Guest Bio
Trish Sare is the founder and owner of BikeHike Adventures, a pioneering adventure travel company specializing in active, culturally immersive journeys. With over 30 years of experience in the industry, she has guided travelers through some of the world’s most remote and inspiring regions. Her work blends adventure, sustainability, and meaningful human connection, creating transformative travel experiences that go far beyond sightseeing.
Trish is known for her dedication to sustainable travel and her deep respect for local cultures. Through BikeHike Adventures, she has built a global network of local guides and crafted itineraries that allow travelers to truly connect with the places they visit. Her leadership has made her a respected voice in the world of active and adventure travel.
Show Summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small podcast, host Jason Elkins talks with Trish Sare about the evolution of adventure travel and how the industry has shifted toward more customized and culturally rich experiences. Trish reflects on her personal journey into the travel world and shares stories of how meaningful connections with local people shape the heart of every trip.
The conversation explores the growing demand for culinary-focused travel, the benefits of working with local guides, and the challenges posed by overtourism. Trish emphasizes the importance of sustainability and how adventure travel can adapt to meet the needs of a changing traveler demographic while still preserving authenticity.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ BikeHike Adventures focuses on active experience travel
- ✓ The shift to custom trips has increased since the pandemic
- ✓ Local guides enhance the travel experience by providing authentic insights
- ✓ Culinary experiences have become a significant part of travel itineraries
- ✓ Trish’s personal journey into travel was influenced by her mother’s wish to explore the world
- ✓ Travelers are increasingly seeking unique, personalized experiences
- ✓ Sustainable travel practices are essential to preserve local cultures
- ✓ Overtourism is impacting many popular destinations, leading to a loss of authenticity
- ✓ Adventure travel is evolving to cater to an aging demographic
- ✓ Connecting with local cultures enriches the travel experience
What You’ll Find on BikeHike Adventures
- ✓ Multi-day active travel itineraries in over 30 countries
- ✓ Trips that combine biking, hiking, rafting, and cultural immersion
- ✓ Customizable private journeys for solo travelers, couples, and groups
- ✓ Expert local guides in every destination
- ✓ Culinary-focused adventures with authentic local meals
- ✓ A strong commitment to sustainable and responsible travel
👉 Visit BikeHike Adventures to explore immersive adventure travel opportunities with Trish.
Learn more about BikeHike Adventures and connect with Trish at:
https://www.bikehike.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 (00:00.948)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. We’ve got a real adventure here with us today. We’ve got Trish Sare. Trish is the founder and owner of BikeHike Adventures. Trish, welcome to the show. Happy to have you here.
Trish Sare (00:16.472)
Thank you so much, Jason. Happy to be here.
Jason Elkins (00:19.338)
Well, it’s going to be real pleasure. You and I spoke one other time and I just thought, wow, it’s pretty interesting what you’ve got going on. And I thought we needed to come back and actually record a conversation. So, so here we are. Let’s start with right before I push record, I asked you just to clarify that your company name is one word, BikeHike. And you thought, you know what? People get confused about that. So let’s discuss that. What was behind the naming of the word? Cause I suspect there’s more than just the fact that it’s one word.
Trish Sare (00:37.911)
It is.
Trish Sare (00:46.328)
that’s a good question actually. So we started 32 years ago before the internet. And I was trying to figure out a name. And in those days, the phone book was important. So I wanted a name that was in the front of the phone book. And also because we started doing multi-sport adventures all over the world, I thought, well, I…
Jason Elkins (01:04.498)
Mm-hmm.
Trish Sare (01:13.164)
I actually, sorry, because there was no internet, picked the domain bikehike.com and then I still didn’t even have a company name yet. And then I thought BikeHike is kind of punchy, even though I would do more than just biking and hiking. So it became BikeHike adventures and BikeHike being one word, but everyone gets it wrong.
Jason Elkins (01:23.156)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:31.156)
very, very cool. Yeah, and that’s why I wanted to mention it because being a podcast, anybody listening to this, I think if you just go to Google and type in Bike and Hike with two different words, who knows what you’re going to get. So at least it narrows that down a little bit. And and let’s let’s do this as well, because we’re going to get into your background, figure out how you got where you were to where you are now. But let’s give our listeners the 30 second 60 second elevator pitch. You kind of already touched on some of it, but what does BikeHike
do and what should our listeners know about it right off the bat.
Trish Sare (02:04.802)
We are an active experience adventure travel company. So we take North Americans and people from all over the world to really outside of their countries into other places and they’re doing active adventures. So biking, hiking, rafting, integrating with the local people and experiencing their cultures, their food, their countries from a local perspective, not from a touristy perspective.
Jason Elkins (02:33.66)
I love, love, love that. And is this mostly, do you do group departures that people can book into or are you doing kind of what we call the FIT or for the individual traveler where you’re putting together a trip for small groups or what does that usually look like?
Trish Sare (02:48.832)
So we used to be primarily set departures where people could join in, but I will say, especially since the pandemic, most people right now want their own departures. So we’re doing a lot of custom trips for small groups. People are coming to us and saying, I love this trip, but I want my own dates and I want my own group and I want five star instead of four. And I maybe want an e-bike instead of a regular Bike. So a lot of custom.
but also still some set departures that people can join into. And we’re going to be launching Self-Guided next year.
Jason Elkins (03:22.249)
Wait.
Jason Elkins (03:26.268)
Okay, I guess my first question is why from your perspective, why do you think that people shifted away from the group set departures more to the private departures, you mentioned specifically COVID? What do think it was that caused that shift for you?
Trish Sare (03:42.058)
I think personally that everybody nowadays is so used to having what they want at like whenever they want it. And a lot of people are so oversubscribed in their lives that it’s so hard to get everyone on the same page. So this is the date they have and this is when their kids are in school or whatever. So, and they specifically want, know, maybe their focus is food. They don’t want to be with a
group of other people who might not have the same needs as they do. But I think the date is a really big part of it.
Jason Elkins (04:18.57)
That makes, makes a lot of sense because I mean, obviously things just getting, they’re changing over time. And maybe COVID taught us like, Hey, you know, life is short. You never know what you can do. And I want to go and I’m not going to wait around for somebody else to want to go on the same dates. It’s like, I’m to go when I want to go. And also just, maybe they just value that opportunity to travel more. So they’re like, okay, I’ll spend a little bit more.
to do a private departure maybe than joining a group and I’m not gonna, you know, I don’t know, that makes sense.
