A Lifetime of Trips

There are a few enduring phrases that have become permanently etched in our collective consciousness when we talk about or plan iStock_000011085397 travel to places remote and often exotic. And the one phrase that must surely be at top of anyone’s list is just five words. But oh my, the power of those words: once-in-a-lifetime-trip.

I must confess I have always had a big problem with that phrase. And frankly, I hope you do, too. Why? Because it implies one trip, a singular one-time experience. Now maybe it’s just me being too literal, but I think we should all bid adieu to the word “once”. And change the whole thing to read: one-of-my-lifetime-trips. Ahhh…doesn’t that feel so much better? It’s still just five words. But the ‘s’ tacked onto the word trip is huge. It takes the pressure off; it’s not like you and I have to make the perfect choice and that if we don’t we’ll end up regretting it for the rest of our lives.

And even if you somehow truly know you have just taken the so-called trip-of-a-lifetime, if you are like most adventure travelers chances are you’ve still got lots of places on the globe you want to go and will go. The world awaits you…so let’s get started.

Just in case you need a little inspiration, here are some of the key findings from a recent survey titled “The Trip of a Lifetime Travel Report 2010″. Ugghh, there’s that pesky phrase again. But the goal of the study, conducted by GeckoGo, iExplore and Lasso Communications, was to obtain a snapshot of consumer attitudes from travelers worldwide about taking “lifetime” trips, what destinations are considered, the importance of travel companions, price and duration.

So where do most people want to go and what do they want to do? 70% of the respondents said they are most interested in visiting natural and man-made wonders such as the Pyramids, Machu Picchu or Victoria Falls. Beyond that, 53% want to go on safari and 42% want a rainforest expedition. The top ten destinations:

Around-the-world
Australia/New Zealand
Africa (overland)
Antarctica
Egypt
Italy
Peru
India
South Africa
Greece

And what do you think is considered THE most important consideration in planning a lifetime trip? Yep, it’s who you go with. 50% said “who I travel with” is very important, followed by “being able to fulfill a personal goal (45%). The length of the trip and how challenging it is were of only moderate importance.

If you’re one of those who thinks a lifetime trip has to be costly, you might want to reconsider. Nearly 30% of the respondents reported they are willing to spend between $2,000-$3,999 (excluding airfare) and 25% are willing to spend between $4,000-$5,999. The survey reveals planned trips tend to both longer and more costly than actual trips, reflecting the obvious constraints of time and money. But do you really need an over-the-top uber-luxury safari camp? There are literally hundreds of amazing lodges and camps that are affordable and quite honestly provide a much more authentic and often intimate Africa experience.

So where will you go next? And next? And next after that? We all have our life list and I’d love to hear from you with your trips-of-a-lifetime list. Me? I’m still at the very beginning of the alphabet with places that end in “a” – the Atacama & Bolivia, Cuba, Zambia, Mongolia, Petra, Slovenia and Sri Lanka. Guess I better get packing.

About the author: Proof that following your passion is always a good road to travel, Mark has been blessed to work for some of the world’s best travel & hospitality companies including Mountain Travel Sobek, Virtuoso, TCS Expeditions and Kimpton Hotels. As the founder of Solaia Consulting he now offers marketing, branding, operations and general management expertise to his clients. He resides in Seattle with his wife, two boys and their Bernese Mountain Dog.

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Of Guides, Artists & Linchpins

linchpin “Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient.”
- Seth Godin

I just finished reading Seth’s latest book, Linchpin – Are you Indispensable? It’s a challenging and inspiring call-to-arms for each and every one of us to become a linchpin…”the people that invent, lead, connect others, make things happen, create order from chaos, figure out to do when there’s no rule book, and delight their customers and peers. Linchpins love their work, pour their best selves into it and turn each day into a kind of art.”

