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Episode #1: Tom Smith

VP of Sales and Marketing, North America

Intrepid Travel

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Guest Bio

Tom Smith is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for North America at Intrepid Travel. His career in the travel industry began in 2013, following roles in the life-science and pharmaceutical sectors. Tom’s journey includes working in sales for a backpacker travel agency in Australia, managing a surf camp in Morocco, and serving as EMEA Marketing Director at Intrepid’s London headquarters. He also held the position of General Manager of Peak DMC South America, overseeing operations across Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. In July 2021, Tom assumed his current role, leading Intrepid Travel’s sales and marketing efforts in North America.

Show Summary

In this episode, Tom Smith shares his diverse experiences in the adventure travel industry. He discusses his transition from the pharmaceutical sector to travel, his roles across various continents, and his passion for sustainable tourism. Tom emphasizes the importance of authentic experiences, community engagement, and responsible travel practices. He also provides insights into the evolving landscape of adventure tourism and the strategies Intrepid Travel employs to adapt to changing traveler preferences.

Key Takeaways

  • ✓ Career Transition: Leveraging skills from different industries can lead to fulfilling roles in travel.
  • ✓ Sustainable Tourism: Implementing eco-friendly practices benefits communities and the environment.
  • ✓ Authentic Experiences: Engaging with local cultures enriches travel experiences.
  • ✓ Adaptability: Embracing change is crucial in the evolving travel industry.
  • ✓ Community Engagement: Supporting local communities enhances the impact of tourism.

What You’ll Find on Intrepid Travel’s Platform

  • ✓ Small Group Adventures – Personalized tours with a focus on cultural immersion.
  • ✓ Sustainable Travel Options – Eco-friendly itineraries that minimize environmental impact.
  • ✓ Tailored Experiences – Customizable trips to suit diverse interests and preferences.
  • ✓ Community-Based Tourism – Opportunities to engage with and support local communities.
  • ✓ Comprehensive Travel Resources – Guides and tips to enhance your adventure planning.

👉 Visit Intrepid Travel’s Official Website to explore their offerings and learn more about Tom Smith’s contributions to sustainable travel.

Learn more about Intrepid Travel and connect with Tom at:

https://www.intrepidtravel.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 (00:00.586)
All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the big world made small podcast for the adventure traveler. So happy to have each and every one of you back here today to join us with our special guest. Super excited about this one. This guy’s got a lot of interesting experiences and is part of an organization that many of you will recognize the name. So today we’ve got Tom, Tom Smith from Intrepid Travel. Tom, so happy to have you here. Jason, thanks so much for having me. Really looking forward to it.

We had a conversation earlier on and you brought up a couple of things that I did not know about you. And I thought, man, that’s some pretty cool stuff. I know that our listeners are always interested in just that story. Like, how did you get into this? What do you like most about it? What are some of your fondest memories? It’s that same conversation that I know you’ve had with clients or guests sitting around the dinner table or, you know, around a campfire or something like that. So that’s really. So let’s jump right in.

tell our listeners just a little bit about how did you get into adventure tourism? What were you doing before that? And just kind of what was the shift? Sure. I mean, to be totally honest, I always thought travel was something you did for fun outside of work. And what you did in work was not travel and sit and do kind of other industries and work in other areas. And that was me. You know, I

I worked in the pharmaceutical sector for a while. I worked in sales. I worked in finance and I just kept quitting. And I’d worked for 18 months, two years, and I’d quit and think, oh, I need to do something else. I need to go and travel. I would do that. I would travel. I’d be in and live the dream for a few months at a time. Then run out of money and realize, okay, back to work. And for me, it just didn’t even really enter my head that you can work in travel. And until I thought…

It’s got to be a better way than this. I can’t keep quitting and using all my money up and then restarting all over again. And so I moved to Australia, actually, after a period of travel in South America, moved to Australia, met a couple of guys who said, hey, we work at a travel agency. Do you want to do want to join us? And that was where it started, really. And I can imagine you’re like, what, really? You guys talk about travel for a living in this space.

Jason Elkins (02:26.606)
That’s, you know, and okay. And what did your family think when you’re like, okay, I found it. I figured it out. Were they supportive or were they like, no, Tom, you really should go back and get a real job. How did they respond? I think by this point, they realized that it was, it was more than a passing interest in travel. It was more than something that I did for, or wanted to do for three or four weeks a year. And so I guess like any parents, they just wanted me to be happy and find something that I’m passionate about. And so.

I think when I started working for this travel business in Australia, they thought, this makes sense. This is Tom being able to combine what he’s passionate about and still… Yeah, he’s actually getting a paycheck. And he’s getting paid for it. Perfect. I’ll take that. I’ve had conversations with my family. I remember when I first got into tourism, my brother specifically, I was…

I’m going to go be a fly fishing guide in Montana. And he’s like, yeah, that’s crazy. You can’t do that. You’re not going to ever. Da da da. And, um, and it was the best, best choice I ever made. I would love to hear the story. Like, okay, you went to Australia for surfing because that’s kind of a passion of yours, right? Or was it just part of it? And then part of it. Yep. How did you actually meet these guys? Cause I know there’s people out there that, man, that I would love to have that happen And I’m curious, what was the specifics?

of your meeting? Was it at a bar over a, what are they, 4X beers or a Foster’s or something? What happened? It was quite coincidental. So yeah, I’ll be totally honest. I went to Australia because I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to go back to the UK. It was, it would have been, yeah, just before Christmas. So.

I thought, I don’t want to go back to the UK, it’s middle of winter there. It’s the middle of summer in Australia. I can go there, be warm and surf. That sounds like a good plan. I’d met actually in South America a couple of great Aussie guys and they were like, oh yeah, why don’t you just come over here, we’ll work something out. So I went over there and then found myself in Byron Bay which is a great spot for just hanging out, surfing. It’s a great spot on the east coast of Australia.

Jason Elkins (04:45.502)
And I was literally walking down the street and I got accosted by a guy who was standing outside of a travel agency and he said, are you traveling up the East Coast? Do you want to go to Sunday Islands? Do you want to go to Fraser Island? Got chatting and I said, no, not really. I’m potentially looking to stay, looking for some work. And he said, what do you do? And I said, I’ve got a variety of different experiences by this point.

nothing longer than about 18 months anywhere. And he said, Oh, well, you seem to be pretty confident, pretty chatty, obviously love travel. If you think you could do this, you know, come and have an interview. And that was literally when he said, Do you think you could do this? Is it literally stand out front of the tour desk and, and grab people walking by and ask them how long they’re going to be here and which pretty much

Yeah, there was a few kind of backpacker travel agencies we’d call them. You’re looking for pretty much people like myself, you know, young people probably aged between about 20 and 30 generally that, you know, were having a good time or wanted to go and have a good time, wanted to experience, you know, a few different places around Australia and yeah, we would literally hang outside the front of the store in flip-flops and shorts and just chat away and…

See if we could meet some people who wanted to go and go on some boats and have some beers and have some fun. That is so cool, because I suspect almost everybody listening to this podcast has met somebody like that. If you’ve, you know, left the country and been in any touristy area or along the beach or something and have had that run in with some. And I don’t mean run in a negative way, but it sounds does. It sounds it doesn’t it? So let’s rephrase that has had the opportunity to

interact with somebody who’s selling tours on the sidewalk. And how long ago is that? Well, that would have been in 20, the beginning of 2013, I think. 10 years. Yeah. I’m going to say something. I’m going to say something that maybe you wouldn’t say, but just an observation that, you know, for anybody that read the bio or listened to the

Jason Elkins (07:07.562)
So you went from that to being a vice president of, is it sales and marketing for Intrepid Travel Yes. In 10 years. Yes. I can imagine your parents are not questioning any decisions anymore. Even if secretly they were, you’ve done a great job of turning it into a quote unquote real job. And not that selling tours on the beach is not a real job. It’s just.

