Guest Bio
Zach Vanasse is the Founder and Director of Dinosaur Trips, a travel company that curates unique experiences centered around dinosaur digs, museums, and paleontological discoveries. With over a decade of experience in the travel industry, Zach has worked in various capacities, including trade media, communications, and consultancy. His passion for dinosaurs and travel led him to create Dinosaur Trips, offering travelers immersive journeys into the prehistoric world.
Show Summary
In this episode, Zach Vanasse discusses his journey from a childhood fascination with dinosaurs to founding Dinosaur Trips. He shares insights into the niche market of paleontology-focused travel, the challenges of launching a specialized travel company, and the rewarding experiences of connecting travelers with the world of dinosaurs. Zach also reflects on his extensive career in the travel industry and how it has shaped his entrepreneurial ventures.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Pursuing Passion: Transforming personal interests into unique business ventures can lead to fulfilling career paths.
- ✓ Niche Tourism: Catering to specialized interests can differentiate a travel company in a competitive market.
- ✓ Innovative Experiences: Offering unique and educational travel experiences can attract curious and adventurous clients.
- ✓ Industry Adaptability: Diverse experience within the travel industry can provide valuable insights for entrepreneurial success.
- ✓ Storytelling in Travel: Crafting compelling narratives enhances traveler engagement and enriches the overall experience.
What You’ll Find on Dinosaur Trips’ Platform
- ✓ Dinosaur Digs: Hands-on excavation experiences guided by professional paleontologists.
- ✓ Museum Tours: Curated visits to renowned dinosaur museums with exclusive behind-the-scenes access.
- ✓ Family Adventures: Tailored itineraries suitable for all ages, combining education and adventure.
- ✓ Expert-Led Expeditions: Trips led by leading paleontologists, offering in-depth knowledge and insights.
- ✓ Customized Itineraries: Personalized travel plans that cater to individual interests and preferences in paleontology.
👉 Visit Dinosaur Trips’ Official Website to explore their offerings and learn more about Zach Vanasse’s contributions to paleontology-focused travel experiences.
Learn more about Dinosaur Trips and connect with Zach at:
https://dinosaurtrips.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.
Welcome to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the Adventure Traveler. So happy to have all of you back there listening to another episode. Today, we’ve got Zach Vanasse with Dinosaur Trips, which is pretty cool. This is I’m super excited to have this conversation with you, Zach. I appreciate you.
taking time out of your day to spend some time with us. No, absolutely. Thanks so much for inviting me on the podcast. I’m thrilled to be here. And yeah, obviously excited to talk about dinosaur trips. Yeah, it’s, you know, when I started the podcast and started reaching out to people, I was kind of looking at things that were very clearly, obviously adventure travel, adventure tours, stuff like that. And then I actually saw something, I think it was on LinkedIn that popped up. And I don’t know if it was a paid ad you do in there. I don’t remember what it was, but it came up. I was like, oh man.
That’s pretty cool. I wouldn’t have made the connection, but I figured, you know what, if I’m interested, I’m sure that other people that are interested in adventures and off the beaten path type of stuff would be interested as well. So I’m happy that we’re able to connect. Not sure where to start. Yeah, not sure where to start because it’s such an old story. But it’s not, it’s new and exciting, but I love that we’re…
In a sense, it’s tied to something very old. It’s been around for a long time that maybe has not been on everybody’s radars other than maybe, you know, they saw Jurassic Park or something like that. I remember the scientists that I guess the story, and maybe you know better than I do, but the scientist that was, the story was kind of loosely based on was a paleontologist in Montana, in Bozeman, I believe, Museum of the Rockies.
Jason Elkins (02:23.882)
And I happened to be living in Bozeman when all that went down. So I just remember it actually went to the museum as a result of the movie. I just thought that was pretty cool connection and you’ve taken it to a whole nother level. Did the movie have anything to do with that? In a way, definitely. I think the movie’s Jurassic Park is huge for the paleontology and dinosaur world.
I was born in 1984, so I was nine years old when Jurassic Park came out. So I was already deep into my dino obsession as a kid, as many kids are wanting to do. And that movie came along at just the perfect time. I mean, for a nine-year-old, it was, yes, incredibly incredible to look at and see what is put together. I don’t think, you know, Steven Spielberg’s fantastic at creating a movie for a nine-year-old boy, maybe more than any other.
audience that he’s got out there. And it was also terrible before you. Yeah, I mean, before you go nine years. Yeah. But the book by Michael Crichton, less so for a nine year old. But the movie, you know, was right in my wheelhouse. And talking to paleontologists as I have had the opportunity to do more since I’ve started dinosaur trips.
you know, speaking to ones who are my age or younger, you see the influence that movie had across paleontology. I mean, paleontology, well, I’m sure we’ll get into this, but it’s really it’s been in a golden era for these past few, maybe decade, decade plus. And a big piece of that was just how many kids that movie hit for and inspired to go into paleontology that, you know,
knew what a paleontologist was before Jurassic Park? Not a ton of people, you know, they even put that word out there into the lexicon. So it’s in, and when it comes to the sense of, okay, how do we tie digging for dinosaurs to adventure? I mean, Jurassic Park’s the first thing everybody mentions to me when I talk about dinosaur trips. And the joke that everyone loves to make, you know, is, oh, so you’re going to visit Jurassic Park? It’s like, you know, we’ll do our best. It’s changed a little bit since then, but yeah, exactly.
Jason Elkins (04:29.73)
some cool stuff involved. And if you were nine when that movie came out, I’m thinking, because I was living in Montana and it kind of similar. I don’t, do you remember the movie, A River Runs Through It? Absolutely. Have you ever heard of that? Okay, all right. Of course. So that movie did for fly fishing, what Jurassic Park maybe did for paleontology. A River Runs Through It is when, that’s when people like, I wanna go fish there. I was working as a fishing guide, running a fishing guide service.
And I can’t tell you how many people would call and say, I wanna go where they filmed that movie. So I, and before that, like fly fishing, most people didn’t know what fly fishing was. When that movie came out, really made a big impact. So I can see the parallel there that, and I think fly fishing, the last few years I was in it, I remember people were like, we made another movie. Exactly. No, you definitely see that happen in the zeitgeist. I mean, even right now on Netflix.
Steven Spielberg actually produced a documentary series called Life on Our Planet, which takes a look at dinosaurs in some of those episodes. And even that, I can see, popping dinosaurs back up into the zeitgeist gets people excited for dinosaur trips again.
You never know what can come along and really kind of tip the scale for interest in what you’re doing. And I mean, I’ve been in the tourism industry for over a decade now and a bunch of different roles and PR and marketing and consultants. And, you know, so often we would look at what’s the movie slate ahead for the year to come with the interest of like, how do OK, so how do we pitch our trips around, you know, whether it was.
