A Day in the Life of the Adventure Travel Industry

I truly feel blessed that I have one of the best careers in the world. People continuously ask "How did you get into adventure travel?" It's not the most common of jobs for many. So I thought I'd dedicate a blog topic to how I got into the industry.

From a very young age I had my nose in the travel section of the newspaper, even though I'd never been outside of Ontario until I was 17. My first trip was to the Bahamas, with a girlfriend. We booked on a two week soujourn, that turned into one month when we were invited to sail from Freeport to Nassau. From here, I became hooked.

Sadly my mother passed away very young, 46. She always wanted to travel the world, but never had the opportunity because she was raising children. Before she died she told me to see the world. She told me not to wait until tomorrow because one never knows what tomorrow holds. Those words of wisdom have made me what I am today. She was, and still is my inspiration.

At the age of 20 I set off for a 5 year trip, my goal was to work my way around the world. I started with a job in Vancouver, I'm originally from Toronto. I worked for 8 months at Expo 86. I had 3 jobs there, all tourism related, working day and night trying to make as much money as I could to fund my long journey as long as possible. It was here that I met so many interesting people who were heading to Asia and the Pacific and I got the inspiration to follow their tracks. I booked a circle Pacific ticket with 17 stops for $1500. Destinations included Tahiti, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii and LA. I stayed for 8 months in Australia working and bunny hopped through the other countries, staying as long as I felt the need to.

From here, I was inspired to make it to Asia. My first destination being Japan. Now I heard that Japan was really expensive and for a backpacker, would have to find work quickly before the funds started to deplete quickly. My plan was to teach English. I bought second hand Levis from the Venice Beach in LA, and sold them to the first shop I found in Tokyo. The Japanese loved anything American in those days.

Japan was my first challenging destination because I couldn't read the street signs, the language was so very foreign from English and the emperor died when I arrived. The latter meant that the whole country stopped and it was impossible to find work during that time. I stayed one month, but my funds were depleting quickly so decided to head to South East Asia where my dollar would stretch further. I flew to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and arrived just as the Thaipusam Hindu Festival was taking place. Wow, talk about culture shock. This festival is a fascinating religious festival that occurs annually to cleanse the soul. It's too indepth to write about here, but I'll perhaps dedicate a blog entry to it at a later date.

I found Malaysia difficult because of the festival, and as a young 21 year old, was overwhelmed when the locals were trying to touch my hair and get into my personal space. I didn't realize at that time that people in Asia don't have the same sense of space that we have in North America. One of the many experiences one encounters from venturing outside of our comfort zones.

I took the bus through Malaysia up to the south of Thailand and landed in beautiful Ko Phi Phi. One of the islands that was devastated by the tsunami. I fell in love in Thailand, not only with the country, but with one of the locals. This is where the cultural side of BikeHike was born. I stayed for two years in Thailand, living with the local people, as a local Thai. I was the only white person on the island of Koh Yao Noi in those days, so it was challenging, yet culturally fascinating. I lived like a Thai and really got to know the culture and the language intimately. It was fascinating.

I worked in marketing and sales for a sea kayaking company in Phuket for a good portion of my time in Thailand, as well as part time guiding.

After 2 years in Thailand I decided I needed the west so ventured south to Australia again and then made my way to LA where I worked as a fitness instructor for awhile.

Finally 5 years later I returned to Canada with lots of travel experiences under my belt and decided it was time to return to school and get the piece of paper under my belt. I studied tourism and fitness leadership for 2 years and as soon as I graduated got picked up by a couple of companies asking if I'd be keen to guide full time. One offer was in Thailand and the other Costa Rica. Now since I'd never been to Costa Rica, that was very appealing to me and that was the one I chose.

Although I'd never been to Costa Rica, the company I worked for knew that I'd had plenty of travel experience, which made me a desirable candidate for a job as a tour leader. It came easily with all of my international experience.

I stayed in South and Central America for 2 years, bouncing between countries guiding in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Chile, Belize, Argentina and Peru. It was pretty heavenly while in my 20's.

In my late 20's it was time to be a little more settled, and have a place I called home, rather than just a suitcase so I returned to Canada and found work in another adventure travel company, this time in the office. That lasted one year. I learned a lot but soon realized that I had too much of an independent streak to be able to work under someone else. With all of my years of travel experiences and contacts that I'd made I decided to give it a try on my own. That was in 1994. It's been an amazing ride and I know that there are many fabulous years to come.

For those of you who are interested in following this path, my advise is to get out there into the world, experience, taste, meet people, network, let the wind blow you in the direction you are meant to be. That type of experience is what it takes to make it in this industry, first hand, hands on, life-altering experiences. You will be very valuable to any adventure travel company if you can show that you have lived abroad and experienced the world and the many exotic cultures.

I hope this little bit of insight is something that can help lead you down a very exiting path.

In the spirit of adventure,
Trish Sare