Isn’t it interesting? I guess the reason I bring it up is it’s so interesting when you find something you’re passionate about, you’re really excited about how it can look so different than back when you were doing things you weren’t that passionate about and weren’t that excited about. Um, you’re a good example of that. Uh, and look, there’s, you know, there’s a lot of useful skills learned. I mean, trying to, you know, get people to sign up to think, you know, using a lot of interpersonal skills, you know, obviously improving communication, trying to read.

customers and trying to work out when they’re signaling that they might be interested in buying and working out the best approach. It was really useful. It was hard at times, but also great people. I had a lot of great people to learn from. To be honest, I’d say that’s the common thread from then to now is just being surrounded by people that you can learn so much from, be really inspired by. I think that’s probably the common thread, actually.

It is pretty cool because I think there’s other stories like yours where people came in doing other things and, and then they, they kind of like the, the light bulb that goes off and wow, I can, I can actually work in an industry that I’m super excited about. And they all bring their own set of skills, whether they were, you know, engineers. So maybe they’re really good at the logistic part of it or sales like yourself, because you’d mentioned that you did sales before that. I can, it’s, it is pretty interesting when you get, especially an organization like Intrepid, I’m sure.

You guys have people from all different backgrounds working together. And that, yeah, okay. That is super cool. So, okay. So you’re in Australia, selling tours in Australia. And what was the next step in that 10 year journey to where you are now? Sure. So I was there probably two, two and a half years, something like that. Eventually was kind of responsible for managing the stores across Byron.

Jason Elkins (09:30.038)
Bay Area in Brisbane, so looking after three stores So again, that was really useful experience as well, managing plenty of people. As you can imagine, it was a pretty relaxed work environment. And, you know, as a manager, that’s challenging at times, you know, I was used to being used to more corporate environments and coming into that vibe where, you know, it was par for the course that people would be out the night before and you’d probably seen them out the night before.

I’ve always been a bit of a morning person. You know, I like to get up and go surfing. Obviously I enjoy a beer too, but I was, I left the big nights out for the other guys. Um, but then as a manager, that’s pretty challenging. You know, you’re the one standing there when the clients show up for their surfing lesson and you know where their guide is. Yeah. I worked with fly fishing guides. I managed the fly fishing lodges.

Yeah, that’s kind of the same. I think it’s the same group of guys that go surfing half the year and fishing. I don’t know, but it’s more of a lifestyle. Yeah. So did that. Which is cool. It’s fun. Right. Love it. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I did that for about two and a half years. Then I was going back to the UK or wanted to go back to the UK, but wanted to spend the winter somewhere on the way. Um, there’s not a lot in the UK for me in winter. So I get it. Again, took a bit of a chance. I just.

emailed about 10 surf businesses, surf hotels, surf schools, and just said, hey, I’m on my way back to the UK from Australia. I’d love to stay and surf and work for you guys. Happy to work for free if you can kind of put me up and make my living costs next to nothing or very low. Here’s my CV By that point, it was kind of a lot of sales, a lot of marketing and

You know, probably had two and a half years within the industry at that point. And one guy got back to me, a guy called Abdullah. He managed a surf hotel and camp in a village called Tamaract, which is about 10 minutes south of Taghazout on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. And he said, sure, come on over. So I’d never been to Morocco. And I flew there to stay for the winter season to work.

Jason Elkins (11:51.746)
for this organization. And did you have to do it for free or did they actually pay you? So I was totally happy to do it. I said I would and I meant it. I mean, I had a great lifestyle. Abdullah. said, first day, he said, look, if you work for four or five hours a day, you can surf the rest of the time, that’s fine. So first of all, I thought four and a half or four to five hours work a day, sure, I can do that and surf the rest of the time.

And I did. I did it for free and I stayed for free. I ate for free. I got transported around and some of the surf instructors, we would we would go off to surfs when they weren’t working. So I really had literally no costs. It was a pretty. Remote, you know, there were towns close by, but, you know, it was obviously you know, as a predominantly Muslim country, it’s not a place where there’s lots of bars or anything like that. So, you know, we could we could.

know, buy beer for our guests from the underground floor of a French supermarket, sold beer and wine so we could get alcohol where we wanted it. But to be honest, I had no costs, so you know, I didn’t get paid except when I was leaving at the end of the three months. It was really emotional actually, like I really felt connected to the guys. I really loved the people in Morocco. They’re just wonderful people and he did pay me a few hundred euros in the end which

I really didn’t want to accept it was more of a gesture than anything, but I really, you know, I said I would do it for free and I did and that’s what I meant. And so I did take it because I could tell that it was really important to him to kind of thank me in that way. So I did end up getting paid a small amount. Yeah. I’m so happy that came up the part of I would do it for free.

Cause like there are people listening to this that may be younger people or older people that are aspiring to, to get into this industry. And they’re just, you know, they, they come from a different type of background. And it can be, it actually can be definitely worthwhile and productive to that approach, I think is really good. I, I did something similar when I first got into the fly fishing industry. I showed up on, you know, in Fort Smith, Montana on the banks of the Bighorn river.

Jason Elkins (14:11.05)
And I don’t, I didn’t use the word free, but I, it was probably pretty obvious by the look on my face when I spoke with people, cause I walked in like, look, I will do anything I will dig holes. I will clean the boats. I will whatever. I just want to be here and I want to learn this business. And someone threw me some keys and said, here, you can manage the lodge I was way over my head and they gave me a little bit of money. Sometimes it felt like it was free, but it was just that.

approach to just like, look, just show up and realize, okay, I don’t know much about this. You already did because you’d worked, you know, in specifically, you know, surfing tourism as well. But I worked really well for me. And it obviously, you know, eight years prior to the role that you’re in now. So I just wanted to highlight that in case anybody’s listening to this, trying to instead of spending three months sending out resumes, maybe you just show up and say, look, I’m here.

You don’t have to pay me. I just want to learn the business and you’ll get further in three months of that, then you probably will. So I was going to say, totally. And look, the people that you meet, you know, the connections that you make. And for me, you know, I ended up doing a lot of stuff that I was also way in over my head, I just didn’t know what I was doing, but you know, you could work it out, right? Like, you know, I’ve done a bit of marketing, uh, in my previous role in Australia, but this was.

to be honest, probably about 90% marketing. I was all of a sudden editing the website and writing blogs and trying to build relationships with local travel agencies. And there were definitely things that I’d never done before that actually by the time I left Morocco and did go back to the UK in the end and thought right now I wanna try and find a job in a company that I really feel will be a great.

home for me going forward, that actually being able to talk to that experience that I got in Morocco, across a whole area, a number of areas of marketing, that yeah, you could go and learn that course. You would go to school to do a masters or do whatever, do a course in marketing. But being able to be there on the job and listening and learning from other people, it certainly helped me to get my job at Intrepid.

Jason Elkins (16:34.198)
and you’ve got kind of a portfolio, you can say, look, this is what I’ve done and it’s directly tied to tourism. So if you go to sign up for a three month or six month or longer, maybe four year marketing degree program, yeah, okay, you’re gonna have a portfolio and great. I see that you were able to duplicate the Netflix website. That’s great. But.

But I actually spoke with someone earlier today and they said, you know, it’s hard to find somebody that really kind of has some understanding and experience of marketing that also has some understanding and experience in tourism, specifically adventure tourism, because sometimes those two, you know, sometimes that’s two different personality types to come together. So that yeah, that’s a that’s a brilliant approach. And I Morocco’s on my list.