The Jungle Book that was coming out is the first example that comes to mind. Or obviously New Zealand made hay on the Lord of the Rings series. You know, there’s always opportunity to be found in the box office. Eat, Pray, Love for Bali? Oh yeah, huge, huge. I didn’t even realize I’d seen the movie, but it was in the past. I didn’t make the connection and I was in Bali this past spring and then it like, what? Like, oh, wait a minute. I kind of figured it out. And there were a lot of people there that…
Jason Elkins (06:34.414)
they were just like, yeah, they probably came there because of that. So it’s a good strategy though, as far as tour operation. Yeah, maybe I need to look at the movie slate coming out. Yeah, that’s good. I like it. If you can ever find a way to tie in, something that’s going on in the popular culture in like in any way, I always find it, it’s why it was disappointing when the movie 65 that came out like in early this year, which was a dinosaur movie.
was a huge bomb, so it didn’t help me at all. I was kind of hoping that one would find some legs, but it didn’t. Yeah, I can see that sometimes. You get excited about it, and then the movie doesn’t go anywhere. It’s like, well, I’m happy I didn’t build out a full tour operation program. Exactly. Around it. I don’t know why I feel compelled to share this, but the connections I just hear in this conversation, Steven Spielberg, Jurassic Park, me fishing in Montana and all that.
I actually guided Steven Spielberg and his family one day working at the same shop for the same outfitter. And I don’t know what the connection was, but the funniest thing about that day for me was that he dropped his camera in the river. Probably shouldn’t be sharing the story, but yeah, for me that was like just the funniest thing. It was a video camera and he was trying to, he dropped it in the river and I just thought, well, Steven Spielberg can do it. I know anybody can do it, right? So.
I’m sure he could afford a new camera. Well, yeah, it was just the connection to the movie maker who drops his, you know, I’m sure he’s got better story. He probably has much better stories of things that have happened to cameras on the set or whatever, but it was for me, I just thought it was kind of cute. So Zach, you touched on a couple of things already that I wanted to ask you about, just kind of like how you got from where, let’s.
you worked in many roles in PR, marketing, tourism. So set aside dinosaur trips for just a moment, share a little bit about your story. Like when did you get inspired to go, I know, nine, you were into paleontology, we talked about the movie, but as far as tourism, how did you get from where you were to where you are now? Yeah, so I finished university, I had a degree in professional writing, I wanted to be
Jason Elkins (08:54.022)
anything with writing. A writer was what I wanted to be in some respect. So I moved originally from Quebec and I moved to Toronto and was just looking for work in writing. Whether it was journalism, I had a newspaper background from back home and a travel magazine, a travel industry magazine was hiring. I took the job because I needed money and had no
You know, I enjoyed travel like anybody, you know, vacations with the family and stuff as a kid, but I’d been once overseas on a high school trip was the only time I’d been on an airplane prior to that was to go on a leave or a quick trip, but it wasn’t, tourism travel was not something I was targeting. It wasn’t something I was looking into, but took it, you know, a writing job’s a writing job. It took this gig with the, it’s now called Pax Magazine. It was called Travel Hot News at the time.
Um, and, and that started me in the travel industry and I haven’t left it since I spent a number of years working for that magazine as a journalist, sometimes as an editor, uh, and then made the switches. We call it to the dark side, the other side of the table from, from the journalism side, which is, uh, PR and marketing working with a consultancy based here in Toronto as well called bannock and travel and tourism and spend a number of years there. And that was really where I kind of got my feet into everything. You know, it was, uh,
From the marketing, I got to do a bunch of marketing stuff. I did some time as a program manager for a not-for-profit within the industry. I was doing PR stuff. I was doing branding. I really got it. You know, it was, we were a small boutique operation. And so if you, if you got the interest and, and the want to do it, you can really get your hands in everything and get a sense of, of all these pieces of the industry. And of course our clients are everybody from.
small tour operators like I am now, large destinations, small destinations, kind of everything in the mix. I had an opportunity to work with at one time or another. So really starting to get a full sense of how the industry functioned in a lot of different ways. And even carrying that over from my days and as a journalist in the travel industry side. While yes, I would write features on destinations now and again.
Jason Elkins (11:14.99)
three, four, five times a year, you get to do that. And that’s great. But most of the time it was talking with travel agents, talking with the CEOs of companies, presidents, vice presidents, marketing managers, getting their sense, telling the industry side of the story. And that really was more of an education in tourism than obviously I said, my background from university was in writing. So I didn’t have that background, but certainly got a real comprehensive education on the travel and tourism industry through.
through those few years and really got a sense of how it works and what it takes. To some extent, you really don’t know what it takes till like I’ve done, gone and thrown myself into having my own company now. There’s another whole bunch of lessons to be learned there. But yeah, I really, you know, that’s where I was really able to get a lay in the land and a sense of what this industry was and a sense of, you know, what there wasn’t out there and what kind of niche I may be able to fill with starting something like dinosaur trips. Yeah, that’s…
And I can imagine there’s a couple of things there that were really interesting. You’re probably one of the first tour operators that when I asked that question to, how did you get into tourism that said, it was an opportunity to make money? I mean, look, it was an opportunity for a paycheck when I was 26 years old and I needed anything to pay the rent. To make money might be the wrong way to position. Well, but you know what I mean? Cause there’s so many of them that are like,
That’s so many people that are, you know, I was engineers for some reason. We’ve got a lot of, a lot of folks in this industry that went to school to be engineers and they were making good money and they realized that they hated it. They were unhappy. They were miserable. They wanted to go follow their dreams and they took some sort of pay cut. Their first foray into it was a pay cut or they like literally didn’t make any money for a year or two or they, you know, it was a, or whatever. So.
I love your, you’ve got to actually a very advantageous path to get there because you, it was an opportunity to make money. So that’s great. So that takes the pressure off so you can actually learn a little bit when you’re making money. Um, and also just, you learned so many different aspects of it along the way that as you jump in, you know, with dinosaur trips and other endeavors you’ve had, you, it’s pretty good foundation to have those business skills because frankly, a lot of people that get excited about tourism.
Jason Elkins (13:35.054)
And they think, oh, I like people, I like travel, I’m gonna start a tourism business, but they don’t have those insights that you were able to kind of pick up along the way. And many of them, the ones I’m discussing, having conversations with obviously did well with it, they managed to get through it. But there’s an awful lot that don’t because they didn’t have that background. They just thought this will be easy. I like people, I like to travel, and I like languages or whatever, whatever stuff they had. So I think…
probably work. Do you feel like it worked out pretty well for you? I mean, your path seems like a pretty good path. Yeah, it, it did work out pretty well. I mean, I really, um, truth be told, I’m not a huge risk taker. Um, you know, the reason I’m in this industry was cause the, was the first job I landed and I stuck with it for a long time because
I wasn’t about to, you know, I knew what I had. I was like, all right, this is a job. This is a paycheck that goes every couple of weeks and I get to see a little bit of the world. I’ll stick with this. It’s a safe thing to do. So making a leap to starting my own company, you know, it needed for me to do it. It needed to feel like, certainly not the safest thing in the world because it’s not, I mean, it’s a risk anytime you step out and do an endeavor like this. But I felt confident in what I’d seen and what I’d experienced over the years and how many.
you know, all different angles that I got to approach things on that I had a more fulsome understanding of how the industry works. So at the very least I had an advantage of, okay, if I’m going to launch this one, I’m going to be able to do my research and know that there’s nobody out there doing what I’m also doing. So that’s, you know, another piece of, well, this is safer than, than going up against 900 competitors who are all doing the same thing. That didn’t make any sense to me. And also, yeah, that I was
that I had a pretty good lay of the land so that I wasn’t just, you know, the business side of things, that’s the day-to-day kind of accounting and everything else. I knew that was going to be my learning curve, but, you know, how to get in touch with destination management companies. What’s the best way to make sure that these trips are running as seamless as possible from the get-go and not, you know, have that all on my shoulders? Just having the connections from all those years of the consultancy of who to reach out to, you know, as my company is expanding.