Trish Sare (04:55.342)
I also think that as like, because we’ve been around for 32 years, our travelers are aging with us. So more retirees are traveling with us now and they want to have their friends with them. They want to have a life experience with their friends or their family. do a lot of multi-generational trips. So yeah, and they, they, they specifically know what they want.
Jason Elkins (05:20.33)
That’s a really good point. And I suspect that maybe if someone started out 30 years ago, going on your group trips, they’ve probably been to five, six, seven, maybe more places, maybe with your groups. So two things have happened. One is they’ve just traveled more. So they’re probably a little bit more comfortable traveling than they were when they started. And number two, they’re more comfortable with you because they’re like, okay, you look, know, traditional team, they’ve got, they’ve nailed this.
Trish Sare (05:42.83)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (05:48.798)
five or six times in a row. So I don’t need that certainty of knowing I’ve got other people there to commiserate with if things don’t go well and they’re not worried about it. like, Trish, you did such a great job on these others. Maybe you can set up something special for us that is that kind of what you’ve seen.
Trish Sare (06:05.312)
Absolutely. And one of the things we hear a lot from our travelers is that what they love about our trips is it’s specifically our guides. Our guides become like dear friends to them that are taking them and showing them their countries passionately. One of our special guides is Jorgen. He does all of our Ecuador, Galapagos and Bolivia trips and people follow him. They tell us that he knows everybody.
He knows all the locals. He gets them into the country so they don’t feel like tourists. They feel like locals and they love that. So they come back again and again and again. We’ve got travelers who have been with us 15 times.
Jason Elkins (06:42.282)
side.
Jason Elkins (06:47.966)
Wow, wow, that’s, that’s, it’s very cool. On your group departures, do you usually have like someone like yourself or someone on your team go to lead the trip or has that changed or?
Trish Sare (06:49.356)
Yeah. From day one.
Trish Sare (07:00.288)
No, have local, yeah, we, I personally lead one special departure every year, always an inaugural trip. And I have a following who joined those trips, but other trips, it’s a local guide and we specifically want a local guide because the locals know the destinations better than anyone else. And it’s also our commitment to sustainable travel. We’re not bringing people from overseas into other places.
Jason Elkins (07:26.858)
that don’t need to be there.
Trish Sare (07:29.27)
Yeah, it just raises the trip price and it also takes work away from one of the locals.
Jason Elkins (07:36.53)
me ask you this in your experience though, because I’m guessing the inaugural trips that you do are kind of like, maybe it’s the first time you’ve got your, we’re going to call it a scouting trip and they’re going with you on a scouting trip, right? But those are people that have traveled with you before, presumably. Do you have some people, I hear what you’re saying about, I’ve got a group departure we’re sending, you know, it’s in Ecuador, it’s a Galapagos trip and we’ve got a local, I missed his name, I should
Trish Sare (07:47.598)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (08:07.07)
Jorgen. Okay. So you’ve got Jorgen’s going to be there with you for 10 days, 11 nights, whatever. but you get some that feel heavy. Hmm. I’m trying to think how to ask this question, but do feel that some travelers are just a lot more comfortable and confident when they have somebody from the U S going along, even though that person from the U S maybe not, maybe isn’t even adding any value other than something. I don’t know. Has that come up? If you
work through that or did you make this decision early on not to worry about that?
Trish Sare (08:39.446)
We made this decision earlier on not to worry about that and our guides are so well loved. Actually, Jorgen is a Swede who lives in Ecuador.
Jason Elkins (08:48.326)
I was, I was, I was wondering, cause I’m actually in Ecuador right now. I’ve been here the last four months and I’ve met quite a few people and nobody by that name. So I think that’s part of why I dripped on it.
Trish Sare (08:57.974)
Yeah. And he’s, he’s, but he’s a local. He’s a Swede who’s been living in Ecuador for 30 years. He’s married to an Ecuadorian. has Ecuadorian kids and he, he’s more passionate about the Ecuadorian culture than he is about the Swedish culture. So he is a local, but he also understands Western needs, which is really important for us.
Jason Elkins (09:20.628)
Well, yes. And presumably, I guess you’d call them a local by choice as opposed to local by chance. I mean, there’s a lot of great locals here in Echor. There’s a lot of great locals everywhere. But sometimes when you’ve got that person that made a choice at some point to go to a place or made the choice to stay, they’re super passionate about it. there because they want to be there. And during the course of those 30 years of him exploring,
Trish Sare (09:26.99)
Mm-hmm.
Trish Sare (09:44.045)
Absolutely.
Jason Elkins (09:50.29)
and finding new places, that’s an important skill or an important experience that he brings to the table because he wants to explore, he wants to find things as opposed to maybe some people that have lived here their whole lives, they just kind of take things for granted, I think.
Trish Sare (10:05.55)
Yeah, absolutely. And actually just on that note, a lot of these guides in all of our destinations have been with us for 20, 30 years. So as we add a new destination, Jorgen has been guiding trips for us for at least 22 years. And that’s pretty common. So they’re part of our family. And a lot of people will say, I want to do a trip with Jorgen. We hear that all the time.
Jason Elkins (10:25.119)
Wow.
Jason Elkins (10:29.268)
Mm-hmm.
Trish Sare (10:34.936)
So they’ll follow their leader, which is wonderful.
Jason Elkins (10:37.576)
Right. I’m curious, and I suspect this depends on the group dynamics and also the guide and your relationship with the guide. But let’s say you’ve got a group arriving on, I don’t know, June 1st they’re going to be with Jorgen for two weeks. Do you have an opportunity to communicate with the guests or Jorgen, or is it just like once they land, you know, they’re in great hands and there’s no need for you to get involved or
Or do you do the daily check-ins? Is he telling you the crazy things that the clients are asking for or any of that stuff? I’m just curious.
Trish Sare (11:11.66)
We will always have WhatsApp calls with the guides throughout the trips. We won’t necessarily have WhatsApp calls with the group. We just had one in Bolivia because they had trouble getting there. And then I stayed on the WhatsApp group with them, with their guide, with Jorgen. So I was following what was going on with the group the whole time. But normally, no. They’re in amazing hands when they’re there, so I don’t have to check in all the time. We check in once they get home.
Jason Elkins (11:41.3)
Right, right, very, cool. Approximately how much, well, I know you’ve got a mix of the set group departures and then a mix of the private. Give us kind of an idea of like where most of your trip’s going. Just, I don’t know. I’m not gonna ask you how many groups, how many departures, because if you’re like me, I’m like, I don’t know, I’d have to go check that, because I can’t keep it. I don’t know, maybe you can keep it straight better than I can.