I love Moroccan food, so I’m going to ask you, what’s your favorite Moroccan dish that you remember? It’s a little off topic, but I mean, it’s a classic, but a tagine is just so good. Yeah, I mean, it’s the pots that they make them in. It’s obviously the ingredient being super fresh. You know, I didn’t eat any processed food at all in, you know, three or four months that I was there. I mean, I…

well. I ate three huge meals a day. I couldn’t do it these days, but then I was surfing for two or three hours a day and I could just eat whatever I wanted. It was great. I’m actually surprised I haven’t been. When I was living in Vermont working for Orvis Travel and I had three tajines in my house. I only ever used one at a time, but I was so excited. I was like, oh, look, that’s a bigger

Jason Elkins (18:26.638)
I didn’t need the big one, but it is. It’s just good and it’s fun. So I thought you might say tajine OK, where were we? That’s pretty cool. OK, so did you go straight from Morocco then? You went back to England because it wasn’t winter. And I get that. I’m done living in the north in the cold. But you’re in Toronto now, right? Yep. OK.

Jason Elkins (18:58.411)
True. So. Where are you going with that? Does Intrepid, they’re not doing the whole work remotely from Costa Rica thing? Or what’s… I mean, look, I had to go back to the UK at that time. I mean, I say back to the UK, it was via Central America for a couple of months, so I didn’t go immediately back to the UK. But then at that time, you know, I was looking to stay in the UK and, you know, just…

Actually, my sister helped me out. She worked in the tourism industry in the UK at that time. And she still works in the tourism industry, but in New Zealand now. And she actually wrote a list of companies that she thought I would like, because to be honest, I hadn’t worked in the tourism sector in the UK. I didn’t know that many businesses. You know, most of my personal travel, I just had not necessarily.

either had the money to or wanted to travel on a tour because I just didn’t know the kind of companies were out there. You know, I was local buses and staying in this, you know, cheaper places I could find. So I just didn’t have a network in the UK. So she literally wrote the names of about eight to 10 companies on a piece of paper. And I just set about harassing them really. All right. We got it. We got it. Tell me a little bit more about that. So eight to 10 companies.

Was Intrepid the one that you landed at initially when you went to the UK or was there an in-between? No, so they’re all adventure travel companies or companies that my sister thought I would like from a values perspective. So yeah, I applied to all of them or sent CVs to all of them and got interviewed by

three and yeah, Intrepid was the was the one I eventually picked. The interview story is quite funny, actually. Well, I think it’s funny. Look, please, please share it. OK, so. I, you know, like I said, sent CVs off, tried to, you know, get anybody to kind of pay me any attention, which, you know, when you’re looking for a job, that’s obviously what you have to do. And I got an interview with Intrepid for, you know, entry level.

Jason Elkins (21:19.378)
marketing role, bottom rung on the ladder. But I thought, by this time, I really liked the sales. Sorry, I really liked the marketing side a little bit more than the sales. I thought, it’s kind of storytelling. And I like telling stories. So I think I could do that. And the interview, the only thing that they said to me about the interview is, the first 10 minutes of the interview are yours to do whatever you want. And I just thought, hmm.

Okay, I do not know what to do here. You know, I know pressure, no pressure. Right. I thought, okay, it’s an adventure travel company. I don’t really think, you know, PowerPoint presentation was the vibe that they would want. It’s interesting because now our recruitment policies are far more, I guess, structured and less random. But this was, you know, so anybody that’s listening to this that gets an interview

You probably don’t need to come up with a 10 minute. That’s correct. Correct. Um, so yeah, I just started thinking, what do I do here? I really just didn’t know. Um, and then I came up with that. Tom, was that like on the spot? Like you walked in the door and they said, you got 10 minutes. No, no, no. They told me in advance. Yeah, they told me in advance, you know, it’ll be a, whatever it was, an hour interview, the first 10 minutes are yours to do whatever you want.

And if that goes well, the rest of the 50 minutes we’ll use. Otherwise, you can do whatever you want with those two. Maybe, yeah. It’s an hour of your life back. And I came up with an idea and I told my brother and he said, I don’t know, this is maybe not a good idea. For reasons which will become obvious, actually became obvious during the interview. So anyway, I thought I’m going to go for it. I’m going to go in there.

And on the way to the interview, I stopped in a confectionery store and bought three chocolate bars. And I went into the interview or got to the Intrepid offices. And the first thing actually that I noticed, and this is now I look back and just kind of have my head in my hands and just think of what we are doing. But, you know, in my thoughts, it was a relatively big company, global business.

Jason Elkins (23:40.458)
And I’d always been told by my dad, you know, just make sure that you don’t underdress, make sure that, you know, if anything you overdress, you can always kind of, you know, bring that back. So I turned up to the interview in a suit and a tie and got shown through into a room to sit on a bean bag on the floor. And the two people who were doing the interview just looked at me and I’m sitting on the floor in a suit and a tie. And I just looked at them.

I’m just going to take this off, just going to take this jacket off too, because by this point I’m sitting on a bean bag on the floor and I thought I’ve slightly misjudged this situation. I’ve slightly overdressed. I want to say slightly, I mean considerably overdressed for the situation, but I thought it’s okay. Right. So they said, you’ve got 10 minutes. I said, yep, I know. I put these three chocolate bars on the floor.

There’s three by the way, because I didn’t know how many people were interviewing me. Um, so I went, I thought there might be three turns out there was two. Fine. Put the chocolate bars on the floor. And I just said, I’m going to tell you three travel stories. One of them is true. One of them I’ve made up in advance and the other I’m going to make up on the spot. And if you get them right, then you got a chocolate bar. That’s the prize Ah, pretty smart. I told three travel stories.

And I said, you know, guess which one? And, you know, I tried to think, right, I’ve got roughly three minutes per story. Told these travel stories. I said, right guys, over to you. Which, which one do you think was which? And they got them completely wrong, completely wrong. And I said, oh, how do we do? I said, guys, you’re both totally wrong. And one of the interviewers who it actually turns out was the managing director of

Intrepid in the UK at that time, just looked at me and said, I don’t know whether to be concerned about how well you can lie. And that was exactly my brother’s concern was he said, you can’t go into an interview and talk nonsense. But you can’t just tell them that you’re lying. Because then they’ll not believe the rest of the stuff that you’re saying. But anyway, so I said, yeah, I did think about that.

Jason Elkins (26:04.702)
And then before I’d even had a chance to say anything else, he said, but you’re going to be working in marketing. It’s storytelling. You need that. And at that point, I thought, OK, this guy, for whatever reason, in 10 minutes, he thought, this guy can come in and tell a good story. And you know, he’s got something about him. Yeah, to be honest, he kind of switched off for the rest of the interview.

And then it was mainly the other person asking me questions. And then, you know, I got the role and as I got to know him really well, he was a really quick judge of character, sometimes frustratingly. So, you know, he would, you know, make a judgment. And I’d say, no, I think, you know, they’re going to do really well. And then they’d leave two weeks later and he’d say, I told you. So, you know, again, somebody that brought me into Intrepid. And I was really thankful for that and somebody that, you know, I worked with really closely for a few years.

So Tom, I’m not gonna lie right near the end of that story. I was sitting here wondering if you just made this story. Yeah. Cause it’s pretty damn good. That’s all right. It’s pretty. All right. Okay. Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s, I get it. I mean, it’s all tied into the storytelling. I think your instinct was right there. And I can also see how your brother was. Yeah. Interesting.