Jason Elkins (15:48.85)
into the US with trips for 2024 and into Patagonia. And we’re looking even further international next year. Just knowing the kind of people I needed to be talking to or literally knowing the people that I needed to be talking to help facilitate all this. Yeah, it gave me a lot more confidence that this was something that I could do. And there was the other part was I’d been working with small boutique tour operators for the better part of a decade in a lot of capacities and helping them out. And so I saw, you know,
To some extent, what it took day to day to make one of these things happen is certainly not easy. And these people work incredibly hard to kind of run a boutique operation like I’ve got going on. But I saw it was possible, you know? And I saw what you had to do to make it possible. And so I thought, all right, this is if I’m ever gonna take a leap, this is the time to do it because I do think I have, you know, over the past 14 years, I’ve put together the skills and training and the know-how across the industry.
that as long as my idea is not terrible, and people are interested in this, then it should work. As I listen to you, I’m thinking, man, you’d be like a great business partner for so many tour operators out there. Because I’m a firm, oftentimes in business, you’ve got somebody that’s really like spontaneous. Right. And I’m saying that in a nice, like that’s the nice word is just like, oh, I like this, so this is what I’m gonna do.
And that’s great. That’s a great skill set or great, I don’t know, personality trait to have in business and not just tourism business and every business. And then so many of them fail because they don’t have someone on the other side and very few people can do both sides. They don’t have, you know, maybe they’re the big idea person, but the details and making sure that it all makes sense and researching to make sure you’re not doing something that 9,000 other people are doing.
that takes a slightly different skill set, which sometimes is the engineering type. So yeah, I could just see where like, I’ve been around for a while, there’s a couple of things I’ve done that I probably should have had a better partner in them that would say, Jason, slow down, let’s think this out. Let’s actually come up with a plan instead of just, I’m more the type, I’m traveling full-time now, two years ago, I just kind of decided I’m gone. I sold all my stuff and bought a one-way ticket.
Jason Elkins (18:15.73)
And I’m still trying to figure out if that was a good plan or not. I love it. I’m super happy, but yeah. So anyways, just want to spread that. Oh no, I can identify with that for sure. I mean, just starting this company sometimes feels like I sold all my stuff and bought a one way ticket. So. I’m sure it does. It’s like, here we go. And especially if you’re the more risk averse type of personality, it’s like probably in some ways, maybe some of the, like that might be even a bigger leap for you.
than me just selling my stuff and buying a one-way ticket. I’m like, because realistically people in my life probably like, yeah, okay, I’m not surprised. Was it scary? Yeah, it was scary, but it might not have, but most of the people in my life would never do it because that’s too much. So you’ve got to, you do have a good mix. Wait, what?
Share with me one mistake that you’ve made, because we’ve all made mistakes. Give me one that you realize, oh yeah, that was a poor choice. I wish I would have done that different. Something that somebody listening to this, whether they’re in business and tourism or just maybe just interested in people in general, what do you wish you would have done differently? I shouldn’t say mistake. Let’s call it a.
correction, opportunity, whatever you want to call it. Sure, yeah, no, mistakes fun. And it’s safe to use that word. We don’t need to be soft around the language here. So we did our first trips this past summer, 2023 in July. And I only launched the company in, I mean, technically in November of 2022, but all that was a party to basically put myself.
out there and expose myself to my family and friends of saying like, Hey, I’m doing this so that people, people hold me accountable to it. You know, whereas if it had just stayed a plant in my head and I did it quietly, when it got hard, I could have bailed on it easily. Cause then there’s like, Oh, nobody knew that that’s a failure in my life. So, so, but so then it was okay. But really January was when I, when I, when I started to work on it full time. Um, and so
Jason Elkins (20:25.878)
putting, and it wasn’t until, I want to say April, late April, that had the first, you know, starting to put trips together. But I had an opportunity to come up for that first trip to the Badlands of Alberta this past summer that was going to include four days of going out and experiencing Alberta with this incredible paleontologist who’s just, you know, Dr. Philip Curry, who’s one of the premier paleontologists in the world. I mean, you were talking.
I believe about Jack Horner earlier, who was one of the influences of the paleontologists in Jurassic Park. Phil Curry is another one that Michael Creighton and Spielberg as well were kind of looking at as an inspiration. So I had an opportunity to go out and dig with this guy, and put his portion of what he was doing into the larger dinosaur trips to weak experience that we put together. But it was going in the beginning of July and-
I was excited about it. You know, I said to him, I was like, we have to do this. I can’t miss this opportunity. But I gave myself effectively for trips that are, you know, retailing for $8,000, six weeks to sell it, really a month overall to sell enough to make it happen. And it worked in the end, I got enough people. I really, you know, put my nose in the grindstone and marketed, found every kind of outlet I could to talk about it. And we were able to host it, but,
I guess I would do it again, I guess, you know, telling myself now that’s in the past that I don’t have to deal with the pressure and the stress that I did deal with and trying to sell it that fast. But you know, from a more sensible mind frame would have been, there’s a great opportunity. Maybe I just go myself, meet the people, you know, get the content, grab the pictures.
do a walkthrough almost of the experience before bringing guests with me and having the need to sell a certain amount of trips to make it happen by a certain time. But I didn’t do that. I dove right in instead, cause I just was like, now I’m ready to go, let’s go. And I remember at the time, family and friends, and they were like, so when’s the first trip? Like next fall, 2024. I was like, July. They’re like, what do you mean July? It’s like, yeah, we’re going the first week of July is when we’re going out there. So it worked. I’m thrilled with it. I think it was a nice bit of…
Jason Elkins (22:41.73)
proof of concept for myself and my partners now in the industry, I have found there’s been, it’s been advantageous to have that in my back pocket. But looking back, it’s like, yeah, give yourself a little more of a window to make sales. And I knew that, I’ve been in this industry long enough to know that a lot of a bigger trip like this, people plan a year out kind of. It was ridiculous. They’re not gonna likely to bucket the last minute. And it’s something that’s totally new.
Right? Like, yeah, exactly. So if you were offering something that people have done 15 times already and the, oh, yeah, I want to go, let’s go. But yeah, something new like that. That’s pretty cool. Yeah. But yeah, I wouldn’t necessarily dive in like that again, but I don’t, I don’t completely regret it either. It worked out well enough, but yeah, if I was giving advice to somebody, it’d be don’t do that. That’s good. Especially for, yeah, especially for the person that maybe the people that are listening that know they.
It’s one thing, like they say being intelligent, one of the things that goes along with intelligence is optimism. I don’t know why, I don’t know what the connection is, but it’s like, oh yeah, I can do this. But that also sometimes backfires at the end. There’s a concept, I think it’s called Parkinson’s law, where the amount of work you have will expand to fill the amount of time you give it. Yes. Right? So there’s a balance to that though, right? It’s like, so.