It was when I read the word last word line paragraph above—art—that I thought of guides…the trip leaders who I’ve traveled with that made my journey one that exceeded my expectations, surprised me, delighted me, changed me. Their joy, passion and enthusiasm were immense…and genuine. The best guides are ones who routinely and seemingly without effort are able to elevate their work into an art form. And it made me realize that given an identical itinerary, you could have a very different experience depending on your guide.

With good reason, the best tour operators obsess over selecting, training and nurturing their guides. After all, once the trip departs, the operator’s brand is embodied and delivered by the guides and other field staff assigned to the trip. Here’s how Kurt Kutay, who along with his wife Anne are the co-founders and owner of Wildland Adventures, define what makes an exceptional guide:

“Being a really good Wildland guide is a really easy job (hah!). Actually, it requires a knowledge of history, ecology, archaeology, or other areas of expertise, first-aid training, in addition to having leadership skills and being a good communicator and a great listener. But the most important thing is to be, and to share, your genuine Self! If Wildland travelers are the initiates who seek to connect with the people and the places we visit, then our guides are their best friends who take them down new pathways by encouraging, sharing and supporting the traveler to be open-hearted and open-minded to new experiences.

Our goal is to share a real world without artifice, that craves our understanding and compassion rather than our judgment; a world that seeks to welcome us rather than entertain us. And to accomplish this, above all other factors, it’s the guides: guides are the catalyst between travelers and their experience.

Having the right guide that creates the ‘Wild Style’ experience is the difference between magic and mediocrity in travel. There are many trained naturalists, excellent tour escorts, and knowledgeable historians and archaeologists, but we seek native guides with the requisite wide range of skills and character: a sufficient command of multiple languages, the requisite knowledge and the skill to impart the information, the experience to lead, but above all else a personality that is open to sharing a part of themselves, and their personal beliefs and values, which creates an opening that induces heart-to-heart interactions between travelers and their hosts.

With guides like this, who bring with them a smile and good-natured sense of humor, our guests go farther in their journey to know a place deeper, to discover themselves better, and to develop closer emotional ties to others they meet along the way. Therefore, it’s not just about the ability to transmit information succinctly and quickly to the traveler, but more importantly to create experiences unwritten in a published itinerary that often become the most meaningful and memorable simply because they are real, unplanned and in-depth.

The criteria for excellence in guiding have changed from knowing the place to facilitating the most profound and meaningful experiences that travel can provide. This is only accomplished by knowing the individual traveler; not only from knowing what the individual traveler wants, but knowing what the individual traveler should want and how to artfully deliver it.”

Godin says “If art is a human connection that causes someone to change his mind, then you are an artist.” In my experience, an artist guide is the catalyst that sets the stage for the magic of travel that transforms and inspires us as we celebrate and embrace the incredible diversity of our planet and its peoples.

In a future article, I will share with you the key questions you’ll want to ask an outfitter before you entrust them with your money and precious vacation time.

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One World is Enough

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

- Henry Miller

I suspect for some of you the words live large probably conjures up McMansions, $800 shoes, lavish yachts and all sorts of other self-indulgent toys and behavior that continue to be celebrated in wretched excess by mainstream media. I think we’re long overdue for a new travel-centric definition of what it means to live large. A definition that embraces sustainability, responsibility and stewardship of our planet.

To me, living large (and treading lightly!) means getting out of my comfort zone to deeply appreciate myself and my fellow human beings, and to preserve the richly vibrant flora and fauna that make up our wondrous and fragile planet. It is precisely this belief—along with my love of connecting and inspiring enlightened travelers with the companies and destinations that offer adventure & experiential travel both close to home and to the far corners of the globe—that inspired me to start this blog.

As I wrote this, I thought of the times when I have felt myself most truly alive. When I was humbled, awed, challenged and ultimately transformed. And sure enough, it was when I was definitely out there and often out of my comfort zone…or when I was surprised and delighted by an experience that was better (or very different) than I had expected. Simply put, I came home different…and definitely the better for it.