All right. Well, that’s the, that’s the best interview story I’ve ever heard. So, um, all right. Wow. So you got, you got the job. Yep. What was, and you said it was initially it was kind of an entry level marketing position. Yep. So what’s that? What did that look like and how did you feel about that? And was there a lot of incentive to kind of move up? I just try and imagine what that would look like at Intrepid. Sure. Um, I mean, look, it really was an entry level position and, you know, it was.

putting together content for emails, it was putting together promo codes for discounts. It was really kind of from the bottom up. And I think, it comes back to what you were mentioning a couple of times about being willing to kind of go in unpaid and just learn. And for me, Intrepid was by far at that point, the largest business I’d ever worked in. Most of the businesses I’d been a part of were somewhere between 10 and 50 people kind of thing. So.

Jason Elkins (28:28.114)
to all of a sudden be in a large global adventure travel company, I thought, wow, I’ve got a lot to learn. And so I think it’s that humility of coming from a position where I was probably managing somewhere between 13 and 15 people to all of a sudden going in and being the one that was the 10th person on the ladder at the bottom of the ladder. And there was 10 levels above me.

or whatever it was. I think that was humbling, but for me, it was super useful. Just learning from the bottom up, how do we build emails for our email marketing? How do we put discounts in market? How do we know whether somebody is more likely to book India or Peru in February? There’s no real way to learn that without digging into all the data and playing around in Excel and a lot of our reporting software and things like that.

Really, it was from the bottom up and I think that was super useful because then over the following four or five years that I was in the UK, I did progress and progressed to a marketing manager role and then ultimately progressed to a marketing director role for the EMEA region, so the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. And whilst I was pretty confident from a kind of leadership and management,

perspective, because I had managed people in most of my previous roles. Being able to manage people and lead people, having also started at the bottom rung of the ladder, and having spent time building emails and doing a lot of the behind the scenes, really kind of manual work, I think that really helped because I was guiding people in areas that I’d been there and done it myself. And I just feel like that.

gained me a certain amount of credibility and trust from the team. No, absolutely. I think that is critical. And, you know, as opposed to, you know, consultants saying, hey, you should bring in somebody from the pharmaceutical industry that, you know, that has this marketing experience and we’re going to. Yeah, no, I get that completely. I’m curious if you’re willing to share. Where’s where their moments in the first couple of years?

Jason Elkins (30:48.93)
that you felt kind of disenchanted or disheartened, like, okay, I really kind of left the regular type of job to go do all this, you know, to go to Australia, to go here, to go there, and now I’m generating discount codes or, you know, segmenting lists for emails. Was it a struggle for you to kind of just stick with it and be persistent to get through that? Or was it just like, hey, I’m at Intrepid

I’m looking at emails and email addresses for people that want to travel, so I’m good with it. I’m just curious what that was like for you.

Jason Elkins (31:28.442)
I loved it. I can honestly say, like, you know, of course, with any role, there’s frustrations, but there was nothing where I thought I’ve made the wrong decision here. And that was primarily because of the people, you know, any role has frustrations, of course, but I really felt like I’d found a work family at Intrepid, you know, right from being recruited to, you know, being

people coming into visitors in the UK office from different parts of the world. And just everybody from the two founders of Intrepid, the super humble guys, really easy to get along with. They’ll talk to you, whether you’re the chief executive or whether you’re the new guy that’s building the emails, behind the scenes. And for me, that made it worthwhile. I’ve never been somebody that has kind of cared too much about the financial side of things. I just, I guess I probably have enough.

inbuilt confidence to think, you know, I’m going to be working for 40 years. I’m pretty confident that at some point I’ll get to a level where I’m earning enough money to do everything that I want to do. Plus I have really, you know, not expensive taste, so that’s quite easy to achieve that. But, you know, I think it was just the people that made me think, you know, I’ve made the right decision here. And actually, I still think that eight and a bit years later. I would suspect that.

A company like Intrepid kind of self selects, maybe not self selects, but I’m just guessing that a lot of the people that work there have an interest in travel. They probably weren’t just going through Craigslist or whatever. And OK, there’s a job I’m going to throw out my resume. And if they did, maybe those aren’t the ones that got hired. So it sounds like, you know, kind of what I’m hearing is you found yourself in a situation where you’re surrounded by like minded people that are into adventure travel.

And I firmly believe that adventure travel, the two biggest requirements to make it adventure travel or a person that adventure traveler, not requirements, I wouldn’t say, but you know, I mean, is the willingness to step outside of your comfort zone and just a curiosity, just an openness, just accept that whatever shows up when I step out of that comfort zone. So even if you’re in a entry level marketing role, if you’re surrounded with people that are willing to step outside their comfort zone.

Jason Elkins (33:52.822)
which might mean suggesting new ideas, new approaches, learning new things. And they’re just curious and open-minded by nature. So when you do present an idea to your supervisor, they’re open to listening to it. So if you take a bunch of adventure travelers types, put them into a company, that seems like the culture you’re gonna end up with. Is that- Totally. Did I- Totally accurate. You know, I think it’s certainly a way that I would characterize the-

vast majority of people at Intrepid are people that I would very happily meet on a bus somewhere in Ethiopia, going up into the Simeon Mountains and have a lot in common with whether they are working in operations in Turkey or in social media in North America or in sales in Japan. I just think that Intrepid definitely attracts a certain type of person. And I think…

What’s been interesting actually, I’d say in the last few years, as Intrepid has become kind of more well known in the purpose space, you know, through certifying as a B Corp and through, you know, the work that the Intrepid Foundation has been doing, that actually, as well as your, you know, your adventure travelers, your people that just, you know, want to work in an industry that they’re personally passionate about, what I’ve noticed is more and more people specifically choosing to kind of target to work at Intrepid.

because of the values of the business. And I feel like that is something that is, and I’ll be totally honest here, when I was 22, 25, the values of a business, I didn’t even really think about it. I just, at that time in my life, I just thought I wanna have as much fun as possible. I wanna travel, I like travel, I wanna work in travel. So that was my thought process. It’s only now working at.

a kind of more values led business that really does have a kind of a purpose as well as aiming to make a profit, that it’s become more important to me. And I guess also seeing some of the challenges that humans are creating around the world, obviously, it becomes even more important that the way that we travel is super important rather than just wanting to travel by any means necessary. I think we’ve all got to…

Jason Elkins (36:14.55)
responsibility to be making sure that we’re trying to leave the planet in a better state than we found it. And I’ve certainly noticed that more in the past five years, I would say, of people specifically wanting to join Intrepid because they really care about traveling responsibly or trying to travel sustainably. And that is becoming more of a decision-making factor for people.