But just trying to get kind of an idea of where are you sending most of your clients and what are you excited about? Like what new trips are you going to be adding?
Trish Sare (12:18.606)
So where we travel completely changes on the year. Every year has been different in the entire time that we’ve been operating. So it depends on, I think, what are the trending destinations right now. so currently Slovenia is one of our biggest… Slovenia, Croatia have been so hot for so long. Let’s see, Chile.
Catagonia is always big. Costa Rica is still, it was our bread and butter for so many years and now it’s slowed down a little bit, but we’ve always got quite a few groups going there. And then I will say this year, well, Ecuador Galapagos have always been popular for us, always. Yeah, and what’s…
Jason Elkins (13:06.91)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Trish Sare (13:11.64)
what’s new and exciting and what are we looking forward to? I’m really looking forward to, I really, really wanna see the gorillas in my lifetime. And when I wanna add, when I’m passionate about where I wanna go, I wanna add a destination to do that. So that will be.
Jason Elkins (13:21.501)
yeah.
Jason Elkins (13:28.552)
Yeah. Well, and your clients will pick up on that passion and it feeds itself, right? Because, because sometimes when we look at product developments as a tour operator, like your business, it’s what’s hot, what’s trending, you know, where’s the demand. But I, I sense you’re a little bit more like me. It’s kind of more like, well, where do I want to go? Where do I, what am I excited about? And I suspect when you named off quite a few of those places, it wasn’t
necessarily a hundred percent based on market research as much as just I’m interested in it. And if I’m interested, then, you know, actually I had a hot air balloon ride business for a while and, in Arizona and we used to fly in a much different area than where the other balloons would fly. And I just always felt like, and that was my choice because it was just a more interesting place. And I just always felt that if I’m excited about what I’m doing, my guests are going to be excited. They’re going to pick up on the energy and.
Pretty much every time I second guess myself and I went and kind of followed the rest of the pack and I wasn’t very excited about it. was always, you know, near the, at the end of that tour I was like, Ooh, yeah, I should have trusted myself. So I suspect you’ve got some of that as well.
Trish Sare (14:43.278)
Although we do have to develop destinations and trips as well as we’re seeing maybe with an aging demographic, for example, we might have to be more soft in some areas. So not as many camping trips. actually camping, people don’t even like camping anymore. They, they want to be in, they want a good, they want to be active by day, comfort by night with food and wine and culture.
That’s what we’re saying.
Jason Elkins (15:13.866)
Does the, does the glamping, the term glamping fit into any of, and that, I glamping could be a safari camp in Africa with tents, you know, but they’re pretty luxurious. Yeah.
Trish Sare (15:26.478)
We’re pretty luxurious. Yeah, we definitely do have glamping and we still do that in quite a few destinations. Patagonia, we’re adding Botswana and Zimbabwe right now and South Africa and they will have that as well. And we have a little bit of it in Costa Rica as well.
Jason Elkins (15:44.97)
Okay, so somebody who has no interest in biking per se, no real interest in hiking, they hear the name of your company, BikeHike, yeah, I don’t like either one of those things. You mentioned there’s other things, you also mentioned active, but somebody that really, and I guess I’m bringing this up because you mentioned we’ve got an aging clientele. Could somebody find a trip with you guys that really doesn’t require any physical exertion?
Trish Sare (15:49.827)
Mm-hmm.
Trish Sare (16:13.838)
Absolutely. And I’m so glad you asked that question because a lot of people just think we’re a biking company because they hear BikeHike, which as much as it’s been a great name, in some ways it’s been limiting because we do so many other things. We have started a lot of classic itineraries, which are doing maybe it might even just have like a half day Bike in it, but it’ll be a cooking class and going to some of the
Jason Elkins (16:21.258)
Hmm.
Trish Sare (16:40.654)
major places that they may want to see. Like in Morocco would be a perfect example of what we’re doing. We’re going to Fez, Marrakesh, Rabat, some of the main areas with it, like seeing the historical things and then adding in a cooking class and a wine experience or maybe not wine in Morocco, but like the local experiences. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (17:05.898)
Mm-hmm. Has, has the food and I’m going to say the food and wine part of it become significantly, well, you tell me over the last 30 or so years, what has the shift been around the culinary type of stuff? Cause I see it, it seems like it’s become a lot more important, but I’m curious in your business, if it has number one and number two, is that because of an aging demographic or?
Maybe more sophisticated demographic is what I should, maybe the way I should say that. What do you think?
Trish Sare (17:41.442)
I just kind of lost you a little bit in there, but I think I got the question.
Jason Elkins (17:46.122)
Yeah, yeah, was, it was just as far as, as far as the culinary stuff, you know, has that number one has that changed dramatically over the last 30 something years. And I guess number two is why do you think that is?
Trish Sare (17:59.278)
Yeah, okay. Sorry, you were cutting out that’s why. what happened? Yeah, we’ve definitely changed. think one of the reasons is maybe the aging population. I think the trips are not as rugged as they used to be in the earlier days in some of the destinations. We’re doing a lot more in Europe as well than we used to. When we started, we did a lot of South and Central America. That was our main stay. Whereas in Europe,
food and wine and olive oil tastings and they’re big parts of the culture. And I also think that the food tourism industry has really grown over the years, even among the younger demographics. mean, I think it’s been like food tours as a one day tour in a city is a really big thing now. Even food, walking food tours, wine food tours.
Jason Elkins (18:30.058)
Thank you.
Jason Elkins (18:42.568)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (18:50.185)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (18:55.114)
Yeah, I agree. And you can see it in the media. You can go on YouTube or the social networks, Instagram, where people are pictures of their food. It’s kind of become important, I guess. You know what? going to come back and discuss kind of what you’re doing and the experiences for your clients and stuff. But I think it would be a real failure on my part if we didn’t figure out.
Trish, how the heck did you get into this and what were you doing before this? And I don’t know how far we need to go back to get a feel for that. You want to go all the way back to your childhood or how far should we go back to understand this?
Trish Sare (19:36.298)
I’ll go back to my childhood first. First of all, I grew up in a family that we didn’t travel. We had a cottage, so I’d never been on a plane. My mother passed away when I was 17, and she wanted to travel the world, but she didn’t have the chance. And before she died, she said to me, go see the world today because you never know what tomorrow holds. And I was a very, very shy kid. I was attached to my mom, and I just got this
strength in me, I don’t even know where it came from, that I decided I was going on a solo five-year trip to work my way around the world. And off I went, starting with Vancouver, because I was from Toronto, and I started working at Expo 86, which is the World’s Fair, and I met all these amazing people who were traveling. And then I didn’t have a plan of where I was going. It was sort of
Jason Elkins (20:19.722)
Mm-hmm.