By doing it sooner, that’s great because now you only have so much time to do it and you’re going to spend less time. And if you push it off too far, there’s too many excuses. There’s too many opportunities for you to doubt yourself. If you’d said, I’m going to do it 2024 and then you start marketing it and you don’t sell anything, you know, you don’t sell any spots quickly. You might second guess yourself. Oh, my gosh, this isn’t going to work.
And it’s too easy because you’re like, well, it’s a year out anyway. I didn’t put any deposits down. I didn’t promise anything to anybody. So I can change direction. I can go do some other different type of trip or whatever. So yeah, it’s, it’s a balancing act for sure. And just in life in general. So, no, for sure. I, and I’ve seen so many clients that I’ve worked with and stuff, you know, do exactly that it’s we have all this time. So.
Jason Elkins (24:54.75)
And then they almost end up behind the gun half the time because they’ve switched their plan 500 times between with all that time. Whereas, you know, in my situation was like, well, we’re doing this because I got no time to change this. So this is what it’s going to be. Or the procrastinator will just, oh, we’re going to give myself a year, but then they don’t do anything. Exactly. You know, they’ve got two months left and then they’re doing it in two months. Well, if you’re that type of person, you might as well just say, I’m going to do it in two months. Yeah, exactly.
Cause you’re only going to give yourself too much to do anyway. You might as well just say I’m going to do it. Might as well do it. Um, exactly. I’ll be, you know, full disclosure and vulnerable here. That’s a little bit of that with this podcast, you know, it’s just kind of like, I made these commitments to do this podcast without any real concept for what was going to be involved as far as lining up great speakers, cause I want to make sure I had good people, interesting people, and I’m kind of happy I did it the way I did it because I, you know, I scrambled.
to make it happen fairly quickly. And if I’d given myself six months, I don’t know. So anyway, so that, okay, so that was it. That’s great feedback and a great kind of awareness moment for you. What do you think the biggest challenge going forward is for you? I mean, you have an idea kind of what things are looking like and what you’re shaping out, but if you were to share with us kind of what’s your biggest, what’s keeping you up at night, that type of thing.
What would it mean? You know, for me, in such a small niche as it is, I mean, you talk to people about dinosaur trips, everybody immediately gets excited. Like, that’s easy. People are like, oh man, that’s so cool, I’ve never heard of that. I’m like, good, you better not have, because I’m the first out there. If there’s others, then I’ve done a mistake in my research up to this point. Or they’re just doing really poor marketing. Or yeah, maybe.
That’s fine. That’s great. Good for them. Don’t tell them about what we’re up to. But so that’s, you know, that it’s really easy to get that first kind of spark in somebody’s eyes. Like, oh man, that would be cool. And it’s easy to hit, you know, we’re comfortable using this term in the dinosaur circles that I’m existing in nerds. Like it’s easy to get the full paleo nerd excited and interested.
Jason Elkins (27:16.322)
But the reality of what I’m doing, and anybody who works in this industry recognizes, solo travelers makes everything a lot more expensive, and people are just not as likely to do it. So I’ve got a, what makes me, what I’m constantly planning around, what I’m constantly marketing around, what I’m constantly designing my trips around is the balancing act. So that yes, there will be the…
Of course, dinosaurs and paleontology and getting into a dig and backs access to museums and all the kind of stuff that you would expect from a company that is, dinosaur centric needs to be there, of course. But we also need that other piece of the equation, which is how do we appeal so that, if it’s dad’s the dinosaur nerd, which I don’t mean to gender this overall because there’s many women in paleontology, but for clients so far, it’s often been dad’s the dino nerd and,
bringing the partner along, bringing the kids along, what’s the interest there for them? And making sure that there’s enough within the programs that we’re putting together to appeal to everybody so that the whole family wants to come, or at least the partner, you know, for our adults only trip, the 12 and up trips, so that at least, okay, the kid is the one, the 12 year old is the one super interested in paleontology, but the parent bringing, kind of coming along for the ride ends up really enjoying the experience as well. And it’s, and.
you can do all the things. And I think we’ve done a pretty strong job of making sure that’s baked into the itineraries that I’m putting together, but just also communicating that and reassuring people of that, that is going to be there and selling them on paleontology. If you’re not the primary dinosaur interest person in the family, why would paleontology, why is paleontology interesting? And it is, I say that obviously.
I’m extremely biased in the sense of somebody who is interested in this myself and whose whole company is dependent on people finding it interesting. But I have found when you talk to travel agents, especially when I’m doing travel agent trainings, they’re kind of people who maybe aren’t interested in this at all, but want to sell my product. And so helping, you know, talking with them and saying, here’s why.
Jason Elkins (29:27.958)
for your average person who may not be leaning towards paleontology or is interested in dinosaurs beyond having seen the Jurassic movies, will actually find this interesting in the same way that they would find a visit to Machu Picchu interesting or a visit to, you know, a maze, like the Louvre or something interesting. Like here’s the comparison points that make this all so compelling. Here’s the history of paleontology, not just dinosaurs, but here’s the characters that we’ll be looking at through the history of paleontology who are really interesting in their own right that people have never heard of perhaps.
Jason Elkins (30:19.369)
So it’s
Jason Elkins (30:22.962)
into the interest of paleontology, you know, that’s the biggest hurdle I think that I’m facing right now. It’s just being able to communicate, get that out there. Because when I pitch to media and I talk about dinosaurs, everyone’s like, yeah, easy, I get that ready, excited to go. But what’s that next piece that gets other people who are like, yeah, I’d be interested in going to one dinosaur museum. I don’t know about the rest of it kind of thing. Or I don’t know if I want to do two days of a dinosaur dig. Like, isn’t that hot and sweaty? And yes, it is. But there’s more to it.
Right. And I love that. And what comes up for me when you’re sharing that is I’ve spoken with a few people lately, you know, e-bikes are a big thing. And I know it’s not, it’s, I see a parallel because e-bikes are all about, you’ve got somebody in the family who really likes to ride bikes. They’ll get up on the weekend and they’ll ride all weekend. They’ll, you know, go to the next town over whatever. And that’s great. But, you know, husband, wife, the partner, the kids, the whatever, don’t want to go on a bicycling trip to Patagonia and ride bikes every day for, you know, and.
So with the advent of like more e-bikes and possibilities, it’s like, oh, actually, so I could go on a trip with you. I could do my e-bikes. I’m not necessarily sweating my butt off the whole time. I mean, working hard to get up the mountains. I can go have a nice experience and be with my partner and really enjoy that time together. And so that’s kind of the similar opportunity that I hear with you is like, how do we figure out how to make this work for everybody in the family? Because…
You’d mentioned, I heard you say the number $8,000. Did you? I think I did, right? Yeah, that was what our trips last summer went for, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So let’s just use that number. So if you’re, I think you use the term dino nerd. Yeah. And you’re like, man, I want to go on this trip. I know my spouse probably doesn’t have a whole lot of interest in this.