Jason Elkins (36:43.582)
Other operators, and I know this is a tough question because there’s a wide range, but if we just look at kind of those that would classify them as adventure travel tour operators. Do you feel like those operators generally work well together, or do you feel like it’s more segmented and divisive? What is your overall, I guess I’m asking, what is kind of your overall view of the adventure travel? You know, trade or whatever and

and what opportunities are there that an organization like Intrepid can take a leadership role in? Sure, I guess, yeah, my opinion would be that I do think the companies in the adventure travel space generally have similar mindsets and, you know, do collaborate. You know, we’re still a relatively small part of the industry. So, you know, I think we do need to club together to try and influence

what I would refer to as kind of mainstream tourism. If you look at the revenue of adventure tourism versus the money that’s spent in mainstream hotels or flights and all these other businesses that are much larger than companies like Intrepid, I do think there’s probably a need to collaborate more than compete. And I think the other thing is when it comes to

trying to travel in the most sustainable way possible. It shouldn’t really be a competition because if everybody travels in the way that Intrepid thinks that people should travel, then ultimately the planet would be in a better space. So really it’s not something that we necessarily think of as a competitive advantage. What I do think though is we really, at Intrepid we do feel like we have a responsibility

I guess the most well-known travel brand in the sustainable tourism space, that we do try and set a good example. And I think that’s where a lot of what we’ve done in terms of measuring our carbon output or committing to science-based targets like we did in 2021, all of how we’ve done a lot of these things are open source documents. And actually, we want other tour operators to

Jason Elkins (39:05.546)
essentially copy what we’re doing because then the bigger picture is the overall impact on the people and the places that we visit will be better. And so, you know, we can’t afford for companies that have a more sustainable approach to tourism to be, you know, trying to shield what they do or hide what they do, because ultimately, the bigger, the bigger issue here is that, you know, we’ve got a planet which we really need to.

to protect. Well, actually, the planet will be fine. The planet’s been here for over, you know, four billion years. Few things, few things on the planet that are a little bit more vulnerable. Yeah. You I heard you say, you know, kind of like get everybody online as far as traveling the way Intrepid would like them to travel. That’s what I heard. So how I guess I can’t not ask, how would Intrepid like to see the listeners of this show and other travelers traveling? So what does that mean?

I guess that could have been a lot of different things. It was quite a broad comment. I guess- Okay. I wasn’t sure if there was a specific, like you guys have a document, like the way that we want you to travel and it’s at the footer of each itinerary, I wasn’t sure. So I just felt like I needed to ask. I think there’s some guiding principles that we certainly live and breathe at Intrepid that I think if more people did travel in that way, that they would ultimately have a better impact. And I think-

The number one is trying to travel in a way that benefits local communities as much as possible. So, on an Intrepid trip, we try wherever possible to stay in small, locally run boutique type of accommodation, for example. We try to, again, where it’s feasible, we try and use public transport on our trips.

not just because it reduces the amount of carbon that is emitted, but also because the great ways of meeting local people. I’m sure you’ve had experiences in the past where you’ve been on a train and you’ve met somebody that has just changed the course of your travels or changed the course of your opinion on something and that for us is really important. All of our trips are guided by a local, so immediately from minute one of the welcome meeting on day one,

Jason Elkins (41:24.714)
you know, our customers are with a local person that can, I guess, you know, give them guidance, can allay any fears, can really speak to the local culture with confidence because they are part of the local community. And so we try and give that to our customers anyway, but by staying in locally run hotels, by traveling on public transport, by doing homestays in some of our trips where, you know, on those ships that have homestays, they’re all just ways of, you know,

trying to increase the amount of cultural exchange that can happen between travelers and local people. Because ultimately, I think for me, that is the biggest advantage that travel can offer is just expanding your perspectives on things. And I think by interacting with people from different cultures and different places, that’s where we probably realize some of our perspectives may not be the be all and end all. And there may be other ways to look at things that we hadn’t even considered before.

So what I hear you saying is kind of make the big world just a little smaller. Yep. Yeah. Through perspective shift and social. I really actually, I want to touch on the public transport because it’s interesting that you say that because I love public transport. I like, I am Mr. Go catch the bus and I don’t need to know where the bus stop is. Cause I watched the locals and I see that if you raise your hand the right way, the bus will stop and.

I moved from one side of Medellin to the other side of Medellin the other day. Um, I drug my bag, you know, three blocks to where I could catch the bus, took the bus to the Metro station and jumped on the Metro, you know, and I’m the only one on there with my suitcase, but, um, you know, and then go to the other end, get off and get on another bus. I love it. I think it’s the most fascinating way to travel. And I’m envisioning, cause I wasn’t aware of that aspect with Intrepid. And I’m.

I’ve also worked in luxury tourism for a while. And I’m like trying to imagine, okay, and then you’re gonna show up to the airport, we’re gonna have our local guide meet you and he’s gonna go help you catch the bus. I’m sure it’s not like that. I know I’m exaggerating a little bit, but was that a challenge to kind of implement that type of thinking? Because it just sounds like different type of thinking than what I’ve heard in the past.

Jason Elkins (43:45.222)
Sure, I’d say it is a challenge. Not that it was, I think it is. And look, we have different styles of travel. So generally speaking, we have basics, which is kind of, a lot of our camping trips, for example, African safari trips, for example, are often basic trip I did a basic trip this year. It was hiking in the Rockies in Canada. And it was a lot of camping. So that’s kind of the first style, if you like. And then above that, you have original.

So original is generally kind of three, three star accommodation, three, three and a half, something like that. And that’s where wherever possible, we do try and have as much public transport as possible. Then you have comfort, which again is probably three and a half, four star, something like that. It does attract a different type of clientele, people that are a little, maybe a little less price sensitive, but maybe a little more comfort focused. And

We are trying wherever we can to actually increase the amount of public transport where we can, because obviously from a carbon emissions perspective, it makes a lot of sense. We’re trying to reduce the amount of flights that we go on as well. And it’s really tricky. After my stint in marketing, I actually moved to Peru to be the general manager of our DMC business in Peru. And I lived in Lima. We had one office in Lima. We had one office in Cuzco. Now, I have got a bus.

I’ve caught a bus between Cusco and Lima before, but it was a long trip. It was not particularly comfortable. For me, I did more often than not fly when I had to go between the two. We have to be really conscious of that for our customers, especially customers that are paying to travel on a comfort tour or a premium tour. They do expect a premium level of service as they should.

It’s more difficult to say, yep, so you’re gonna go on a 10 hour bus, on these really windy and deen roads from Lima to Cusco. On your $8,000 a week tour Exactly, so it is a real challenge. And I think for our product team, they’re constantly trying to innovate, to find ways of…

Jason Elkins (46:09.562)
helping customers to feel like they’re getting the value for money that they paid for, but also trying for the trips to run in a way that is as carbon efficient as possible and also a way of meeting local people. So I think we are trying to take as many flights out as we can. For example, so for 2024, we’ve moved 4,000 flights from our itineraries for 2024.

And for some of those, the alternative is or was a really long ride in a minibus or a bus or on a train. And so we’re trying to amend the itineraries to see what is in between these two places that are 10 hours apart. Like, is there an experience that we can offer our customers that no other tour company stops in between the two because they think, well, let’s just fly. It’s easier. It’s quicker. Can we find an experience that is

with a local community that maybe is a little off. It’s gonna be more, yeah, which is gonna make it more authentic because everybody else is flying over it. Exactly, and I think the other thing is, this is something that is really important to us is trying to spread out those tourism dollars. If you stick to the highlights of a particular country, then those communities probably are benefiting from tourism, which is great, but it means that there’s plenty of other communities that are not benefiting from that tourism necessarily. So…

If we can find little unique places to stay on the way that breaks up a long journey into a couple of hours either side and chose our customers aside to Ecuador or Peru that they didn’t see because they’re not on the main tourist tracks, then I think that’s a win for everybody. I was just literally just thinking win-win when you said that because you’re absolutely right. It’s win for the community, win for the guests because they’re

Seeing a place that all their friends and family that went to Guatemala, for example, didn’t see. Um, yeah. And, and win for the environment. So that’s, that’s pretty cool. I’m happy. We have, we had that conversation. That was, that was, that was interesting because like, I see a lot of expats or visitors visiting, you know, I spent quite a bit of time in Colombia I’m here now. So it’s top of my mind, my mind, but so many that will not get on the bus because they’re just like, they just don’t like.

Jason Elkins (48:32.554)
Nobody’s encouraged them to write. I’m just going to say that I’ll just get benefited out because nobody has said, Hey, look at this. This is cool. Go ahead on the bus. I love the bus. I, uh, there’s a shared a coworking space that I like to go to. And it’s like a whole adventure every morning. I get up, go have my coffee and my croissant, drop my 35 cents in the guy’s hand and get on the bus. And most of the time I’m standing up, holding onto the rails and it’s like I’m surfing and it’s, it’s pretty cool. So anybody listening to this.