Trish Sare (20:34.798)
My line was, wherever the wind blows me, I’m going to go. And then after five years…
Jason Elkins (20:38.41)
Let me ask you this real quick because what you shared about your mom, that could influence people to do a wide variety of things. I’m curious when you made the decision to go do this five-year journey, was it really because you’d already wanted to and were dreaming about it?
Or was there some of, well, I’m going to do this for my mom. I don’t even necessarily want to travel, but she thinks I should. So I’m going to go do it. I’m just curious. Is it somewhere in between?
Trish Sare (21:09.816)
That’s an interesting question as well, because I always had my nose in the travel section of the newspaper when I was growing up, even though I’d never been on a plane before. And I don’t know where that came from, but I think the big part of it was this was for my mom. And I don’t think I realized that when I left, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that trip was really for her, but it really shaped my life. changed.
Jason Elkins (21:35.71)
I’m sure.
Trish Sare (21:38.848)
my whole trajectory of my life.
I grew up in suburbia. So, and then all of a sudden the world was my oyster. in those days, there was no guidebooks. was like, it was a really different time to travel, which was blessing, such a blessing.
Jason Elkins (21:45.61)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (22:04.028)
It is because there’s just so many more opportunities for surprises. Sometimes good, sometimes maybe not so pleasant at the time. But when you’re walking around with an iPhone in your pocket and you’ve got everything at your fingertips and you almost can’t get lost. It’s a totally different experience. I mean, I find myself like
I’ll be out with friends and we’re going to go try and find some place on the other side of the city or something. And they’ve got their phones out the whole way, you know, trying to find out, they got to Google the restaurant. They got to figure all this stuff out. And I’m just like, I don’t want to want to look at my phone because I know I’m going to have so much more fun if, if I just ask people on the street in my broken Spanish and I’ll end up somewhere totally different probably than where I would have went, but it’s so much better, right?
Trish Sare (22:50.486)
Absolutely.
Trish Sare (22:55.636)
Absolutely. And actually on that note, like in those days when I was traveling, I had to send my father a telegram so that he had news about me. I remember when the first fax machine came out and I was working for a tour operator in Canada and I was a guide in Costa Rica and I sent a fax and I remember thinking, my God, they’re getting my words right now. Like, right, like I’m sending it and they’re getting it.
Jason Elkins (23:04.414)
Wow.
Jason Elkins (23:23.05)
Isn’t that cool?
Trish Sare (23:26.132)
lots of And those were special days, very, very special days. Countries were still so deeply authentic, which I loved. They hadn’t changed.
Jason Elkins (23:28.498)
Wow. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (23:38.324)
How do you balance that out? Cause I can tell just from having this conversation with you, you’re very similar to me in a lot of ways. Like you kind of like that or I’ll speak for myself. I like the unknown. I like the surprises. Most, probably 80 % of the really cool experiences that I’ve had traveling were really unplanned or happened because…
I was walking down the street and I looked down a side street and I thought, what’s that group of people down there? I should go check that out. Everything they tell you not to do on the state department website. Basically. and I found so many cool things that way. So I guess my question is how do you balance that with. Yeah. That’s the spontaneity and all the wonderful things that come out of spontaneity, but then balance that with clients.
don’t necessarily want to have a lot of uncertainty and spontaneity when they’re traveling, especially when they’ve paid you to organize things or they’ve got a guide. So I don’t know. What do you think? I don’t know what my question is.
Trish Sare (24:46.272)
I would say that we’ll have a set itinerary that they’ll follow. But every single day in that itinerary, it could be open to, like I’ll use Vietnam as an example and our guide, in Vietnam, he’s amazing, everybody loves Hoa. We’ll be…
Jason Elkins (24:54.089)
Mm-hmm.
Trish Sare (25:09.89)
going down the street and we’ll stumble upon a local guy who is working in the field and we’ll stop and we’ll talk to the local guy and he might actually invite us into his home. So it’s those kinds of things that happen organically along the way or maybe we’ll be in a market and the guide, like I remember when we used to run Venezuela trips, the guide loved to give people opportunities if they wanted to, to try the…
interesting things that you can find in the market like cows eyeballs which I would never take but some might. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (25:43.194)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (25:47.976)
Yep. That’s, and, and probably having guides that are, maybe have the emotional intelligence to be able to, to, to step off the itinerary for a moment when, when the opportunity presents itself. Because if you take someone that’s too structured and you make them a guide and say, look, you’re supposed to be here from this time to this time talking about, you know, the
the, the, whatever the, the, how they cultivate rice in the fields. I don’t, I have no idea what I’m talking about, but, and they’ve got this set routine and it’s like, okay, this is what you need to do. You’re going to get it. You’re going to get that type of experience where if you’ve got maybe, I don’t know if they need to be an older guide, but maybe more of a, maybe a little bit maturity and a little bit more ability to say, you know, I know Trish said we needed to do this to this, but here’s a special opportunity that I can’t.
Trish Sare (26:28.878)
You hear it?
Jason Elkins (26:44.168)
I cannot create, I cannot manufacture this. So we’re going to go do this special experience. And even if it means that maybe we skip on something later in the day. that’s just, do you think, mean, because I know there’s other tour operators and there’s guides that listen to this. And I guess I’m bringing this up because I want to encourage them to get outside the box, right?
Trish Sare (27:07.02)
Yeah, that is one of the key factors that makes a really good guide. Number one, to be able to number one, read the group. Because if you’re finding that your group has specific needs, then you might want to steer it to a certain way. but I’d say that one of the factors about our travelers, we’re an adventure travel company. People want to…
Jason Elkins (27:32.906)
Mm-hmm.
Trish Sare (27:34.924)
Like they really want to experience the country. have, I have been with guides like you’re talking about, and I’ve had to have conversations with them to say, are you watching the eyes of the travelers behind their sunglasses? They’re falling asleep to your long historical discussion, which might be right for some travelers, but not for BikeHike travelers. We’re active travelers and I can see they’re falling asleep behind their eyeglasses. So, so it’s really.
Jason Elkins (28:02.058)
you
Trish Sare (28:04.342)
Yeah, that like our specific travelers travel with us because they want to be immersed. So they love that. And that’s how we choose our guides to be able to do that. And they are mature. Our guides are mostly, I would say, because they’ve been with us for so long, 40s and 50s.
