maybe there is a connection. You’re a little bit of…
Julia Nesbitt (13:30.926)
Thanks for watching.
Julia Nesbitt (13:49.821)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (13:58.222)
analytical as well then so it’s yeah all right that’s that is
Julia Nesbitt (14:02.512)
Maybe. Yes, I love the puzzle pieces. I need the money.
Jason Elkins (14:08.086)
I got it. And if somebody is listening to this right now, because I suspect that some of our listeners are maybe, you know, at a point in their life where they want to transition. They’ve always wanted to work in the travel business. I see a lot of especially in social media recently, a lot of my social media friends are becoming travel agents. And actually, the first part, let’s do this. Let’s talk about the difference between a travel agent and tour operator.
Cause I think that might be helpful for people to kind of understand how this business works and then maybe we’ll maybe I’ll ask you to share a few tips and advice for, for people that are interested in pursuing either route.
Julia Nesbitt (14:46.582)
Yeah, great. So I technically am a tour operator. So I have my own connections with partners in Africa. I do everything within Africa on a sort of package basis. So unlike a lot of travel agents, like I used to travel agent to book a trip to Disneyland for my family. It was a couple nights hotel, it was Disneyland tickets.
that’s part of what they do, are these little sort of pieces to make you, the client’s life, easier. For me, and because Africa is such a sort of difficult, far away place to manage, I have very strict parameters. So seven night minimum, I have a…
I do all of the transfers, all of the light aircraft flights, all of the touring, all of the accommodations. I include taxes, conservation fees, park fees, all of that stuff is included in what I do because you can’t have one thing without the other, right? So I’m not gonna send somebody half prepared for their trip. So I, and I have a very similar process to when I work with travel agents, which are about 40% of my clients and when I work direct with clients.
Jason Elkins (15:53.13)
Mm-hmm.
Julia Nesbitt (16:06.462)
You pay the same, it doesn’t make a difference in terms of, you know, the money side of it, I would say. The really good travel agents that I work with do charge a planning fee. As a tour operator, I don’t. It is becoming more, not in Africa so much that I know of, but in other destinations like apparently Japan. Their tourism industry is booming to the point where even the DMCs are starting to take travel planning fees.
which is fascinating. But for…
Jason Elkins (16:39.106)
That is and the DMC’s let’s do this. Let’s for anybody that’s listening that has no clue what you just said
Julia Nesbitt (16:42.239)
Yes.
Julia Nesbitt (16:45.63)
Oh, yes. So a DMC is short for a destination management company. So that is part of what I do. So I work with DMCs who are based in Africa. Those are your people who I’ve worked with for many years. My contacts, they only work within the industry. You can’t work with them as an individual. And they have 24-7 on the ground emergency contacts.
And that’s huge, especially for people coming from the US, because it’s so far. I am based in the US, so I am available on YouTube. They’re my boots on the ground, yeah. And I’m a huge fan of YouTube.
Jason Elkins (17:19.806)
Right, so they’re kind of your boots on the ground. Basically, they’re the ones there, they’ve got, they know the people, everybody on the team by face, the transfer drivers, they’re setting up everything, making sure that you, as an outbound tour operator, look really good.
Um, and which is appropriate because you’re the one that founded them and created and nurtured the relationships. So, so that makes sense as opposed to somebody in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, trying to reach out to somebody that’s, you know, has a bunch of contacts on the ground in Zambia, for example. Uh, they can work with you because you’re actually in the, you know, you’re, you’re doing your thing, which are really good at, and they’re doing what they do. They’re really good at.
Julia Nesbitt (17:39.259)
Exactly.
Jason Elkins (18:08.62)
package deal. This is the tour that I’ve put together for you. And, and it’s important to mention that you may be working with multiple destination manage company management companies for one tour. So it’s not just you just literally the middleman between a destination management company and the client. It could be three, four or five different destination management companies that you’re working with to put together a comprehensive package. Is that correct? Did I say that right?
Julia Nesbitt (18:36.318)
Yes, yes, that’s absolutely correct. And also, it’s so much relationship based. So even working with the DMCs, I have clients who have a special request or whatever. So I will work directly with my contact at a safari lodge and say, hey, this guy wants to propose to his girlfriend. What can we do and work one-on-one with them? I’ve been there, I know them on the ground. So we have that relationship based.
It is really a relationship based industry, I guess. So there’s the DMC, boots on the ground, I’m a customer operator, I put everything together, make it a seamless experience for the client. And in terms of the travel agent side, I do a lot of education. And we’re actually launching our travel agent portal as part of our website on African Safari Company next month, I think.