If you have been reluctant to catch a bus in some of these places, do it. You might see some cool stuff that you’re not going to see. I mean, people here will get on the bus and they’ll sing and they’ll entertain and it’s just like a whole party. I was going to say, I think the other thing is there’s different levels of bus, right? I mean, I’ve been fortunate enough to spend a lot of time in Central and South America. And you know, the bus is hilarious. You know, I’ve had babies.

throw up on me. I’ve had chickens running around. Chicken buses definitely are an experience. But I’ve also been on buses that are far better than any bus I’ve been on in Europe. You can have fully reclining beds on buses. The AC is good. There’s Wi-Fi on buses. There’s different levels of bus. And still inexpensive. I mean, Mexico, I think it’s the red bus.

familiar with a few different, um, I was in Southeast Asia, taking these buses and it’s like $4, like the, it’s like a four hour trip and it’s like $4 and they’re nice buses you can recline some of them even have wifi and you know, they’re, yeah, and you, you still probably see some interesting people as well. So you get, you know, maybe, maybe even a chicken. Um, so that’s, that’s pretty cool.

Tom, and I really want to discuss a specific trip that somebody said, oh, you got to talk to Tom. He just went on this trip not too long ago. And it’s a trip I have not been on. I’ve been on six continents, but I’m missing one up till now. And so you’re going to share with us a little bit about your trip to your seventh continent. And I’m sure some people could probably guess what that is because I think it’s the seventh. For most people that go there, it’s their seventh. I don’t know, was it your seventh?

Jason Elkins (50:53.554)
It was, yeah. OK, so we’re talking about Antarctica, right? Yep, we are. All right, so tell us what people need to know that are thinking about it, that are excited about it. After we spoke last time, I had a conversation with somebody. I said, I’m going to Antarctica. I’m going to take my son with me. And somebody overheard that. It’s just something that people kind of just imagined. So what can you share of your experience that people should hear?

I mean, the first thing I’d say is it does take a while to get down there. Uh, you know, from, I was living in Toronto. We were just talking about taking public transport and, uh, conserving resources. So tell us about your trip. Yeah, that is a reality, uh, unfortunately. And so, you know, uh, I did fly down to, to Ushuaia. Ushuaia, by the way, is absolutely beautiful. I mean, you know, Patagonia and down that, that Southern kind of South America is, is worth the trip in itself going down there. Um.

It’s a pretty long sail as well, two days across the Drake passage. We were lucky, I’ll be totally honest. We were really lucky. It was not much more turbulent than a pond. It was pretty good on the way. So I went back in February on an Intrepid trip, which has got to be probably the best work trip that I will ever have to do, getting sent down there for work. We were hosting a few partners on the ship.

The ship has a maximum capacity of 200 people. So it’s not like one of the huge cruise ships, but it’s definitely big enough to feel safe. Safe sailing across the Drake Passage. My overriding memory actually of the trip or what I remember most or remember being most amazed by was the ice. And I know that sounds completely, you know, probably very minor to people, but.

when you’re surrounded by whales, which were amazing. I’m a massive wildlife lover, so seeing whales was amazing. But the scale of these walls of ice that greet you when you see Antarctica for the first time, it’s just the whole continent feels like it’s a huge icefall just tumbling into the ocean. And these walls are huge. I mean, the glaciers are, you know,

Jason Elkins (53:12.422)
30, 50, 100 meters tall. I couldn’t get over how much ice there was. Even the ice bergs floating around, they float past the ship and some of them are huge. They’re like deep blue or they’re green or they’re white and they’re funky shapes. That was my overriding memory actually was the ice, which is not what I thought I would ever say.

Jason Elkins (53:41.278)
Cause sometimes, especially with geographical feature, uh, make sure I’m saying this right, but like a J, you know, a mountain or something we’ve seen in pictures of it and oftentimes we show up and when we see it, we’re kind of. Underwhelmed, I guess. Yeah. Um, so for you to call that out specifically, it kind of sounds like it’s a little bit of the opposite. Like, wow, that’s actually. Okay. You’re the one I thought. And this isn’t just like snow covered mountains, like you might see in Norway. I mean, not that they have glaciers in Norway as well, but

Yeah. But it’s just like big chunks of ice, right? Yeah. I mean, there was, I thought it would be more kind of snow-covered mountains. Actually, the majority of, at least from, you know, my memories of it, the majority of it was actually glaciers with the occasional snow-covered mountains there as well. I think…

I think the reason why it really blew my mind is the scale of it. And maybe it’s just because you can’t get the scale, or it’s not as easy to get the scale from photos or even videos, I think. But, you know, the scale of it being right next to it was, you know, the ship felt tiny and it was, you know, a pretty large ship. So that was pretty amazing doing the polar plunge. I mean, I know we’ve talked a bit about surfing and you probably think I like cold water. I am a warm water surfer. Like I…

I’m always wearing a thicker wetsuit than everybody else in the water. I’m not a cold water fan. I know it can do a lot of good for your body. I’ve read a lot about it. I just, it’s just not a, not a, not a thing that I necessarily feel the need to do, but I did feel the need to do the polar plunge. I just thought, when am I ever going to be? How long did you stay in? I would say a quarter of a second. Yeah, that’s about an eighth of a second longer than I think.

I take cold showers now because I hate them. I hate them. But you know, there’s some, some people say it’s good for you. And I’m taking cold showers in Colombia where the temperature is 70 degrees. And I’m still like, I’m sure everybody in the house here would have been like, what is going on in Jason’s room? But okay, so out of 200 people, I’m just curious how many people out of 200 or so actually got in with you.

Jason Elkins (55:58.346)
The vast majority, actually. It was more surprising. When you spoke to somebody that hadn’t been in, that was more surprising than people. The queues to get in the water were huge. It was great. I mean, there was music blaring. They really, like the crew really kind of, the expedition crew really helped you kind of get in a vibe where you thought this was gonna be fun rather than this was gonna be terrible. Is that something that you kind of like, was that on, I mean, you probably knew.

You work for Intrepid but like the typical guest book this trip, was that like something that they, like it was written on the itinerary day three, we’re gonna jump in really, really cold water or was it more of a, hey, we got something exciting for you to do tomorrow. What did that look like? So we, you know, we do mention it on the sides of something that, you know, may happen on the trip. This is the other thing I realized about Antarctica is it’s so weather dependent. You know, everything that you do, like the…

the expedition crew, you know, will do everything to keep you safe. And if that even means not doing some of the activities that were planned on a particular day, especially jumping into ice cold water in the middle of a storm. Yeah, there’s no negotiation on that. Right. You know, you can’t even imagine that the insurance company covers that. They probably I mean, you know, you are 200 people. You are a two day sail away from, you know, the nearest hospital. Right. Like it’s.

The crew were amazing, but everything was weather dependent. Of course, there was a rough itinerary that we think we’re going to follow, but if the weather didn’t permit it, we did something different. If one particular bay or inlet or collection of islands were rough on one day, we would go somewhere else and come back to a different location. So we didn’t know when we were going to do it. They kind of…

Every day there’s a morning briefing and an evening briefing and they’d said, you know, we’re aiming to do it tomorrow. And in the end, we did do it that day. But, you know, the beginning of the trip, they won’t necessarily know when you’re going to do it or where you’re going to do it, because the weather is so changeable as well. You know, one day it can be beautiful sunshine and the next it’s absolutely howling wind and, you know, snow just coming sideways.