I think of snorkeling in Baja when without warning an armada of rays came leaping above us, literally right next to us, and swimming below us. After the initial wave of a few dozen, I realized I had a huge grin on my face and I like to think the rays might have been smiling and laughing as well. Whatever, they sure seemed to be having fun.

I think of being in Moroccan desert late at night and looking at the reflections of my fellow travelers lit by lanterns as they danced around the inside of the dining tent, led by our local guides with their quick smiles and infectious enthusiasm. And I remember the wizened old Berber man who led the support camels from camp site to camp site…how kind he was and the tears that were in his (and my) eyes when he bid us goodbye. We didn’t speak Berber and he didn’t speak English, but honestly, words were unnecessary.

I think of the infants and children I saw at the Mother Teresa orphanage in Kolkata who surely would have otherwise perished without the loving care they received from the staff. Of how our donation of some cash and the pooled leftovers of our gourmet box lunches from our 5-star hotel seemed so very small yet meant so much to the grateful staff. And I can’t erase the searing memory of the stench of heaping mounds of garbage that lay in piles on the streets just outside the facility. The contrasts of India are undeniably jarring. But I have never seen or felt the human spirit to be as alive as I did in India.

Finally, I think of being completely awestruck as I witnessed a mother humpback and her baby swim right up to and directly underneath our skiff in the icy waters off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula; the mother whale’s tail was nearly the size of our skiff and one flick could have easily sent us into the frigid water. Our expedition leader thought the mother was teaching the baby to navigate and hunt; I felt nature had just given me one of the most powerful lessons in faith I’ve ever experienced.

A friend of mine has described adventure travel as medicine that cures us of alienation, frees us from the bondage of self-obsession and helps us to experience the whole and vibrant world. As I’m sure you’d agree, there are very few other types of travel that offer you the opportunity to both receive and give such an incredible and transformative gift. This is truly living large, version 2.0.

I hope this will inspire your imagination and you’ll begin dreaming about where your next adventure vacation will take you. In my upcoming posts I’ll be writing about trends, people, places, activities and more to help you make your dream a reality. Besides their unmistakable passion for what they do, the people, companies and destinations I’ll feature also have something else in common – they are all members of the Adventure Travel Trade Association. The mission of the ATTA is to raise the profile of adventure travel in the world travel market and provide a unifying voice for the industry in innovating and disseminating environmentally and culturally sensitive practices.

In the spirit of what really matters and each of us doing our part to restore balance and heal our planet, I wanted to share with you a program called The Footprints Network which aggregates thousands of consumer micro donations made while conducting online transactions in order to help fund community development projects that fight poverty worldwide.

The global initiative was organized in 2004 by WorldNomads.com a company that is setting the travel services industry bar for corporate social responsibility. As of this writing, 316,647 people have helped raise $821,580 for 54 projects around the world. Each individual contribution ranges from $1 to $5, and helps in the fight to alleviate crushing poverty and the health, social and environmental ills that accompany it which today affects over two billion people that live on less than $2 a day. Projects include eyesight restoration, farming, education, clean water, sanitation and other essentials. Most of the projects The Footprints Network supports are in developing countries, which yield the greatest social return on investment.

WorldNomads.com supports all administrative costs of the program so 100 percent of donations go directly to the projects. The Footprints Network is an alliance of e-commerce companies and their customers plus project partners. For travel services, charitable contributions and more information please visit WorldNomads.com.

Until next time, dream big and live large. I’d love to hear from you with your comments, questions and suggestions: mark@livinglarge.travel.

About the author: Proof that following your passion is always a good road to travel, Mark has been blessed to work for some of the world’s best travel & hospitality companies including Mountain Travel Sobek, Virtuoso, TCS Expeditions and Kimpton Hotels. As the founder of Solaia Consulting he now offers marketing, branding, operations and general management expertise to his clients. He resides in Seattle with his wife, two boys and their Bernese Mountain Dog.

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