If I spend $8,000 to go by myself, I’m gonna have to buy her at $8,000 trip to Paris or whatever. There’s all kinds of barriers and obstacles and like, you know, and then we’ve got time involved as well. If I’m gonna take a trip, how can I go do that? Cause I promised the kids I was gonna take them somewhere. So yeah, you gotta figure out how to make that work for everybody. Cause that dino nerd won’t even go by himself half the time because of family constraints and the, oh, you’re so selfish. You wanna spend this kind of money to go.
Jason Elkins (32:47.058)
sit in a hole in the, you know, in the Rocky Mountain plains or whatever. So I get that. And so what are some of the. Solutions to that you’ve worked out as far as other activities and how do you lay out something that works for everybody? Not everybody, but you know what I mean? Yeah, of course. I mean.
seems obvious that it balances the key, but you know, it’s, so where do I start from when I’m starting to build an itinerary for dinosaur? Exactly, yeah. So we’ll take the key points. Like I’m, you know, we’re in the process right now building out our trips to Arizona. We’re doing a trip to Arizona and California and one to Utah and Colorado next year. And obviously we’re gonna start with the paleo points. What are the museums that are gonna give us the back access, the behind the scenes, maybe a dig? What are the main ones we wanna hit there? Where do we have?
those kind of ultimate dino experiences that get people past what they can book for themselves. Okay, start there. But then between that, we have to, I put the same weight on what do people wanna see in this destination? What makes this place special? I mean, for Arizona, obviously we’re gonna do the Grand Canyon, and find those things that people are gonna find interesting. People like hikes, adventure travelers who are drawn to dinosaur trip,
So we’re gonna go hiking in some incredible places. And the beauty is finding those experiences that do both for both sides of the equation. That’s where it really gets special. I mean, we did a hike in Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta this past summer, you know, that if you didn’t care one bit about paleontology and the fact that we were finding, you know, amazing dinosaur bones just as we’re along our hike that have been.
brought out by the rain the previous night. Like even if that, if you roll your eyes at that, like who cares, they’re dead, move on. The hike itself through the Badlands, just that alone would be, it’s so gorgeous. And that alone is enough. You know, you don’t need, you don’t have to stop and listen to the paleontologist to get a, we went, you know, we made sure to do, we’re in Alberta. It’s Canada’s cowboy province. We, you know, we’re doing a horseback ride through the Rocky Mountains. We’re doing caving, which yeah, caving, if you’re an adventure traveler, if you’re crawling through these,
Jason Elkins (35:00.386)
deep, deep caves under the Rocky Mountains. That’s cool for almost anybody, as long as you’re into adventure travel. And then, but there’s a geology part of it that anybody who’s into dinosaurs is gonna really, that’s gonna really spark their attention too and get them excited about things. So anything that kind of is gonna serve both sides, that’s the sweet spot on the Venn diagram of what we’re putting together. And there’s also the part, and this can’t really happen until you get people on the journey. But once they’re on the journey, make sure that
the paleontology part of it is accessible for everybody else. Who’s not just the big dino nerd about it. You know, it’s that’s really key because you can get so into the weeds and paleontology, um, you know, and I’m not, I’m not a paleontologist. I didn’t study paleontology at any level. The last time I, before kind of getting back into it in the past few years, I’m reading some great books and listening to some podcasts. The last I dug into it, I was 12 years old.
So I also, you know, I needed reminders on what the difference between a fluoropod and a seropod and a thoracicara, the triacicara was and all these things. But like, you know, make that accessible is key. And I, you know, I send, I send this great book by Steve Brussotti, who’s this awesome paleontologist, send that to all our guests. So at least they have that before, you know, to get excited and that’s very accessible. But then when you’re out there and I see this happen quite a bit and it’s nice.
with the experiences we’ve done so far is the person who maybe was dragged along quote unquote, put them on a dinosaur dig and let them start, you know, chipping away to find a dinosaur bone that’s been buried 75 million years. And they’re gonna get excited about that too, you know, it doesn’t matter who you are, that’s cool. Just when you said that, just when you said that, just the way you said that is, yeah. I’m like, damn, that is pretty, just, yeah, 75 million years. Oh, yeah, so yeah.
And they’re the first ones that done it. That’s what I like to remind people is like, having been in PR and marketing in the travel industry for a while, I know that probably the most overused term we have is discovery. Like, what are you really discovering? 400 people went through that ahead of you this week. Like, you know, discover stuff about yourself and whoever you’re traveling with, I’m sure.
Jason Elkins (37:14.582)
Dinosaur trips, we’re giving you a chance to actually discover something that nobody has seen in somewhere between 66 and 250 million years at times. Hopefully sometime over the course of the existence of my company, somebody is not only just going to find a discovery of like, hey, look, I stumbled upon a bone here of a known species, but hopefully somebody.
at some point might even get that experience to be like, hey, I’ve stumbled upon a bone here, and this is from a species we’ve never seen before. This is an actual legitimate discovery would be the cool. That’s the ultimate for, and the dream is to have even just one guest do that over the course of the existence of this would be amazing. But it’s doable. I’m thinking that might be pretty good for the, yeah, it might be pretty good for the PR. I know the PR works. Yeah, that would help. That would help.
But it is possible. Like, and you know, it’s a marketing thing for me to say it’s possible, but it is possible. And there is, I think a lot of people think we’ve discovered every type of dinosaur. That just isn’t true. Like there’s more species found every year now, you know, than in those first year when all those classics first years, you know, 150 years ago, and paleontology was kind of taking off in what we understand it to be today. And you’ve got your Tyrannosaurus and your Brontosaurus and whatever being discovered. There’s more being discovered.
on an annual basis now than kind of in those first years altogether. People, you don’t hear about it as much, but there’s so much, there is really opportunity for it, which, you know, is exciting for me. And as a marketing angle, it is exciting to be able to tell people. Like, I would never promise that. I won’t even promise that the company will hit that one day. But that is the dream. Yeah. Well, just the possibility. I mean,
Look how many people buy lottery tickets. Right, exactly. We’ve got a much better chance of you discovering a species that has never been discovered than you do in winning the lottery. That I can promise you. And just the drive, that hope and that aspirational, like, oh, make it be, it’s super, super powerful. So that’s cool. And the fact that, like you said, and I hadn’t really thought about it until you said it, but you’re right. This is stuff that’s covered up by dirt. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (39:21.638)
You know, so like if you if I’m on one of your trips and we go out to dig or, you know, we find somewhere that rainstorm had gone through and it’s obviously something just washed out in a creek bed. There’s no doubt about it. Like I’m not going to question when you say, oh my gosh, look at this. It’s a it’s a discovery. We discovered something. I’m not going to question I’m going to look at it and say, you’re damn right. We did, you know, unless it’s got a bunch of lot of loose dirt on it. You guys covered something up from the previous guest.
But otherwise, I mean, look at it. We had a little bit of that this past summer just because Dinosaur Provincial Park is so mind-blowing. Like, I didn’t, I had no idea how incredible the finds we were gonna experience when we were out there. And there was a moment night one after just being like, oh my God, look at the things we did today. Where one of my guests was like, they knew that was it, that was set up, right? I was like, I don’t think so, I’m pretty sure.
We found that, my friend. But it was so cool that there was that second guessing of like, was this real? This is too good to be true. This can’t be like this. It reminds me of a few things. But people would joke, I was a fly fishing guy in Montana. People would joke about, like, oh my gosh, you guys probably come out here at night and put the fish in. Like, no, these are all wild born trout. These are not, they don’t come from the fish atry.