Jason Elkins (19:06.577)
Okay.
Julia Nesbitt (19:28.438)
fingers crossed, next month. And that agent portal will have things like education, cheat sheets, look books. I’m doing a series of webinars every month. I really love working with travel agents because they know their clients really well. And I appreciate.
their insight to say, okay, this client has traveled with me to the Bahamas. They’ve traveled with me to Paris. Here’s what they like, here’s what they don’t like. What can we do? And then I get to have these really great relationships with the travel agents as well that their clients benefit from.
Jason Elkins (20:04.866)
What I just heard, I’m curious what your take on it is, but what I just heard was that oftentimes the travel agents have these really good relationships with their clients. You have these really good relationships with the suppliers, the destination management companies, and since both you and the travel agent work in the same industries, a lot of the same language, the two of you can then come together and almost just help.
Julia Nesbitt (20:29.444)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (20:33.294)
make the connection happen, right? Is that a good way to kind of describe how that?
Julia Nesbitt (20:40.262)
Yeah, it’s definitely collaborative. There are travel agents who specialize in Africa, and they make their own connections, and they wouldn’t necessarily work with somebody like me. But the travel agents that I work with, typically they do the whole world. And so their strength is being able to be flexible and do the research and to be able to offer to their clients.
Jason Elkins (21:02.282)
Find people like you.
Julia Nesbitt (21:04.558)
variety of places and find people like me where my strength, my scope of knowledge is very limited but very deep. So I know a lot about a very small niche in the industry.
Jason Elkins (21:13.087)
Yeah, okay.
Jason Elkins (21:18.746)
Yeah, no, that’s very cool. So what’s your advice? So somebody that just listened to what you just shared, what we shared, and just thinks, okay, I don’t know which direction I should go, but I definitely want to be involved with helping people have these amazing experiences like we were discussing earlier. What’s, I know it depends on the person, but what’s your general advice? Where’s a good place to start?
Julia Nesbitt (21:41.55)
Thank you.
Julia Nesbitt (21:45.806)
My general advice, first place to start is to, and to be fair, I’ve never been a travel agent, so I don’t actually know a lot of the ins and outs of that part of getting started, but a lot of it is, which I think is true in a lot of industries, it’s all about you. You have to market yourself. Why do you want to do this?
What do you do? I mean, going back to the question you asked earlier, I sell Africa because I love Africa and I’m good at it because I love Africa. You can tell that I’m passionate about it. I love traveling there. I couldn’t sell, you know, South America, sure, but I couldn’t sell, I don’t know, Denmark the same way. Because I never, I know, right? I would love to go to Denmark, but I’ve never been there. So for me, it’s about knowing. What do you know?
Jason Elkins (22:29.158)
Be careful. You couldn’t sell what’s at?
Julia Nesbitt (22:37.718)
Do you love weddings? Do you come from a wedding planner background? Plan honeymoons, plan destination weddings. Do you have kids? Maybe look at focusing on kids travel. Do you love luxury five-star spas? There is a market for everybody. And I think starting out as a travel professional, find good partners, consortiums, some sort of network, and…
Find who your client is going to be because your clients are going to book with you because they like you Ultimately what it comes down to if people don’t like you they’re not gonna book with you and they don’t think that you know
Jason Elkins (23:20.002)
It’s gonna be difficult, isn’t it?
Jason Elkins (23:25.182)
Well, the cool thing about travel and tourism, though, is it does have a tendency to self-select people that are typically interesting, outgoing, curious. Curiosity, I think, is the biggest thing. So if you’re passionate about traveling to a particular part of the world or putting together events or whatever, you’ve got a certain level of curiosity and probably are fairly extroverted.
Julia Nesbitt (23:31.534)
Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.
Jason Elkins (23:50.118)
probably can make some friends and make connections or you probably would be interested in something else. I don’t know that I just had a lot of probablys a lot of maybes there. And I’m curious what do you think about so what you just kind of described was kind of the entrepreneurial type of okay I’m going to start my own business I’m going to join a consortium of travel agents and.
kind of trying to figure out how to market myself and connect with the friends I already have and maybe connect with people like yourself. So that’s definitely the kind of independent type of role. And then there’s also, you know, a lot of the folks I’ve been speaking with are talking a lot about how it’s been a challenge finding staff, finding people, finding trip planners, finding, you know, people to join their teams and more of an employee type of role where maybe someone…
I’m not going to say they don’t have to have a lot of experience necessarily because they might but maybe it’s a little bit more of a traditional like it’s a job, it’s a travel job, it’s a really cool job, you’re planning cool stuff but as opposed to being an independent person trying to build your own travel agency, you’re coming to work maybe for someone like yourself or so what are your thoughts on that and what advice would you give to somebody that doesn’t necessarily want to start their own business but would like to find a job in the industry?