Jason Elkins (58:22.622)
I, yeah. And you’re thinking, oh, and we’re going to jump into this maybe tomorrow with the weather, yeah, it’s, um, I did a, I went to a Tony Robbins event. Some of the listeners might be familiar with that. He, he does some stuff and when it’s like a four day event that culminates with what they call the fire walk. And you know, it’s coming and there’s a lot of talk about it. And it’s interesting that when you get to that point, it’s like.

the same thing. Most people do it. It’s odd that you meet somebody that goes to the event that doesn’t do it. And it’s actually kind of a cool thing, because you can overcome some of your, you know, your ideas and fears about things and a polar plunge in Antarctica sounds like just pretty much the same deal. So that’s actually really cool. Was there anything else about that trip that maybe is a surprise people would know about or that you want them to know about if they’re considering something like that?

because I think it’s on a bucket list for a lot of people. So I guess I should ask you this. What do they need to know to help get it off the bucket list and into their realm of experiences? Sure, I mean, I think it is seen as a bucket list. I mean, look, I’ll be honest. I never thought I would go to Antarctica. I just didn’t think it was a place that normal people went to. But, you know, I think.

we run it as an expedition cruise. So that means it’s on a smaller ship than your kind of big ship cruises. It does mean that, you know, it really feels like an adventure. It really feels like an expedition because you’re kind of at the mercy of the weather. But that also makes it fun. You know, you feel like you’re all in it together. So that’s one thing I think customers probably should have in their mind. And the other thing is…

We’ve tried to make it as affordable as possible. Intrepid is not a luxury travel company. Our premium range of tours is four, four and a half, five star sometimes. So it is at the kind of higher end for Intrepid, but still we’re never going to be a luxury brand. And so we wanted to go to Antarctica and be able to take customers to Antarctica in a way that was affordable, also felt like a real expedition and

Jason Elkins (01:00:36.426)
I was fortunate enough to go kayaking, sea kayaking. And we went on quite a few hikes. Almost every day there was a hike on land. And you don’t have to do all of these activities. But for us, it’s not about the ship. Like a lot of cruising is, it’s actually about getting off the ship. And it’s about seeing the wildlife with nothing, no window between you. It’s about experiencing.

climbing up a mountain in Antartica and getting that sense of achievement. So I think for customers, you know, there’s probably some customers who think, oh, I would never want to do a cruise. You know, it’s not my vibe. You know, for them, I would say it’s more like a it’s like a genuine adventure, like a genuine expedition rather than a cruise. But also for those people that, you know, do just want to go down there and, you know, happy to stay on the ship. You know, we did a lot of lectures on the ship. You know, our crew is is.

I mean, I found them absolutely fascinating. You know, we had biologists on there. We had, you know, meteorologists on there. We had geologists on there and the lectures were fascinating. So I think the people that, you know, don’t necessarily want to go down there and feel the need to jump into, you know, minus degree water or go hike up a mountain. So they’re not going to feel pressured because I know some people are just like, oh, if anybody’s going to pressure me to do something I don’t want to do, I’m not going to go.

So, so I guess that was because sometimes it’s easy to say, Oh, if you like this, if you like that, if you like this, sometimes an easy question is who is it not for? Is there anybody, any type of person you could think of that this is really not for? The only person that I or any type of person that I could think of is somebody that gets really seasick. I mean, you know, you, you are crossing the Drake passage. It is one of the most, you know, I guess.

or can be one of the most challenging stretches of water to get across if you do get seasick. Like I said, I was lucky both directions. I guess it would be pretty miserable if you really struggle. I mean, everybody on the ship or at least the vast majority of people took seasickness medication. There are ways and means that you can mitigate the impacts of it. But the reality is being on a ship for 11 days, even when you can get off it twice a day.

Jason Elkins (01:02:59.154)
If you really don’t like boats or if you really get seasick, of course, it’s not going to be the perfect trip for you. Is there, I mean, I know that there are ways to get there on a plane. I’m not sure if there’s ways that are commercially viable. But do you do you know, I feel like you probably know a little bit more about Antarctica than I do. I mean, there are there are kind of overhead flights that you can do, like, you know, you can fly down there and kind of look at it. But.

They don’t land as far as I know there are flights going down there, but I think it’s mainly to the research bases. Yeah, I’m sure that the probably are the probably are. I know there’s a mountain. I know there’s a camp, the highest mountain in Antarctica. I know there’s an operation there that you can fly in. Right. And summit of that. But I don’t think you’re going to see along the coast. Yeah. As far as I know, to see what you guys saw would be hard to do without a boat, I think.

Totally agree. I mean, most things are doable if you’ve got enough money. Well, right. But you can also, you can also go on a submarine to the, to the, to see the Titanic, I think too. I heard something about that. So, yeah, we’re not going to talk about that. No. But look, you know, I think for me, the, being just, you know, the ship in a little bay, you know, being able to stand out on deck in the evening, I think that was part of the magic for me. And I think if you’re, if you’re flying in,

seeing it and flying out, you’re actually missing out on a lot of what I talked to go. No, and I think I was just thinking that person that knows they’re seasick that the idea of being on a boat seasick, maybe because they’ve had an experience in the past is like, Okay, I’m not I’m not going and I didn’t know if you’d say, Oh, yeah, Jason, we have for a trip, you can fly down and land at the airport. Anyway, that’s pretty cool.

And we’ve been chatting about a lot of stuff that I didn’t even know we would have a conversation. You know, as I told you earlier, these are completely unscripted. We started the conversation. I had no idea where we’d go other than I definitely wanted to make sure to share a little story about Antarctica. And I also was really, I think I told you last time we spoke, I came across a blog post that you had done about a trip that you had taken with your mom, to.

Jason Elkins (01:05:21.994)
Scandinavia. Where did you go? Iceland. Was it Iceland? That was the ice. OK, yeah. And I just thought that was cool. And I’ve done a couple trips with my mom. So every time, you know, as we as I’m having these conversations, I kind of like to bring it up because I hope that someone will listen to it and make a decision to take their parents, even if they don’t think their parents are travelers, want to travel. If you’re the type that’s listen to three or four of these podcasts, I’m going to assume that you like to travel.

Um, and just want to kind of encourage people to do that. So just tell us the kind of the highlights of what that meant for you, what it meant for your mom and what advice you’d give to anybody that’s listening to this is like, oh my gosh, I would never travel with my mom. My dad, that would be, that would be boring, stressful, whatever, you know, fill in the blank. Yeah. I mean, look in traffic, you know, most of what we do is small groups. So most of our trips have a maximum of 12 or 16 people on them. So the first thing I’d say is.

it’s not just going to be you and your mom or dad, if that’s what you’re concerned about, right? There are loads of other people on the trip. Or maybe that’s the issue, Tom. It’s like when you were in high school and your mom showed up to pick you up at school and you’re like, I don’t want to be seen with her. I don’t know. But go ahead. I mean, I think it’s probably, you know, the feedback we get most often from our customers is, you know, in some cases they were nervous about traveling on a group trip.

actually, when they come back, people make friends for life on Intrepid Trips. Marriages have happened from people that have met on Intrepid Trips. I think that is a real selling point, actually, because a lot of the time, you’re meeting like-minded people. And actually, age, for example, in this case, is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether somebody is 25 or 65. I think what unites a typical Intrepid traveler

is a mindset more than necessarily the demographics. You know, you talked about it earlier, you know, that curiosity, you know, we often talk about our travellers, Intrepid travellers as being curious, connected and conscious. And, you know, for people that feel like that, you know, they will meet so many great people on Intrepid trips. And actually, you know, on the trip I’ve been on with my mum, I’ve taken two now, one to Iceland and one to the Galapagos, you know,

Jason Elkins (01:07:46.782)
My mom met people on that trip that she has since connected with. You know, I probably keep in touch with people, other people from the, from the group. And so I felt like the, the age was irrelevant. You know, even the connection, it, it was never particularly stressful. And I think for me, the, the joy of it, you know, working in the travel sector, you know, I’ve been so fortunate to travel to plenty of amazing places.