And just that people have that suspicions. I went on a trip in Namibia and I was with an operator. There was, it was kind of a fam trip with a bunch of industry people. And they took us out to where they were gonna do this new camp and they were opening up this area. And the one evening they had one of the guides stumble in it after dark and they said, Oh my gosh, we found something. We found something.
We’re gonna go look at it tomorrow. It was getting dark. We’re not sure what we found, but we’re gonna, it’s really exciting. We’re super excited. And this was around the dinner table. So we’re all like, oh, wow, what is this? So the next morning we get up and they take us and we go on this long walk and we come up on these burial mounds, you know? And there’s this whole story about like, oh, we think they must be from this tribe. And it’s been here at least a couple of hundred years and there’s this whole story.
Jason Elkins (41:33.386)
And we were all so excited. We’re like, my God, this is amazing. We’re so excited. But some of us have been in the tourism business for a while, so we’re also kind of like, that’s amazing, that’s an amazing tour. Is all they need to do is duplicate that every week for the next 20 years. And they’re gonna get all kinds of amazing reviews because everybody’s like, we discovered things nobody had seen. And I was like, it was brilliant. It was either brilliant. I just thought it was just brilliant.
Or maybe it was real. I still to this day don’t know, but the thing was the mounds were sticking out of the ground. So it’s like, obviously, you know, there’s a good chance they were sticking out of ground the day before the day before out of the ground last year. There were plenty of opportunities for this to be discovered by pretty much anybody. So there was always that little doubt in the back of my head was I’m excited. This is great. But is it really like where with what you’re talking about? I get it. That’s different. That’s unique. Yeah, no.
For sure. And I mean, I’ve heard, you know, I understand why people would have some doubt about how genuine this is. I mean, you know, working in the nonprofit sector, we were really careful, especially when it come to like, volunteerism stuff was like, you know, we don’t want to be one of those places where you build the wall for the school and you leave. And it turns out that
the people running the program take down that wall. So the next volunteers and group come in every building. Exactly, like, you know, there’s reason to be skeptical of things for sure in the industry. And I understand that. But I was, yeah, I was just tickled by the fact that this guy was like, that this is, you’re faking this, right? I was like, I just, no. And you know, the same with when we were on the actual dig. It’s like, I mean, the dig site that we were in Northern Alberta was so dense that they don’t, you know,
They just don’t have enough days of not frozen ground and snow up there to dig it all out. They’ve been digging at it for years, but it’s nice to know that all the progress that we made around these bones during the day, it wasn’t just a guy didn’t come in with a bucket overnight and pour dirt back in it so that the next group coming in the day after could have that same kind of experience. But the nerve wracking part of that was like, oh, if we damage these, we damage them. You gotta be careful. It’s scary. Like.
Jason Elkins (43:47.97)
There’s it’s exhilarating, but it’s like, that’s why you’re in there with your toothbrush and your pick or whatever. You’re just being real careful because it’s scary in that sense. You could tell your clients, be real careful because if you break that, then someone else won’t be able to discover it next week. They can’t dig it up next week. We’ve got a limited number of resources, so be gentle because you don’t want to ruin it for, which was what it was in fishing, was like somebody would catch a big fish and they’re like, oh, I want it. Can we kill it? Can we eat it?
And we’d say, no, if we do that, somebody else can’t catch it next week. Which is like, that makes sense. Okay, we put it back in so somebody else can enjoy it, but it’s a little different with what you’re doing. That’s pretty interesting. And there’s so many, I remember I went and visited my dad in Nevada and my son went out like, in like three hours just walking around, came back with like a whole handful of, couple of handful full of Indian heads and spear points and all of a sudden, and I looked at my dad, I’m like, dad, did you set that up?
Because I could just see him out there. Oh, my grandson’s coming. I can go throw some. Of course. Because you can go buy the convenience to the Indian reservations. OK, that’s interesting. Get myself a little off course there. But man, I think you’re really on to something. I’m pretty excited about that. And what I got out of what you said was trying to find that mix was almost what I heard
find a standalone trip that’s almost just a standalone trip, but also just happens to have some really cool paleontology opportunities around it. Like you said, the back, you know, the passes to get into some of those museums, the digs, stuff like that. And if it’s a trip that can stand alone on its own, then you’ve covered that for the partner that’s really not into it. But then they also get, because the reality is, the paleo nerd or the dino nerd,
wants their partner to see something they’re passionate about. I mean, I’ve been around long enough. I’ve been in relationship. I remember when I was a kid and I find something that I was excited about, I want my parents to see it. Or my son now, when you find something that’s exciting, like they wanna be able to share it. So this really gives a, it’s a pretty cool opportunity for, because before you were doing this, and if no one’s doing this, how does the Dino Nerd really share that with anybody?
Jason Elkins (46:14.334)
other than we’re gonna watch Jurassic Park again. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I’ve seen, that’s been, sincerely, that’s been my favorite part of this first year of operations is seeing people get excited about paleontology that we’re never interested in at all. The other people that have come along for the experience and then find themselves as riveted, if not more riveted, than the person who is the paleon nerd because that person knows all this stuff already.
you have to do a little bit more to get the paleo nerd excited about the experience. Whereas, you know, the person who’s come along just as the partner or the, or the, you know, the family member to kind of support this nerdery, um, they, they’ll discover they’re more likely to be like, Oh my God, that’s, we kind of as you were just did, we’re like, Oh yeah, 75 million years. Like nobody, I hadn’t even thought of that. You know, the paleo nerds considered all this many, many times before, but the newbie to it is like,
What? I have no, there’s a lot more amazing discovery that can happen. I mean, I had this, you know, I find this very convertible to other things. Like I was just in Spain for an actual proper vacation for a couple of weeks. And I love going to museums of any time. We were in art museums and I studied, I took some art history classes back in university. I barely remember anything about them. Like I can’t, you can’t sit me, I can name you a couple artists and that’s the best I can do. But we’re near and there and you’re reading about it and you’re learning, you know, this was in direct.
response to the previous movement that you just seen in the previous room or, or you’re looking at a Picasso in person for, and you’re just like, Oh, I get this now. And you know, that converts to paleontology to that kind of experience where once you’re into the museum or once you’re in with the experts or somebody who can really shine a light on whatever it is in any aspect of tourism, one, you know, that’s, that’s part of the thrill of traveling and traveling and, you know, kind of a guided way is.
can unlock these things. It’s very convertible in paleontology. And, you know, like, like I try and tell people from the business side of things, you know, look at how much money Jurassic Park has made over the years, you know, the Jurassic World movies and everything that’s attached to it. And, you know, this is kind of silly, but I also think it’s applicable. It’s like, where’s look at the Da Vinci code. Was that the big? No, like, and that’s all about art, which everybody will travel to museums and the museums are packed in Europe. And I love to see that. You know, I know people are like, I know, like I said, but
Jason Elkins (48:36.866)
People are interested, but dinosaurs is something that, that child part of you and even the adult gets excited about. And so once you, it’s just a little bit, there’s a bit more of a threshold to get people across to go, oh yeah, this is worth seeing in the same way it’s worth going into the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa or something like that. It’s worth that to go see Sue the T-Rex at the Field Museum in Chicago, because this is also one of a kind and there’s so much story to be told around it.