Julia Nesbitt (24:52.854)
Thank you.
Julia Nesbitt (25:11.062)
That’s an excellent question. That’s a tough one. Because there are so many small travel companies, and so many of it, I get inquiries from people who are looking, often, who are looking to relocate to America from Africa, or have recently relocated and are looking for a job in the travel industry. And I think it kind of depends on what
Jason Elkins (25:15.765)
Hahahaha
Jason Elkins (25:28.993)
Oh, okay.
Julia Nesbitt (25:42.37)
type of company you’re looking for. Like if you’re looking for one of the big ones, like say, it, I think like any job, it’s about finding a good fit. REI Adventures, big company. They’re about active group travel, right? In a nutshell. So if you find that you like that kind of thing, then you would be a better fit, regardless of your travel experience, honestly. It’s, if I think if you can find
Jason Elkins (26:07.667)
Hmm.
Julia Nesbitt (26:13.27)
some sort of commonality between your experience and what you like and the ethos or mission statement of the company you’re applying to. Honestly, I think that sometimes can be more important than if you have experience in the travel industry. If you want to be in the travel industry, yes, you should have a passion for travel. Basic, but beyond that. And I think also a lot of companies now, as we’re expanding,
We want to hire people and we need to figure out how to train people. Because so much of, you know, for me, especially on the Africa side, a lot of my peers are like me, we’re small businesses, you know, there’s five people on my team. Um, small businesses, most of what I know is up here. It’s not written down. I don’t have, you know, there’s no notes. There’s none of that. So.
For me, putting this agent portal together is actually really cool because it’s the education side of it, which I mostly just do off the cuff. Clients call me and sometimes they’re like, you know, it’s been half an hour, I don’t want to take up your time. And I’m like, no, I have 27 more important things to tell you. So, you know, I want to, the education aspect I think is really important. And I think if you are looking for a job, look for a company who has…
Jason Elkins (27:18.228)
Mm-hmm.
Julia Nesbitt (27:38.294)
the educational training in place.
I think that’s really important because it shows that they, one, they know how to train you because I didn’t get any training in my first job that was not my family company, my first job that was like, okay, we’re going to train you. Oh, wait, we’re really busy. That’s it. And there was no training. It was like a lot of learn on the go. And I think if you can find a company who has a really robust training schedule and educational database sort of thing, it also shows that they want to grow.
and a company that wants to grow is good for you as an employee because it gives you an opportunity to grow.
Jason Elkins (28:13.27)
All right.
Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that is really, really good advice. Do you think there’s any anything out there that I think there is? So I’m curious what your thoughts are. Is like there anything out there you see in the job marketplace? Like if you were to go on to, you know, indeed, or maybe even LinkedIn, like that you think people should avoid.
Julia Nesbitt (28:40.362)
I am very lucky that I haven’t had to look for a job in 20 years, so I don’t really know. Um, I mean, yeah, I think the one thing to really… Yeah, go ahead!
Jason Elkins (28:47.994)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (28:52.542)
Well, we can move right along. Let me mention.
Jason Elkins (29:00.946)
Well, I was just going to say I’ve noticed, because I spend a lot of time reaching out and having conversations with folks like yourself and just kind of paying attention to what’s going on. And I see some of the job postings are kind of just vague, like, oh, you’re going to be this travel planner and you’re going to do all this amazing stuff and it’s going to be so much fun. And what’s required is that you have a high school.
degree, you’re 18 years old and you’ve got access to a computer and that’s it. And sometimes I wonder about those to be honest with you. And then I see a lot of my friends on Facebook are like, oh, I’m a travel agent now. And then the next week, their very first post is, I can help you be a travel agent too and you should come join. I’ve got this great organization, low fees and this and that. You should join.
90% of what I see them promoting is to get other people to come and join and be travel agents as well. So I’m I don’t know all the details. I haven’t talked to anybody in depth about any of that stuff, but I see some of that maybe that multi-level marketing stuff that
Maybe lucrative, I don’t know. I’m not gonna, we’re not gonna have a conversation about the benefits of multilevel marketing. And I think if you really wanna help people, if you really wanna work in the tourism industry, that’s maybe a little different. I haven’t seen a lot of successful multilevel marketing organizations in tourism. So I was just curious if you had any experience with any of that or thoughts.
Julia Nesbitt (30:20.465)
Hahaha!