Jason Elkins (28:12.98)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (28:27.978)
Yep, yep. And it’s not a knock on younger guides at all, because I don’t think it necessarily, you know, it’s dependent on age, but sometimes, yeah, the younger guides kind of aren’t able to kind of read the room. I think you said that is kind of read the room and judge the looks because how big are the groups usually?
Trish Sare (28:55.054)
Our max is 12, but we’ll small groups. We’ve gone up to 16. To be honest, we don’t like to go up to 16 because 16, going into an area with 16 bikers or hikers and guides and drivers, you’re making huge impact into that place. And we don’t, that’s not what we want to do. We want to be about small groups. So they can be anywhere from four people to 12 people.
Jason Elkins (28:56.882)
Okay, so small groups.
Trish Sare (29:24.232)
And let’s say more on average is eight.
Jason Elkins (29:24.809)
Right.
Cause it’s hard to get invited into some families home or to their picnic or to all those, spontaneous things, the bigger the group. And it’s not like twice as difficult. It’s like five times more difficult. The difference between a group of eight and a group of six is not twice as difficult when it comes to having those authentic experiences. It’s, it just completely rules. Some things are just completely off the, off the table. All right, before we.
Trish Sare (29:48.213)
Absolutely.
Jason Elkins (29:55.167)
I need to hear how you got from Vancouver to Costa Rica. I’m sure some things happened in between.
Trish Sare (30:00.512)
Yeah. So, well, that five year trip, I, I wanted to make it around the world. I didn’t end up making it around the world. I, I ended up, because I decided if I liked a place, I’m going to stay and really integrate with the locals. So I did the Pacific and Asia on that trip. And I ended up staying two years in Thailand, actually, which is a story. There’s a story behind that, but I won’t go into it. But then I came back to Canada.
Jason Elkins (30:13.908)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (30:19.188)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah
Jason Elkins (30:29.918)
Wait a minute. Why? Why? You’re on a podcast to share stories. Tell us. Where is this? Tell us about Thailand.
Trish Sare (30:30.102)
And I.
All right. The Thailand trip, the Thailand trip is a big factor as to why Bike exists actually, because well, so, so because when my mom died, I was on a mission. was, was traveling the world for five years and nobody was going to get in my way.
Jason Elkins (30:44.775)
And you were just gonna skip right over it? we’re not gonna go into that. What happened?
Trish Sare (31:01.068)
And I wasn’t, I wasn’t going to let a guy, I didn’t want to have a relationship or anything get in my way, but I ended up meeting a guy in Thailand, a Thai guy who, is a Muslim Thai actually in a country that has 96 % Buddhist. And I ended up staying and I lived in Thailand with him for two years. And I lived on an island that had no tourists besides myself.
Jason Elkins (31:09.226)
Mm-hmm.
Trish Sare (31:31.212)
I wasn’t a tourist, I was a local at that point. I was absolutely integrated into their culture. And it was hard, but it was fascinating at the same time. I thought I was gonna spend the rest of my life there though, but I just decided it’s just too different for me. But it really, when I left Thailand, I really wanted to show people, especially like where I had come from, where I’d come from, everybody was living
a life in their little box, I don’t want to say in their little box, but this is what they knew. And there was so much more out there in the world. And I really wanted to show people that not everybody lives the same way that we do in Canada. And yeah, so it was, was fascinating. I stayed two years. And when I came back from that trip, I thought, okay, what am going to do with my life now? What I know is travel. So
Jason Elkins (32:05.162)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (32:27.85)
I think I got to ask you this first Trish. What did your dad think? You know, your mom passes away. You’re like, I’m going to go travel for mom. I’m going to take her with me on this journey. And you’re sending him telegrams. Telegraphs? Telegrams. That’s a different thing, isn’t it? Telegraph was a little earlier. And you’re like, dad, I fell in love with a Thai guy, a Muslim Thai guy.
Trish Sare (32:45.389)
No grams.
Jason Elkins (32:57.85)
and I think I’m going to stick around here for a while. Did you send him that telegram or did you just drop off the face of the earth for a while?
Trish Sare (32:58.198)
Thank
You
Trish Sare (33:04.788)
I actually, I actually made it actually a little even worse because I, I came home for a little bit and I said, I’m going to work for a little while and make as much money as I can and move back there for the rest of my life. And he cried. He cried. He told me that, you know, I don’t have to do this.
Jason Elkins (33:13.322)
Jesus.
Trish Sare (33:31.532)
you know, it’s a big move and it’s the other side of the world. My father was from Malta and he immigrated at a very young age. So he knew what it was like to go to a new land without his family, but he didn’t want me to go.
Jason Elkins (33:38.058)
Hmm.
Jason Elkins (33:48.714)
Wow. Well, I can get that. Did he, and I don’t know the whole situation, we don’t need to go in too deep into it, but was it a situation where he could or would visit you in Thailand? Would that help? Did that help? Or is it just?
Trish Sare (34:03.214)
He could have, but my father was not a traveler at all.
Jason Elkins (34:07.338)
Okay. Despite being an immigrant himself from Malta. Okay.
Trish Sare (34:10.722)
He never ever went back to Malta and he actually never got on a plane.
Jason Elkins (34:16.522)
Okay, wow, that’s yeah, so can imagine that was kind of what about siblings? Do you have other siblings?
Trish Sare (34:23.68)
I have two siblings, one older, one younger, and they’re both in Canada.
Jason Elkins (34:29.354)
So there, so were they better kids for your dad? Did they give him as much angst and torture as you did or?
Trish Sare (34:33.015)
Thank you.
Trish Sare (34:37.486)
No, they were one of them was got married and had kids and stayed in Toronto. the other I was actually the younger one decided to come and join me for a little while on my travels. So she came with me for maybe a year of travel. But the other one led a very
Jason Elkins (34:44.946)
It stayed in Toronto. So she’s the favorite one. Just kidding.
Jason Elkins (34:56.67)
Cool.
Trish Sare (35:05.868)
different life than me. very close, our lives were very different.
Jason Elkins (35:10.89)
So I suspect, I’m curious kind of what your thoughts are. I’ve definitely experienced it. I’ve always had the wanderlust thing going on. And actually I read recently that there’s a psychiatric diagnosis and the diagnostic manual for mental health. don’t know, but there’s like a diagnosis and I can’t remember the word, but it’s basically wanderlust where you put your desire to travel and explore ahead of other things.
Trish Sare (35:35.466)
Interesting.