And once you get people in there in front of it, it’s not something that I find difficult for them to understand. I even took friends this year with, as I’ve been really pushing this, I took them to the Royal Ontario Museum here in Toronto to see they had this special T-Rex exhibit. And they came with me, cause I was like, come with me, I’m pushing it. And then you get people in there like, what, really cool. And you just see people’s faces light up. Once they’re in front of the art or the music, or in our case, the 30 foot tall skeleton.
You’re gonna find that awe anyways, but it’s, you know, how do you get people over the threshold of aren’t dinosaurs for kids? That can be a little bit more of a challenging than, you know, isn’t Picasso for children? No, nobody thinks that, you know, that has a more high-minded piece to it, so. I get it. I really do. I’m happy we had this conversation because it’s helping me kind of shift some of my, not that I had a negative mindset about dinosaur stuff, it just wasn’t.
I’m just honestly, I’m just imagining myself finding a little chip of bone, of fossilized dinosaur bone and how cool that would be. Cause I do, I’ve found like arrowheads and stuff before and I think it’s really cool. I’m like, that’s super cool. But you know, yeah, I like that. Yeah. I get excited sometimes. I get excited sometimes when I just find it, this might sound weird, but like sometimes when you’re out in the wilderness and you find a carcass,
you know, cada body. I’m not gonna use the word cadaver, or cus, it’s a different meaning. Different meaning. I rewatched the movie Stand By Me, not too late. Right, there you go. But, you know, I’m like, I’m curious. I’m like, I wonder what it died from. And I look around to see, does it look like animals have drugged the bones around? And this is all like probably happened within the last year. And it’s like taking that to a whole nother level.
Jason Elkins (50:58.51)
I mean, I was a kid, I found a cat when I was a kid. I’ll probably edit this out, but I found a cat when I was a kid that had been out in the woods for a while. And I brought it home and boiled all the bones. Cause I had this grand idea that I was gonna put it all back together just like the dinosaurs that you see at the museum. And I thought that was pretty cool. So I can imagine how I’d feel if I found dinosaur bones. So.
Exactly. It’s exhilarating. It really is super thrilling for anybody, for all the reasons you just said. Any discovery is cool. It just is. And then when you’ve got the person there who can tell you what this animal was, how it lived, where it… You start to get into the wildlife nature of it too, which I think a lot of people until you’re in front of it don’t make that leap.
that kids kind of do. Kids are able to imagine these creatures, I find a lot in their setting, just their imaginations are, I think, more alive and open to these things. Whereas once you get an expert there who is good at communicating, which can be its own challenge, but once you have that, and they can point to that, then you see people really light up to it. Like, oh, the imagination clicks on all of a sudden, and they start to put this real world context of like, I’m standing in a place where, you know,
this specific species of dinosaur that I didn’t, I’d never heard of till four seconds ago, but you know, and now I understand that it lived in a herd of a thousand, 10,000 and it was hunted by a T-Rex or an Albertosaurus or whatever, what have you, you know? And then they start to kind of come alive with the story, even if 20 minutes ago they were like, I’m going to be bored by this. You know, I just had this thought that it would be fascinating to,
Jason Elkins (52:44.206)
you know, you’re talking about the big herds and everything. And I’m like, okay, like the great migration, you know, the wildebeest and the lions and the this and the that. And I’m, I don’t know, I’m sure that you’re looking at, or you’re aware of paleontology opportunities in places like in close proximity. Like, wouldn’t that be cool to go out and do like a safari and then do have that conversation about the paleontology in this like, when it’s really fresh in your mind, because if you just talk about herds,
going as far as you can see of dinosaurs or anything, most people can’t get their head around that. But you go to a place like the Serengeti and you see that and then you have the opportunity to connect that with dinosaurs at the same time as like, ooh, now I kinda get it. Yeah, exactly.
Jason Elkins (53:34.466)
And that’s exactly what we’re looking to do in Africa. And we’re not doing that in 2024, but beyond that, where we’re looking across the African continent, there’s so many big opportunities. And yeah, with exactly what you’re talking about in mind, it’s like, you know, the narrative is important to me. I mean, not just because my background’s as a writer, but like just being in, seeing how effective storytelling is in this industry, you know, you want your itinerary to craft a narrative and having that opportunity of what you were just talking about to the, you know, yes, let’s take people out, let’s show them.
the modern day migration and how wild I’ve seen it myself. It’s just mind boggling how wildly impressive it is. And then we do, you know, you bring in the paleontology part and you point to, and this would have been happening, you know, with creatures 10 times the size of a zebra and in the same numbers. And, you know, I can’t, I’m so excited to be able to bring people out and kind of unlock that part of the imagination, even for myself, you know, I’m talking about it and I’m dreaming of it, but then I know when I get out there hosting the trips and
the expert that we bring along starts to kind of connect A to B. I’m just going to, you know, I don’t exaggerate when I think, we’ll make the hair on my arm stand up. It’s just exciting to think about. No, it is. And you’re, I got to give it to you. The subject’s fascinating, but you’re also, you are a good storyteller. Right before you said that hair standing up on your arms, I was thinking, yeah, it’s kind of like a little bit of a chill. It’s like, how frigging cool, would that be? And you touched on a couple of things. One is
Do you use the term dino nerd in your marketing other than when you show up on a podcast? Yeah, we’ve got, yeah, I use the nerd term a lot. Like especially in like some of our main marketing is like so that you can nerd out on more than just the dinosaur stuff, you know? So you can nerd out on the food, the drinks, the destination, the art within the, you know, the culture. We want you to nerd out on everything. That’s, I love that. Did, cause I don’t know that much. I don’t really know much about paleontology at all. And
I wonder like in marketing, like, do you run the risk of offending your target audience? Or do you think they’re pretty much just, yeah, I know I’m a nerd. They know they’re nerds. Everybody knows. They’ve probably been told a few times. Exactly. Like when I was a kid, you didn’t want to be a nerd. Like I was, you know, that was something I tried. I was definitely called that in school as the guy who started a company called Dinosaur Trips and not a shock. But you know,
Jason Elkins (55:54.498)
Now Marvel and all that, that change, you can be a nerd Bradley now. It’s not what it used to be at all. So no, I don’t worry too much about offending anybody in that line. And if that’s a line that isn’t gonna work for you, then dinosaur trips probably aren’t gonna work for you because you gotta be able to poke fun of how nerdy this is. Yeah, and you as an operator, do you want someone on the trip that’s…
that hypersensitive. Exactly. That’s not gonna work for me. I don’t want to be seen with you nerds. Exactly. It’s more like, hey, we’re all in it together. What am I trying to think? Sheldon and his crew. Oh, the Big Bang Theory. Big Bang Theory. I love those guys. I mean, they’re just so cool. And I was a music nerd or, you know, they used other terms. Maybe not the nerd term, but like a band geek or whatever.