Julia Nesbitt (30:35.466)
No, that’s honestly, that’s really fascinating. The MLM take on the tourism industry. But no, I mean, I think if you want to get into MLMs, that is not the travel industry. That’s something different. More power to you. Don’t do that in our industry. Yeah, no, that’s fascinating. I haven’t seen any of that stuff, but like any job, right, do your due diligence.
Jason Elkins (30:48.422)
Yeah, all right, good, I’m happy with it.
Julia Nesbitt (31:00.922)
see who’s paying your bills, see what’s gonna, you know, see what the company stands for. Every company stands for something, even if they say that they don’t. Everybody stands for something, and I think that especially in the Stan Age, it’s really important to put your values where your money is, and put your values where your mouth is.
Jason Elkins (31:22.738)
Yeah, no, I agree with you. Agree with you completely. You said you’ve got a team of five, roughly five at any. I mean, I’m sure that maybe fluctuates at times. Do you all work kind of in an office together or are you doing the remote plan? Is everybody working remotely? I’m just curious.
Julia Nesbitt (31:43.134)
No, so we’re actually, yeah, no, so we, this, last year, it’s now 2024, last year, we had a bit of a change up. So my dad retired after 50 plus years in the travel industry and I, as African Theory Company, joined a company called Travel Theory Portfolio. So.
Jason Elkins (32:00.831)
Wow.
Julia Nesbitt (32:07.686)
Under that umbrella, there’s five of us currently. They do the whole world. I do Africa. We share accounting, the things that I don’t want to do. We recently hired. Yeah, it’s great. So we recently hired somebody who’s going to be doing social media for both African Safari Company and for the Travel Theory portfolio. And they have bigger stuff. They have a whole.
Jason Elkins (32:21.015)
Oh cool, okay.
Julia Nesbitt (32:34.174)
other thing because I also hate, which I forgot, social media. So I would say social media, we are not in the same office together. We have, if you, if we want to be real fancy about it, we have offices in three states and three countries. But really it means that we’re just scattered all over the world, you know. So and it works really well for us.
Jason Elkins (32:40.05)
Yeah, I get it.
Jason Elkins (32:57.534)
Yeah?
Jason Elkins (33:01.298)
Yeah, well, that’s cool. I would think that would work quite well for tour operators like yourself. It’s hard to justify having an accounting person for one tour operation business or a social media manager necessarily. So when you can add, you know, bring…
Julia Nesbitt (33:05.006)
It’s great. I love it.
Julia Nesbitt (33:19.778)
Thank you.
Jason Elkins (33:25.118)
five or six different operators together that all have kind of similar standards and, and thought processes. That’s pretty cool. Where’s, where are you located? Where, where do you live?
Julia Nesbitt (33:35.483)
I am in Portland, Oregon.
Jason Elkins (33:40.086)
Very cool. So let’s see. We discussed quite a bit about you. Definitely a lot about your business. I think you gave a lot of great advice and it wasn’t my plan to discuss job searches and stuff like that in the industry, but I just, I sense that it was something that you could add a lot of value. So I appreciate that. And I wanna make sure we cover anything else that’s important to you. But I wanna, first I wanna ask you like.
Julia Nesbitt (33:51.854)
I’m going to go ahead and turn it off.
Jason Elkins (34:06.722)
Is there a country in Africa that you think generally is the best first destination for most people? Or is that too, is that, am I just smoking crack when I think that might be a possibility?
Julia Nesbitt (34:22.908)
Can I give two answers? There’s two answers, basically.
Jason Elkins (34:26.834)
Yeah, you can answer it any way you want.
Julia Nesbitt (34:30.114)
All right, who answers to clients? The person who has a little bit of a higher budget and has watched every single BBC Animal Planet Discovery Channel documentary about the Great Migration and the Serengeti. That person needs to go to Tanzania because anything else is not going to live up to their expectations of what they’ve seen on TV. And we are all armchair travelers in our own way.
You know, every travel professional I know loves to armchair travel. We love to watch shows about other destinations or our own destinations. So I absolutely, I love it when people come to me and they’re like, well, I’ve seen the Serengeti and the hot air ballooning and I have to do it. And I’m like, great, that’s what you have to do because that’s your expectation. And people come to me and they say, okay, I don’t really know. I don’t really know what I want to do. I don’t have a preconceived notion.