Jason Elkins (35:39.282)
If it, you know, like any addiction, if it gets in the way of you having a normal life, then it’s an addiction. think travel definitely has been that for me. But I guess what I’m, what I’m, what I’m trying to say is. Do you, now that you, I mean, you’re working in tourism, so you’re around other people. You presumably go to some of these conferences, you work with other tour operators, but has it been difficult for you to kind of fit in to?
maybe social groups or to make friends with people that don’t travel, or are you able to move back and forth between the two?
Trish Sare (36:16.32)
I can move back and forth between the two. And that actually brings up a little story that I have to share with you. Because after the five years, and I came back to Toronto, and everybody was still having the same conversations that I had when I left. And it was really hard for me. It was so hard to, I just felt like I didn’t fit in. And I remember meeting this,
this man who was probably, bet he was in his fifties at that point. I was in my twenties and he was biking around the world and he kind of looked a little bit like a lost soul. I, and he had written a book about his travels, writing around, traveling around the world on his Bike. And I said to him, I need advice. Do I keep going? Cause it’s so boring here. Or do I just stop, make routes and you know, still travel, but in a different way.
And he looked at me and he said, I think you should stop and make roots. Otherwise you’ll, you’re going to end up like me. And I’ve never forgotten him. So I did. I made roots in Toronto again for a little while. And then I started a travel company. And with that, I could still travel, but I still had life at home. So I had, I felt like I had the best of both worlds. And I had friends.
who I’d met who were in the travel industry, but I also had friends who weren’t in the travel industry and I feel like I got the good balance of both. And now a lot of my friends are all over the world. So wherever I go, I have friends all over the world, as well as I have friends here.
Jason Elkins (37:47.102)
Yeah, I can.
Jason Elkins (37:54.281)
That’s
It’s very cool because I think like you mentioned that he had told you, if you don’t set some sort of roots, you’re going to be like me. And honestly, when I heard you say that, I was looking at myself in the screen thinking, I probably look just like that guy because I’m 51. Everything I own is in my suitcase. But I did set some roots for a while as well. And what I was going to say there is I think finding that mix is important.
Trish Sare (38:10.638)
Thank
Jason Elkins (38:26.708)
people that are listening to this and maybe at a different stage in their lives. Because I had had roots for a while and worked in the tourism industry, so I was still traveling. So I was able to get that. And boy, I stepped out of tourism for a few years for some relationship reasons, because just to try and be responsible.
And did real estate for a few years and it was, it was horrible. It was really, really tough. Cause then you’re not traveling. You’re not connected with that community. You’ve got the roots and it was just, it was like a huge void in my life. So now that I’m back in it and it’s, it’s changed quite a bit, but what do you.
I’m not gonna, before we push record button, you said, Jason, please don’t ask me what my three-step strategy is for the next 10, 15, 20 years. I’m not gonna ask you that. But what are you excited about? Like right now, I mean, you mentioned some of the tours and stuff, but.
Trish Sare (39:14.52)
this.
Trish Sare (39:28.066)
What do I want to do?
Jason Elkins (39:28.202)
That’s not a strategy. That’s not a strategy question. What are you excited about? You’re going to stay in Toronto. You’re going to travel more or less. You’re in Vancouver now. That’s right. Okay. I’m sorry. Yep. I was paying attention.
Trish Sare (39:34.022)
I’m in Vancouver. I’ve been in Vancouver for 23 years. That’s okay. Yeah, 23 years. I’m interested in, I still want to travel. Travel will always be a part of my life, but I don’t think I want to travel as much as I’ve been traveling. I want to also do other things in my life as well. Like there’s so many…
Jason Elkins (39:56.362)
Mm-hmm.
Trish Sare (40:00.994)
beautiful things to experience right now. I’m being very, very drawn to animals. And I, I just have this. So this, this started in the pandemic. Well, I’ve always loved animals, always loved animals, but in the pandemic when it was really the international travel industry was very hard hit in the pandemic. you know, it was a very tough time and
Jason Elkins (40:07.434)
Okay, tell me more about that. What does that mean?
Jason Elkins (40:15.998)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (40:26.226)
Yeah, that was a tough time.
Trish Sare (40:29.452)
I had to find other kinds of income sources as well to just keep us going. And I ended up becoming an animal sitter. And I have this, like this, there’s something that I can, I feel like I can communicate with animals when I’m with them. And there’s, all, everybody says to me, my animals usually hide when they meet people, but when they see you, they just stare at me. So there’s just, I’ll tell you one thing. When I go traveling the world,
Jason Elkins (40:45.802)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (40:53.226)
You
Trish Sare (40:58.966)
I always bring bags of cat food with me to places and dog food to places where I know it’s going to be like the animals are suffering.
Jason Elkins (41:08.146)
which is a lot of places.
Trish Sare (41:09.846)
which is a lot of places, a lot of places, and it’s heart wrenching for me. So I’m excited to do something with animals. I’m not quite sure what it’ll be yet, but it still may involve travel. At one point I thought I wanted to have a rescue, but I think a rescue is, there’s a lot of red tape and there’s a lot of hardships in a rescue. And I know some people who are doing it. So I don’t know if that’s going to be what it is, but.
Jason Elkins (41:11.496)
Yeah. Yep.
Jason Elkins (41:33.866)
Yeah.
Trish Sare (41:39.47)
But I’ll always have my hands in travel of some sort, but not anymore. I always did. And then my 18 year old cat died. And since then I’ve been a sitter and that’s been the best because I don’t have to worry. I don’t have to worry about finding a sitter. I actually get paid. I I Bike to people’s homes, which, so I’m still doing my activities and then I’m being paid for.
Jason Elkins (41:43.764)
Do you have pets at the house?
Jason Elkins (41:59.272)
Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh.
Jason Elkins (42:05.502)
Huh?
Trish Sare (42:08.312)
taking care of their animals and I’m getting the love. I love it.
Jason Elkins (42:10.954)
Do you think it’s it’s kind of like being a grandparent where you can get that time with kids, but then you give them back and you can decide whether you’re available or not, where when you’re a parent, you don’t have that choice. Let’s touch on this because I’m curious if you have, I think it’s called trusted house sitters and there’s probably a few other groups out there.
Trish Sare (42:17.07)
Absolutely.
Jason Elkins (42:39.614)
And I’ve spoken with travelers, I’ve been traveling full time for four years and I’ve spoken with travelers that that’s how they travel. go, you they’ll find one in Costa Rica and they’ll go there for a month and then they’ll find one in Panama. So I’d love for you to share any insights or thoughts you have around that. Like how could somebody incorporate that into their lifestyle and help finance their travels.