But I do think it’s possible to get a little bit, you know, kind of blase about it. You’re kind of like, oh, yeah, I go to these amazing places. I work in the industry. You know, it sounds a bit like, you know, for people that don’t work in the industry, they think, oh, shut up. You know, I’m here, you know, going on two holidays, two vacations a year. And so, you know, seeing the passion and the amazement and the wonder that my mom had for seeing some of these places.

I’d never been to Iceland or to the Galapagos before going with my mom. And, you know, but I’m probably a little more reserved. She’s like fully emotional about it. She just could not contain excitement and wonder. And that was amazing. You know, I got more excited about being there because I saw how excited she was about being there. And that made it totally meaningful. It’s so fun to see that, especially if you’ve kind of not. I’m going to say numb to it because I can’t.

Think of another word, and I don’t think that’s the right word, but if you’ve been to a place or been on a certain type of thing, at some point it’s like, oh, here’s another interesting place. But when you get to experience that through someone else’s eyes, especially someone you’re close to, that can be incredibly exciting to, because you’re sharing a couple of things. One is you’re sharing that moment, that experience, but you’re also sharing, you know, something that’s meaningful to you, and that’s travel and exploration.

frankly, even maybe, you know, Intrepid you know, I know that I traveled to Africa with my mom, took her to Belize, the Bahamas, I’ve been on a few trips and they’ve always were with Orvis, I was representing Orvis. And actually, and I took my dad to Belize on a fly fishing trip once as well. And it was actually really fun because they got to see me kind of in my work element with my clients, I got to see, oh, this is a real job, they could see that I was working hard.

Jason Elkins (01:10:07.618)
But I also got to see, you know, there awe through, you know, the things through their eyes, share those experiences. So easily I’ve been, I’ve been fortunate to see some really cool things. Um, maybe not at the level you have, but I’ve, I’ve seen some really cool things. And if someone were to ask me, what are your top, you know, two or three favorite trips, I guarantee one of them is going to be the trip to Africa with my mom and I’ve been to Africa without my mom as well, but, but it was like, just, that was such an incredible experience. It was a group trip as well.

Um, fun for her to get to chat with other people that, you know, and, and I mean, I don’t know if this is ego speaking, but it was kind of fun for her. I think she felt proud that I was there leading the trip. So it was fun for her, you know, she’s kind of like, yeah. So, and, and I’m just saying that was from my perspective. If someone’s listening to this, you know, whether you’re traveling all the time, you work for tour, it doesn’t matter. I think we, it’s easy for us to imagine taking our children on trips.

It takes a little bit more outside the box thinking to, oh, wait a minute, maybe I should take mom or dad and take could mean, doesn’t necessarily, maybe they don’t need you to take them financially, but take them meaning go with them, spend that time with them because I know as I get older, I think I appreciate that. I’m a little bit more sensitive that I’m like, it’s a little harder for me to get my kids to spend time with me now.

And if they were to reach out to me and say, dad, I want to, you know, I want to go somewhere with you. That would be pretty meaningful. So I just, I love bringing it up whenever it comes up because it’s been so profound. And my family, and when I read your post, um, before we spoke last time, I was like, oh yeah, that was, it was really well written by the way. So anybody listening to this, um, yeah, it was a pretty fun post read. So.

Ah, Tom, we’ve covered so much stuff. Is there anything that I forgot to ask, should have asked, or anything that you just anything else you think is important for our listeners to know either about you sustainability Intrepid but just anything at all that you want to cover before we wrap this up. And if there’s other stuff, we can always come back and do another episode as well. So what do you think? Sure. I mean, I think we’ve covered a lot of ground. It’s been super fun. So definitely enjoyed our chat.

Jason Elkins (01:12:24.078)
I think the one thing for me that I would just add is, you know, especially in the United States and, you know, across the world, but especially in the United States, we are seeing a bit of a, it sounds like I’m bringing it on a downer, but we are actually seeing, you know, an epidemic of loneliness across, you know, a lot of places around the world, but especially in the States. And, you know, maybe you’ve seen some of the research about the, the impact that can have on people’s health. And I just think.

This is a great opportunity and travel is a great opportunity just to reach out, connect with people. You know, like you said, you know, with regards to family, go on a trip together. Or even if you don’t have somebody that you want to go on a way with or you don’t think there’s somebody that is, you know, at the same point of their life as you are, maybe they’re not as free as you are to go on a trip. I think that’s where group travel and, you know, obviously I work for Intrepid, so I’d say an Intrepid group travel trip. You know.

Going on a trip can just really help you to reconnect with people, you know, whether it’s your fellow travelers, whether it’s, you know, local people in a destination, whether it’s, you know, other Intrepid travelers on social media that, you know, you’re sharing your photos and kind of reminiscing about it. And I just feel that, you know, travel has such an important part to play in helping people to connect to each other.

that I just think that’s where group travel can really add some value to people’s lives. Because I think it’s really sad that there’s this loneliness epidemic that we’re seeing. And obviously, there’s probably a number of factors. Part of it’s probably the pandemic. And I think people are spending a lot of time on devices and not necessarily connecting with people in real life. So yeah, that’s the final thing I’d want to say is just push yourself to travel.

and I guarantee you’ll be you’ll be less lonely because of the great people that you’ll meet. I think that was a high note. I know you said I don’t want to add it in a low note. I think that was a high note. I’m so happy that you brought that up because I agree with you 100% and it’s fun for you know folks like yourself I know and for me when I’ve led group trips in the past. It is so much fun watching people connect and support you know and anybody that has some concerns like

Jason Elkins (01:14:44.606)
So many times, you know, you’ve got one person that shows up and you can tell they’re just like, oh man, this is a little overwhelming. What if I sign myself up for, and then by the end of it, they’re, you know, we’re at the airport giving big hugs and just like taking pictures and everybody. And I’m not, you know, I mean, everybody, the quietest most reserved one is usually the one that’s like, you know, yeah, let’s do this again. They’re like, where do you guys want to go next? So.

I’m happy you brought that up because I think that’s super, super important. And obviously, you know, I know of Intrepid’s reputation and I’m sure many people that are listening do, and if you didn’t, when you started listening to this, set the reputation aside, you heard Tom speaking, you can probably already get a pretty good feel for it without doing any more research. That being said, Tom, I’ll have your website link in the show notes underneath. So anybody that’s listening to this that wants to reach out, learn a little bit more about Intrepid travel.

then absolutely do that. And I’m sure they can connect with you on some other way. If there’s some other conversation that they want to have, I know that you would be potentially open to having that conversation. So Tom, thank you so much. This was a really great conversation. I will never forget the story you just made up about your job interview. I know it was all fabricated because you’re a great storyteller. That’s the best impromptu. My only question is that when you planned ahead or is that when you just literally just kind of impromptu?

Anyway, and I want my candy bar. I hadn’t thought I would go down that route, but that’s where the discussion took us, which I’m totally happy to do. So hopefully you and the listeners found it interesting or inspiring. I suspect some of the people on your team, especially the report to you, that haven’t heard the story will probably enjoy hearing it as well. So thank you so much for sharing it. Thanks a lot, Tom, appreciate you. Thank you, cheers on you, bye.

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