I like a little bit of everything. I like a little wildlife, a little culture, a little food. South Africa, they have a first world infrastructure. They’re the only country in sub-Saharan Africa to have that kind of infrastructure because they are so far south. They have an incredible climate. It’s more Mediterranean and less the big, long rainy seasons. And the wildlife is phenomenal. The conservation stories coming out of South Africa are amazing. Plus you have Cape Town.
which is my favorite place to be, especially in the summer. Great food, great people, fascinating, heartbreaking history, and amazing, amazing people and community projects happening now. Not just in Cape Town, but in Johannesburg too. Johannesburg has this horrible reputation, but it has, hey, justly, I think, in a lot of ways, and I have family there, but I think that there’s some really, really cool stuff happening.
Johannesburg these days. So two answers.
Jason Elkins (36:26.814)
Yeah, I would. Very cool. I would definitely. I love South Africa. I didn’t spend a lot of time there, but I did the Rovos rail from Johannesburg down to Cape Town and spend a little bit of time there. And it was a really, really the scenery, just the mountains. It was, it really was different than what I expected and enjoyed that a lot. And now, okay, so the next question, you have to spend one month in Africa
in a only one country, this is just you. This is not maybe for your clients. Maybe you don’t even know anybody that would want to do what you want to do, but where are you gonna spend your one month in Africa?
Julia Nesbitt (37:11.214)
Okay, I have a clarifying question. Do I get to move around within the country or am I staying in one place? Ooh.
Jason Elkins (37:14.518)
Okay, within the country, yeah, let’s, I don’t know, let’s, yeah, I think a country. You can’t leave the borders of that country. You can go any time of year so you don’t have to think about seasonal. I’m paying the bill so you don’t have to think about finance. What are you just like, where would you like to hang out for one month at any point during the year?
Julia Nesbitt (37:35.958)
love to go back to Zimbabwe and spend more time. So my, you know, that’s where my mom’s from, my grandparents were born there, we have deep family roots, we have not had any family in that country for many, many years because of the political situation, just leave it there. But as a country, it has… No, I don’t. As a country, it has incredible diversity.
Jason Elkins (37:36.974)
And why. Zimbabwe.
Jason Elkins (37:55.026)
Yeah, do you want to discuss that? Just… Okay. Okay, so…
Julia Nesbitt (38:05.406)
in terms of wildlife and conservation. And the people are amazing. The people have gone through so much. And there is a reason that it was well-known, 80s, 90s in particular, the guides from Zimbabwe are the best. It is a fact. I mean, I’m gonna get so much flak from other guides, other friends.
The guide training in Zimbabwe is intense and it remains intense. And you have great Zimbabwe, the ruins of this incredible civilization. You have Hwangi National Park, which is really beautiful on the border of the Kalahari Basin. You have the Zambezi River. Lower Zambezi National Park is on the Zambia side. Mauna Pools is a gem that people don’t get to enough on the Zimbabwe side.
Kariba, I mean, there’s so much to do. I could spend, frankly, I could probably spend a month at Kariba working on my bird knowledge and be totally happy. But yeah, I have a soft spot for Zimbabwe because of my background, but it is also an incredible destination in terms of variation within the country.
Jason Elkins (39:28.818)
Alright, very, very cool. And I guess I’d be remiss. So for client, who’s the client that that’s the right spot for?
Julia Nesbitt (39:38.71)
A lot of people, my most popular trip, and a trip itinerary that I put together, a lot for people who have a little bit more time, is do Cape Town, Greater Kruger, Victoria Falls, and then go into either Zimbabwe or Botswana for a more remote safari destination. So a lot of people do go to Zim for their first trip. It’s also very child-friendly, so great for families. Easily accessible, you have the Victoria Falls, so.
Yeah, Zimbabwe’s really, there are places for people who have been to Africa a couple of times if you want to get really deep and go to places like Great Zimbabwe that a lot of people don’t go to. The Metopos, amazing destination that’s kind of off the beaten path for people who have been and are looking for something different.
Jason Elkins (40:27.318)
Okay, now tell us about your trip back in November.
Julia Nesbitt (40:31.774)
So I went to Rwanda. It was my first time to go. I have obviously as a company, we’ve offered guerrilla tracking for many years. My dad had been and I had a great relationship with our DMC there. It’s a very small country so I had
Julia Nesbitt (40:56.01)
expectations, I would say, with knowing kind of the broad strokes of the genocide, obviously. It’s a driving location because it’s so small you can drive it. I was completely blown away, frankly. I loved it. My new goal in life is to get everybody I know to go and see Rwanda beyond the gorillas because I’ve never been in a country where an
Look, depending on who you talk to, the president is a dictator. That is not my place to say. What I can say is they have incredible social structures in place to take care of the community. They are an incredibly densely populated country. They have great school systems in place to make sure every child gets an education, whether it’s some places it’s so densely populated that…
they have to split the school into like seven, I think it’s roughly seven a.m. to one p.m. and then two p.m. to six p.m. because they can’t fit all the kids in this whole house but that’s what they’re doing and it is required by the government that all kids go to school. So there’s a lot of that kind of thing. It is known as the land of a thousand hills because it is beautiful. I mean, it looks like, I’ve never been to Ireland. It looks like the African Ireland. There’s my weird metaphor for the day.