Okay, so what at the time it maybe it bothered me, but if you can’t embrace that later in life, then I kind of feel bad for you. It’s like, man, life must be difficult if you’re still carrying that stuff. No, I think people, I think the nerd term is where Warren was quite a bad, almost a bad honor for a lot of people these days, you know? Yeah, yeah, well, and sometimes we get to explain that to our kids, it’s like, oh, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Right. Because that probably means they’ll be working for you.
or whatever. So, all right. That’s very cool. We’ve covered quite a bit. I’m super excited to learn more about what you’re doing as you progress and keep an eye on your trips and getting involved and, you know, maybe getting some listeners of the show here to maybe get together and go on one of your trips as well. And it just sounds pretty cool. I’m happy that we connected. I’m happy that you were doing that marketing outreach and I came across it. And I’ll tell you.
I did not have to see your ad more than once. It was, you know, sometimes I get, trust me in my feed, I get a lot of tour operator ads and cause I, cause I’m reaching out to people. I’m Googling stuff all the time. And yours was one, like the very first time I saw it. I mean, I don’t even know if I saw it a second time. I’m sure I have with retargeting or something, but I was like, yep, got it. I have it, did a little screenshot of my phone so I could email it to myself. So the next morning I could make sure and reach out to you and ask you if you’d.
Jason Elkins (58:15.698)
if you’d participate and you did. So thank you so much. I’m happy you did. Is there anything else? Actually, there’s one thing else I wanna ask you because you kind of brought it up. You had mentioned, you know, I’m not a paleontologist. And when you said that, I thought, you know what? That probably helps you in tourism. The fact you’re not a paleontologist. And I’m not trying to, you know, no biases or biases or.
know, stereotypes or anything like that. But I also recognize that maybe some paleontologists didn’t go into paleontologists with the into paleontology with the idea of leading tours or hosting groups or dealing with people. Exactly. So how do you find people that are a good fit, that are actually going to enjoy having these people walking around in their dig site?
or enjoy sharing something that’s really important to them with the risk that maybe the people that are listening maybe won’t be as excited as they are. Very carefully. You’re asking about challenges. That’s been one of the biggest challenges I faced in creating Dinosaur Trips is finding the right paleontologist to lead. Partnered in some capacity with the great paleontologist, Dr. Brian Curtis,
He’s a great science communicator, is excited about people. That’s been fantastic. Partnered with some great paleontologists in Chicago last year for a…
a double nerd dip where we did the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, and then also did the Field Museum and the behind the scenes there. So that was, I mean, that was just me completely indulging myself in every way, shape and form. But it’s, you know, I’ve got to do the same as looking into putting an itinerary together. The research of who we have leading these things is really, really important. Who’s the, you know, Dr. Curry is a dream. I mean, this guy was
Jason Elkins (01:00:14.678)
Yeah, he’s so good with people and people of all ages. And he’s excited to still be talking about dinosaurs. He, you know, I think one of the reasons he’s been so successful in his career, besides the fact that he’s a genius when it comes to this stuff, is just his part of his want is to share his enthusiasm for paleontology and dinosaurs with other people. Whereas you can see so many, and I get it. Like you went into paleontology, you went into something that sends you out into the desert to focus on, you know, a four by four foot of ground with a
toothpick for five months, not five months, but five weeks, you might not be the most person facing person that there is out there. So the people that have, you know, self-selected for this field aren’t always, are usually not gonna be ideal for leading experiences, but they do exist. There are people out there. You know, Yara Haridi is another one who I’ve been talking to and Bethany Burak who runs this.
organization called BK Bones is going to be leading some of our family trips. You know, these are people who, you know, just by kind of really pushing myself into the paleontology community, community as an outsider, seeing, you know, who’s on social media and doing a good job of communicating with people and then getting on the phone with them and having a conversation and just seeing if they actually connect with humans in a way that, you know, and then there’s, and then there’s still some of them who are really good with people and really good at, you know, communication on your normal let’s have a chat level, but.
aren’t good at breaking down science for the newbies and the normies like myself. We’re like, yeah, I know the difference between the Jurassic and the Triassic and the Cretaceous period, but you might even have to remind me of when one ended and when the next one began, or don’t start getting into the deep end on the name of this bone, because I don’t know where that goes on the anatomy of a dinosaur. You gotta find somebody who also gets that. Most of us are young.
introductory level, but then able to go to that when the super nerd on the trip has the question about a certain bone on the vertebrae or something can also speak to that. So it’s really starting a needle. And it’s not going to get upset when he’s heard the same question from the same person three times in the last three minutes. Yeah, exactly. What is that again? Yeah. Oh, I can’t remember, you know, and that can be like a little difficult for people that are super
Jason Elkins (01:02:35.894)
you know, maybe your next endeavor could be like astronomy tours. I don’t know. Astronomy is pretty fascinating. Yeah. I think of a lot of astronomers that are probably like, they like being alone and looking at imagery from space and analyzing stuff and, and may not be super as excited to, to share it. And I’m imagining like a job posting as your business continues to grow and not everybody working for you is going to be a paleontologist. I can envision you probably have.
more traditional triplet trip leaders that obviously have an interest in that type of thing. And I’m imagining like a job posting, you know, from your company, like we’re looking for somebody that’s, you know, outgoing, super friendly, likes to, you know, likes to sit and have conversations with clients at the lodge till midnight, whatever, just like, and super organized and da da, and also has, you know, PhD in paleontology. I’m like, wow, yeah, that’s like a little tougher than
Virtually every other tour operator in the world that can just stop at the friendly, outgoing, curious, open-minded or whatever. You do add a whole nother level to it that’s really quite fascinating. Yeah, I mean, the way we, you know, I don’t know that we’ll ever put that kind of job posting out there to be honest with you. I think the reality of it is- I don’t think you could. The reality of it is is, yeah, we find the people, we find the people along the way.
who can be the paleontologist and the rest of it, get that person that you’re talking about. The most prevalent company. That person’s probably not looking for tour leader jobs. You gotta figure that out. Yeah, exactly. You talk about self-selecting as a pretty big thing in everything, but especially in tourism, just the people that go on the trips, the people that lead the trips, yeah, it’s an important distinction. So, all right, well.
Certainly appreciate you. Look forward to seeing more, hearing more, and experiencing some of this stuff as well. Really happy that you’re able to join me. So thank you, Zach, I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It’s been a really fun conversation, actually. So I really enjoyed it so much. Well, and I should have mentioned, just so you know, yes, we’ll have a link to your website. Is there anything else that people should have? Is that the best place to start to connect with you? Or is there anything else that people should know about connecting with you other than the link
Jason Elkins (01:04:58.526)
in the show notes that goes directly to your website. Yeah, no, I mean, dinosaurtrips.com is the best way to find us. It’s got our destinations for 2024 coming up as well as some previews where we’re doing beyond that. But if people have questions beyond, I’m always inviting them to email me, zack at dinosaurtrips.com. And that’s Z-A-C-H or Z-A-C-H as we say up in Canada. So, Zach at Dinosaur Trips.
I like talking as I’m sure anyone who’s listening to this pod this far has seen, and I’m happy to just chat through what we do with anybody who’s interested beyond just finding out where we’re going and seeing the prices and stuff. Very cool. Well, thanks again, Zach. You have a great day. Thanks so much. Take care.
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