Trish Sare (43:03.436)
So I personally haven’t tried those sites. I know people who do, but I believe, I mean, I feel blessed that I know a lot of people all over the world who say to me that, Hey, I’m going away. I’ve got a friend in Denver who travels a lot and she’s got two dogs. So she’s always saying, if anyone wants to come and stay at my place and watch my dog while I’m away. So look to people you may know overseas who have pets.
Jason Elkins (43:13.727)
Yeah.
Trish Sare (43:33.506)
and find out what their vacations are. But those sites, trusted house sitters, I’m sure are very good. Or I think there’s a pet sitting one, I’m not sure what it is. I know a site like Rover, that would be different because I think that’s more local. But that’s definitely a good way. If you’re okay to stay in the same place and don’t want to travel around, because you’re going to be needing to take care of an animal.
Jason Elkins (44:01.662)
You got to be there at least once a day, at least probably. yeah, let me, I’m going to ask you to do me a favor. my mother has a couple of dogs and I talked to her a lot about, mom, you know, there’s websites, there’s ways you can meet people that they can come watch your dogs. And she’s like, well, I don’t know them. And she’s always had a lot of concern.
Trish Sare (44:05.644)
And if it’s a dog, all day.
Jason Elkins (44:28.618)
because their dogs are very important to her. And now I’ve got someone sitting with me that looks and seems very trustworthy. And I want to have my mom listen to this episode. So what do you say to people out there that are really kind of limiting their ability to travel or their ability to even leave their house sometimes because they don’t know how to find somebody to help with their dogs or because they’ve got that concern? You’ve got
Trish Sare (44:39.532)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (44:57.352)
more expertise than I do and I want to share this episode with her. No pressure.
Trish Sare (45:01.614)
Okay, so there are websites like Rover and Paw Shake, as in Paw Shake. And those sites actually do checks on people. Like I know Rover does police checks, because that’s important. You don’t want to have just some random person coming into your house. You know, there’s a lot of scams going on internationally now.
Jason Elkins (45:11.498)
Okay, pause shake.
Jason Elkins (45:29.866)
Mm-hmm.
Trish Sare (45:30.21)
You want trustworthy and you want to make sure that they’re going to be animal lovers. So you can just like, can look at travel reviews for companies. You can look at reviews for sitters. So that was how I started actually. And then like a lot of people just word of mouth, their friends told their friends and their friends told their friends. So, that’s a very good place for her to start Poshi or Rover.
Jason Elkins (45:50.388)
Right?
Jason Elkins (45:57.012)
Thank you. So what you’re saying is there’s people out there that actually will come into your house and love up your animals and dogs and, and not rob you blind, right?
Trish Sare (46:07.79)
And then just give her the peace of mind to travel and then they’ll do daily updates and send her photos of what’s going on with her little dog.
Jason Elkins (46:17.29)
Oh, that’s so cool. Cause she’s always like, oh, I really, she’s always wanted to go to Scotland. I’m like, well, mom, let’s go. I’ll go with you, whatever. And well, the dogs, you know, and it’s like, oh yeah, the dogs. And I’m in Ecuador right now, like, mom, you should come down here. You want to go hop on a plane, come down. Well, the dogs. So I know this was not the direction we were planning. I don’t think we were planning on going any direction with this conversation, but I think there’s probably, yeah.
Trish Sare (46:38.968)
That’s okay.
Animals are such a huge part of my life, so I’m glad it went this direction.
Jason Elkins (46:48.042)
That’s a, it’s very cool. So, so now, you know, if anybody has any questions or needs somebody to come watch their dog, Trish Trish’s link will be in the show notes. Start getting inquiries on your website for dog setting. but it’s, great for you because, cause you can work remotely. mean, I’m assuming you could work from anywhere. Cause that’s one of the nice things about this type of business. so you can go love up on other people’s dogs still.
Trish Sare (47:01.582)
you
Jason Elkins (47:17.844)
keep your business running. it sounds like it sounds like a pretty good fit actually. I might even have to look into that. anyway, so what else I have, we’ve had, we’ve talked about a lot of random, I don’t know, random things. We talked about a lot of important things and I suspect we could probably just keep going and come back and record three or four more episodes. But I’m curious, I want to, what did I forget to ask you? Or what should have I asked you that
Trish Sare (47:24.768)
It’s perfect.
Jason Elkins (47:46.878)
You want to make sure that our listeners kind of know about, about you, about BikeHike, about just the way you see the world going, anything important to you that you want to share with them before we wrap up.
Trish Sare (47:58.828)
Yeah, there’s one thing that I always try to instill in our travelers. There’s so many destinations right now that are experiencing over tourism, which is a really big deal. And this is how I’ve seen tourism change so much after the last 30 years is, you know, the social media feeds that are saying this is the destination to go to right now. Usually once you’ve heard about a destination, it’s too late.
Jason Elkins (48:26.442)
too late. Yeah.
Trish Sare (48:28.662)
And that and those destinations have now changed to to they’re not the authentic destinations anymore because they’re like some of these destinations like Venice, a thousand tourists per inhabitant. So be like, I really think that as much as I know that, especially North Americans don’t have a lot of vacation time and they want to go to those destinations that they’ve heard of in their lives.
But like Slovenia would be a perfect example of this. We’ve operated Slovenia for 30 years. Nobody heard about Slovenia until 2019. And now that Slovenia is on the map, the prices are rising. There’s supply demand issues and the country is starting to change. So really look at those places if you want that authentic experience. And there’s not many places left like that anymore in the world, but there still are.
Jason Elkins (49:13.64)
you
Trish Sare (49:25.366)
Romania would be one, North Macedonia would be another, Bolivia, we talk about Bolivia a lot. It’s still so raw. It is our most raw, authentic destination of all the destinations that we do. So.
Jason Elkins (49:25.77)
I’m gonna go.
Jason Elkins (49:44.842)
Do you think, so I guess one of the challenges is there because we can plan things so easily online, we’ve kind of gotten away from the, I don’t know, I’m curious. I think a lot of people kind of figure out where they want to go without a lot of input, just the input of Instagram or YouTube or whatever. And then they may, maybe they’re not coming to someone like you, but they’re going to someone maybe.
saying, okay, I want to go to Venice. I’ve always, Venice just seems cool. I saw cool stuff on Instagram. Can you put together a trip to Venice for me? And then you’ve got the other type of traveler maybe, or just in a different stage. I don’t know that they’re a different type of person, but they come and say, you know what Trish? I just really want to go have a cool experience. I’ve got a couple months. My
My son, my 18 year old son’s graduating from high school. I want to take him for two months in the summer and just go do something really cool.