Jason Elkins (42:02.944)
Hello.
Julia Nesbitt (42:24.882)
The gorillas obviously were incredible. I thought the golden monkeys were a do not miss. They’re so cute and they’re so relaxed. The chimpanzees.
were phenomenal. This is my second time doing chimpanzees. It was a completely different experience than what I did in Tanzania. Nungwe National Park is one of the oldest forests in Africa, and it feels like it. You can close your eyes, listen to what’s happening in the forest, and I would not be surprised if I opened my eyes and a little velociraptor
Jason Elkins (43:02.242)
Oh wow.
Julia Nesbitt (43:07.326)
So, and then I ended up in Magashi, which is a camp in Akagura National Park, which is, I consider it a conservation success story. So, African Parks is a nonprofit that puts work, and this is like very basic, but puts work and money and funding, working with local agencies within.
but African Parks works across the whole continent to revitalize parks that have been basically decimated because of human encroachment, habitation, wars, you know, there’s Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, a landmine problem. And Akagira has come back in the most spectacular way. And I am a very snotty.
Jason Elkins (43:55.871)
Mm-hmm.
Julia Nesbitt (44:04.402)
I’ve been on countless safaris. I have a very high standard for my own travel. Blew me away. We saw the big five and two game drives. And I did not expect that in this tiny corner of East Africa, in this tiny country that you go for the gorillas and then you leave. It was… Honestly, it was incredible. I loved it.
Jason Elkins (44:29.766)
I’m so happy I asked. That’s, yeah, I felt it. I’m like, sign me up. Where do I sign up?
Julia Nesbitt (44:37.846)
And the food was really good. That’s really important to me. As a mom, cooking every day, I love to be able to not cook. And the food is so good.
Jason Elkins (44:40.266)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (44:47.978)
You know what, let’s touch on that because most people don’t really have much of an idea of what African food is and I’m going to even go out on a limb and say most people that have seen African food on television haven’t seen anything that looks very appealing. Let’s just put it that way. So what is…
Like, what gets you excited about African food? Maybe it’s too general, but maybe in Rwanda or whatever. Talk a little bit about African food because I’m a foodie. I enjoyed the food there. So what gets you excited about it?
Julia Nesbitt (45:21.23)
So I’m going to go back to the huge continent, 52 countries, hundreds of cultures, thousands of cultures, different food. Something that you find everywhere is a stew, some sort of stew with some sort of meat in it, and then some sort of porridge-y situation. And that’s traditional, right? But when I’m talking about food, I’m talking about like the…
quality of the, most of the places cook Western-style food. They will also do like a local dish night or a local dish in addition to some, you know, what they have on the buffet or what they do plated or whatever it is. But I think the ingredients are so good. You know, my guy joked with me, he’s like, everything’s organic. There’s nothing that’s not organic because their soil is so fertile that they don’t need.
pesticides, they don’t need fertilizer, everything just kind of grows. It’s amazing. And I’m sure that, you know, blanket staple, right? But for me too, it is It is so regional. Like I have never been to West Africa. I love Senegalese food. It is amazing. When I lived in Paris for a couple of months and my
Jason Elkins (46:23.676)
Mm-hmm.
Julia Nesbitt (46:42.202)
was above a Senegalese restaurant and they had jazz every Friday night. So every Friday night I went down and I ate my food and I listened to the jazz and it was phenomenal. And I think it’s such a great way to learn about a culture. And in the Cape, in Cape Town, in that area has the best rated restaurants on the continent. There’s a lot of innovative kind of higher art, right, sort of food. And just…
Jason Elkins (46:51.188)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (47:09.17)
Yeah.
Julia Nesbitt (47:10.826)
really fascinating things that people are doing from their cultures and bringing that into new modern ways.
Jason Elkins (47:20.426)
So when you say you love the food, you’re not necessarily saying… I think uggali is one of the… Uggali isn’t… like Kenyan?
Julia Nesbitt (47:27.85)
Yeah, ugali is one of the words for that.
Jason Elkins (47:35.041)
I can’t remember where I came across that one. It might have been Zambia.
Julia Nesbitt (47:35.618)
It’s like a plant. Yeah, so it’s all… Mealy Pop is what they call it in Zimbabwe. Ugali is another name for it. There’s lots of… Lots of words for the same thing, and it’s like sort of a slush. No, I mean…
Jason Elkins (47:50.43)
But you’re not going to be limited to that. It’s something probably to try. I enjoy the local food, but you’re right. I was in Cape Town and I did a chef’s table thing at one of the fancy restaurants and it was like, holy cow. Like you know, and I’ve spent time in some pretty cool places. And then also did you remember when I was in Namibia, I did the Mopani worms, which are the big caterpillar things.
Julia Nesbitt (48:04.732)
Can you hear it? Oh, it’s still using. Yeah.
Julia Nesbitt (48:18.058)
Nope. Ha ha ha.
Jason Elkins (48:18.902)
of the first time it was absolutely horrible and I didn’t, I was like okay I’m going to keep an open mind that was really nasty but then I was on another trip with some other tour operators and we were presented these Mopani worms that had been I guess fried or toasted really well and actually they tasted like bacon so the moral of the story there is just because you don’t like something the first time.
There’s 52 countries in Africa. It’s kind of the same thing, right? It’s like, it’s a big world. There’s a lot of different ways to cook something. There’s a lot of different ways to do things. And you can’t, maybe you’ve got a friend that went to Africa and came back and said, oh no, we had a horrible time. Something happened. We don’t like it. We’d never go back to Africa. That’s the whole point of this is that if a tourist goes to Detroit,
Julia Nesbitt (49:07.444)
Uh huh.
Jason Elkins (49:13.234)
Michigan if they come to the states from Europe and they go to Detroit for a conference or something at the Whatever and they’re there for a week and they go back to you know to Europe and say oh we were we went to the US and we didn’t like it. It wasn’t what we thought it was going to be You know, it’s um Africa’s huge
Julia Nesbitt (49:16.238)
Thanks.
Julia Nesbitt (49:33.923)
And there’s so many places that I’ve never been that I want to go.
Jason Elkins (49:37.586)
Yeah, I don’t know how you could be at all. Now, is there, and in fairness, because it is something I know is a concern of people, what would you like to share? And again, 52 countries. What would you like people to know about security and safety in Africa in general?
Julia Nesbitt (49:48.738)
Yeah!
Julia Nesbitt (49:53.09)
So this is what I always tell my clients. My personal rule of thumb, I don’t send anyone, any client where I wouldn’t take my seven year old and I wouldn’t send my parents who are almost 80. So that is paramount to me.
generally security wise for safaris, because I do focus on safaris wildlife, is mostly about listening to your guide and not jumping out of the vehicle and running to go into the pride of lions. It’s not people. People are not the problem. In terms of personal security like in town,
Jason Elkins (50:28.226)
That makes sense. It’s kind of like Yellowstone trying to pet the buffalo.
Julia Nesbitt (50:32.286)
Exactly. Yeah, don’t do it. Don’t do it. Common sense goes a really long way. There are places I don’t sell. Like, I personally would love to go to South Sudan. I’m not going to sell it. I’m not going to go there, because it’s not safe right now, politically. Places like Cape Town, use your common sense. I often travel alone. As a female alone, I take Ubers, because I
Don’t drive on the wrong side of the road. It’s never ended well, so now I just take Ubers in Cape Town. It’s great. I would do the same thing in New York City. I would do the same thing in Seattle. I would do the same thing in Paris. It’s about your comfort level and using your common sense and not putting yourself in a situation, you know, where you could be in a place or a situation that you don’t wanna be in. I don’t walk around alone at night in Seattle anymore, and I don’t walk around alone at night in Cape Town.
You know, it’s a… Yeah, I mean, security-wise, there are places that I just don’t sell, and that takes it off the table.
Jason Elkins (51:39.666)
I love that you two really good points. One is again, Africa is a very big country. So just because you saw something on the news about maybe South Sudan doesn’t mean that that’s what’s happening in Namibia, which is, you know, I don’t know, a thousand miles away or whatever. Yeah, you just have to look at a map like but if you’ve never been to Africa, you just see on TV, you see Africa about that. I’m in Colombia right now. I almost pretty much say I live here.
Julia Nesbitt (51:54.759)
Oh, yeah.
Julia Nesbitt (52:07.286)
Mmm. Dine it.
Jason Elkins (52:09.222)
I’m recording from Columbia, which is another place that many people think, oh, that’s not a place I think is safe to go. I’ve spent a good chunk of the last two years here. I personally have never seen anything that even got me got my attention. At the same time, I’m not stupid. I’m, you know, tend to not walk around downtown at night, late at night, but I don’t I wouldn’t do that in Phoenix, Arizona either.