What you think? And you’re going to ask them a bunch of questions and help narrow it down. And you might say, how about Bolivia? So how do you encourage people, our listeners right now, anybody that’s listening to this, how do we get them to reach out to you before they decide where they want to go?
Trish Sare (51:11.66)
Yeah, well, it is a tough question, but travel has been my life, my existence for, I hate to say it, but close to 40 years now. So, and I still have a pulse, really deep pulse on all the, like,
Jason Elkins (51:13.034)
It’s tough question, I know.
Jason Elkins (51:19.242)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (51:24.638)
You didn’t have to say that. I’m with you.
Trish Sare (51:37.026)
with people all over the world. So I hear things, I see things, I travel a lot. So I feel like I have a good feel for the different kind of places and the needs of our travelers because this is what I’ve been doing for so long. And like, I’m just gonna use Santorini as an example here. Because Santorini, I just came.
from Greece. I hadn’t been to Greece for a few years. I always go back and check in on our destinations after a while just to hear how things are doing. Santorini is one of those places that’s getting seven cruise ships per day. So it means that your experience is going to be not, might not be every day of the week, but when you’re there, your experience is going to be like loads and loads of people. And if that’s what you really want for your trip, just because Santorini has always been on your bucket list.
I think you’re not going to, you’re going to be disappointed when you get there.
Jason Elkins (52:35.24)
I wonder when I heard you say that it occurred to me that maybe a lot of travelers, people, maybe they’re listening to this show or just people in general that, that think I want to go to Santorini, talk about overcrowding and over tourism doesn’t mean anything to them because they’ve maybe never visited a place that was in the midst of that. So if you, you know, if you’ve never been to a small island with seven big cruise ships coming in every day.
Trish Sare (52:56.738)
Good point.
Jason Elkins (53:05.085)
That means nothing to hear me or you say, it’s crowded there because you know what? They’re like, I live in New York. I don’t mind crowds. doesn’t mean anything to them. or they live in LA and the traffic’s horrible. they, so they think, well, okay, that’s normal, but it’s a little different when you’re on vacation and you’re trying, you’re waiting in line to go into some place that somebody said you needed to go. It’s, it’s a little different, right?
Trish Sare (53:16.002)
Yeah.
Trish Sare (53:35.862)
Yeah and actually in a lot of these destinations that are experiencing over tourism there’s protests going on right now. The locals don’t want tourists. There’s tourists go home. I know what’s happening in Barcelona. I think it’s happening in Portugal, in Venice, I heard in Amsterdam. So and what’s happening in some of these little places is that the local little cafes and coffee shops, butchers, whatever those little
pastry shops, whatever, they’re closing. And what’s opening is tacky tourist shops for the cruise ships. So the places are losing their local flavor, their local culture, and the locals are moving out because it’s not a good place for them anymore. So it’s not a real experience. And you’ll be walking through crowds where there’s people holding up signs with the little flags to say, follow me, you’re the blue group.
Jason Elkins (54:25.246)
Mm-hmm.
Trish Sare (54:34.668)
And you’re among a huge group of people. Like you’re just in swarms of people. It’s not, it’s not probably what these people were expecting. So just, just, just picture this. If you in your town for each one inhabitant, there’s a thousand tourists surrounding you. That would say everything.
Jason Elkins (54:37.673)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (54:44.287)
Yeah, that.
Jason Elkins (54:58.378)
You know, it’s interesting. I’m trying to put this into perspective, but I think it’s true. I would rather go to a very busy place. This sounds weird. I’d rather go to a very busy place with very few tourists. I’m trying to balance what I’m saying, but I’d rather go to a place that’s very busy with very few tourists than go to a place that’s busy that are mostly tourists. There’s, it is a different thing. So an example would be Bangladesh.
think I’m drawing a blank on the name of the capital of Bangladesh, but it’s like one of the most densely populated places in the world and not a lot of tourists go there. I’m like, it’s crowded. I know it’s crowded. And when I go, I know it’s going to be crowded and it’s going to be elbow to elbow, but I don’t care because that’s part of the experience for me. That’s the cultural part of it. But to go to Santorini and be elbow to elbow with
Trish Sare (55:28.674)
between.
Trish Sare (55:47.669)
Absolutely.
Jason Elkins (55:54.94)
a bunch of people that just got off the cruise ship for the day and I’m not knocking cruise ships or people that go on cruise ships, but that’s not part of the culture that I’m not going to get anything culturally out of that. So there’s a big difference between crowds of people and crowds of tourists. So if you want to find a crowd, go find a crowd of go to Bangladesh, go to maybe India or go to or Medellin, Columbia or any number of places where you can be around crowds, but you’re still going to get the culture.
Trish Sare (56:24.138)
Absolutely. And you can still go to Greece, for example, but there’s so many islands to go to that are more authentic local islands than going to those really densely populated, mean cities that everybody’s heard about and want to visit. And I know that’s a, it’s a heart’s mill.
Jason Elkins (56:27.817)
Yeah!
Jason Elkins (56:40.074)
See, would call you Trish. Yeah, I would call you Trish. Yeah, but they’re going to have a much better experience. Cause I would want to call you Trish and say, Hey, I’ve always wanted to go to Greece. don’t know anything about Greece. What’s that hidden gem that I’m going to go and I’m not, I know it sounds like I’m anti-atorist, but give me that spot where I can go and I’ll be the only guy that looks like me.
And they will be so excited to see me and happy to talk to me because they get to practice their English for the first time. And in several months, that’s the place I want to go. And you can’t find that on Instagram, just by definition.
Trish Sare (57:19.126)
No, you can’t. And those are the places that BikeHike really tries to access. That’s a big part of what we do, being in places like that.
Jason Elkins (57:32.97)
Cool. Well, now it’s a good time to mention that the link to Bike and Hike is going to be right in the show notes. So, if, if what we’ve been discussing and Trish’s story and her personality inspire you, and I trust that it has, click on a link, even if you don’t like to Bike or Hike, we’ve discussed that, think at length, click on the link, see some of the stuff she has available and reach out to her.
Trish, thank you so much. This was a really fun conversation. I appreciate it. And thanks for the bid on helping out my mom on the dogs. I’m going to make sure she hears this episode.
Trish Sare (58:08.588)
Fantastic. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here, Jason. It’s been great.
Jason Elkins (58:14.034)
Let’s do it again soon. I’ll chat with you soon. Thanks, Trish. Bye.
Trish Sare (58:17.87)
Okay, bye.
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