Julia Nesbitt (52:29.781)
Yeah, you have to be self-sufficient.
It’s absolutely so cool.
Yeah, I mean, for me, I’m more worried about opening up my tent in the morning, which happens. It happened to me in Rwanda, actually. I open up my door and there were buffalo all around my tent. So I radioed up to the main lodge and I was like, look, I’m not coming to breakfast because I’m not walking past these buffalo because they’re frankly terrifying and it’s not going to happen. And they sent a golf cart for me. So I got a golf cart ride so I could go have breakfast, you know. And that’s…
Jason Elkins (52:38.623)
Yeah, so.
Jason Elkins (52:58.278)
Smart choice.
Julia Nesbitt (53:06.662)
general common sense. Wild animals don’t mess with them.
Jason Elkins (53:09.694)
Yep. But I, and I also love what you said about, I wouldn’t send my clients somewhere where I wouldn’t send, you know, my child or my parents. And that’s, I’m just gonna point out that that’s really a big part of the value that working with someone like you brings. Cause you can say that and I can hear you say that, but if I’m gonna go do it myself, I have no idea what that means. So I think it is good whether it’s you, Julia, or.
You know, someone else that someone knows is very familiar with the area. What a great, you know, great value you bring because, hey, I can work with you. And I know that if you wouldn’t send your parents, you’re not going to send me. I don’t really then I don’t need to worry about all the specific details about, well, is this place safe? Because you just say, well, I’d send my kid there. OK, I’m going, you know, and I use kind of the same. I’ve used the same thing with my kids, with my daughter.
Julia Nesbitt (53:56.517)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (54:00.65)
You know, it’s like having a conversation. Yeah, I would send my daughter. I’d let my daughter walk around that island all day, all night, wouldn’t worry about it at all. And okay, assuming I love her, then it’s probably a pretty safe place. So, and I do love her. I love her very much. So anyway, Julie, is there anything, there’s so many things, big country, big world, big life. We’re making the big world a little bit smaller, but I’m curious, is there anything that I should have asked, forgot to ask, or that you just…
Julia Nesbitt (54:12.068)
Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Jason Elkins (54:28.822)
We really want to make sure that our listeners hear before we wrap it up.
Julia Nesbitt (54:36.114)
the thing that I always want to leave for people is you can. You can travel. You, whether you’re scared, whether you don’t like flying, whether you’re nervous to go someplace where you don’t speak the language, you can do it. And I say, I want people to empower themselves to get off of the couch where we do so much of our mental traveling. We all do it. And take a chance.
And that’s not specific to Africa. You know, for some people, going to Africa is really scary. For some people, going to New York City is really scary. For some people, going to suburbs is really scary. Like, whatever your threshold is, it’s okay to push it. You can do it.
Jason Elkins (55:20.846)
I think that’s a an amazing message and as you were saying that I was thinking you know I’ve talked to a lot of people I’ve traveled a lot myself I don’t think I’ve ever actually ran into somebody either a client that I helped him book a trip or Ran into like I don’t remember anybody ever saying I went on a trip. I Was really nervous. I went on a trip and well hell I’m never gonna do that again. No, you know, it’s always the other side It’s I was scared. I went I didn’t think I was gonna enjoy it
And now I’m planning my next trip and where you know, where are you going next? Oh, here’s where I’m going next. They might say I probably won’t go back there. But the point is something clicked and it it. I never see it go the other way around. I unless there’s something really traumatic happens and they never want to leave their house again. I’ve just never seen a situation where somebody started traveling and then decided they didn’t want to do it anymore. But maybe I’m wrong. If anybody’s listening to this and has and has a different experience, please let me know. I’d love to interview you for the show.
Julia Nesbitt (56:13.551)
Exactly.
Julia Nesbitt (56:21.079)
Absolutely.
Jason Elkins (56:24.565)
Thank you so much for sharing your story, your experiences, your knowledge. We’re going to obviously we’re going to have your link to your website in the show notes so people can reach out to you see some of the cool stuff you’re doing. I can tell the you’re the type just probably happy to speak to anybody that’s considering a trip and I trust you’re going to take amazing care of them. And now look forward to working with you on future projects.
Julia Nesbitt (56:41.887)
Oh yeah.
Jason Elkins (56:50.058)
I was going to say future projects in the future. I’m just going to go with that. So Julia, thank you so much for joining me.
Julia Nesbitt (56:53.342)
A future producer. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
Jason Elkins (57:00.266)
Thank you so much.

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