Adventure Travel with Kim Bennett - AtlasGuru

Kim Bennett
Founder/CEO
AtlasGuru

Kim Bennett is a passionate leader with a mission to revolutionize travel planning through building an AI itinerary to Advisor. She launched AtlasGuru to empower travelers with honest information, sourced from a global community and uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology to personalize trip planning using human-curated itineraries from the platform.

Before AtlasGuru, Kim had over 15 years of experience in senior marketing roles for renowned companies like Condé Nast, Martha Stewart, Amazon, and Nordstrom.

summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small podcast, host Jason Elkins interviews Kim Bennett, founder and CEO of AtlasGuru, a modern travel company that leverages travelers' stories to create AI-generated itineraries. Kim shares her journey from a corporate marketing background to launching AtlasGuru, discussing the challenges faced during the COVID pandemic and the integration of AI in travel planning. The conversation explores the motivations behind sharing travel experiences, the importance of partnerships with travel advisors, and the evolving role of technology in personalizing travel. Kim emphasizes the significance of storytelling in travel and the need for a human touch in the digital age.

takeaways

• AtlasGuru combines travelers' stories with AI to create itineraries.
• Kim's love for travel began with a desire to explore beyond her hometown.
• Launching a travel business during COVID presented unique challenges.
• AI enhances the travel planning experience by providing personalized itineraries.
• Travelers are motivated to share their experiences for storytelling and connection.
• Partnerships with travel advisors enhance the AtlasGuru experience.
• Understanding traveler demographics helps tailor services effectively.
• AI can assist in personalizing travel while maintaining a human element.
• Balancing personal relationships with a passion for travel can be challenging.
• The future of travel planning will increasingly rely on technology and storytelling.

Learn more about Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Marketing and join our private community to get episode updates, special access to our guests, and exclusive adventure travel offers on our website.

Transcript

Jason Elkins (00:01.026)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. We've got a very interesting guest today. I've spent a little bit of time digging around on her website and pretty fascinated by what she's doing. She'll tell us about that here in a second. But her name is Kim Bennett. Kim is the founder and CEO of AtlasGuru. Kim, welcome to the show.

Kim Bennett (00:21.442)
Hi Jason, thank you for having me.

Jason Elkins (00:23.636)
It's a real pleasure to have you here. We're going to spend most of this conversation probably discussing kind of how you got to the point where you're at. But before we go there, if you give us kind of like the 30 second, maybe 60 second elevator pitch for what is AtlasGuru, just so the listeners can kind of be keyed in on that, and then we'll come back and discuss it more.

Kim Bennett (00:43.416)
Sure, sure. Well, yeah, so AtlasGuru, we are really a modern travel company. And what that means is that we take travelers' stories and travelers who share their travel experiences on AtlasGuru. And we take all that knowledge and information. And other travelers can build their AI travel itineraries using all that great information.

and build out their dream trips using AI. And then we also now are layering in travel advisors to help make those trips come to life. So we kind of offer a little bit of everything for everyone.

Jason Elkins (01:25.23)
Very, very cool. I appreciate that. We're going to come back because there's a lot of interesting things that you're doing. So we're definitely going to come back to that. And I've got to already have a few questions, but I don't want to get too distracted because we could spend an hour just talking about your website and the process. But I find that it's oftentimes it's the story behind the person doing the stuff that's really kind of what our listeners want to hear. Before I hit the record button, I mentioned you. It's kind of that conversation is like, oh, you have a technology travel modern website. How did you get into that?

So we're going to go back. We're going to do that. We're going to go back as far as we need to go to kind of figure out how this all came about. And sometimes we go back to young childhood and other times not. So how far should we go back?

Kim Bennett (02:06.296)
We don't have to go that far back. no, no, I mean, guess my, my, my trap, my love of travel has always been there. I've always been very curious. I've always loved exploring new cities, new destinations, jumping on a plane and going somewhere exciting.

Jason Elkins (02:08.799)
Well, you say that. We'll see. Go ahead.

Kim Bennett (02:30.02)
And I've actually, my background is really more corporate America. So I actually have a pretty traditional background when it comes to working in big companies doing marketing and advertising. So I spent many, many years doing that.

Jason Elkins (02:45.614)
But I'll tell you what though, because I heard you say, no, we don't need to go to my childhood. then immediately I heard you say, I've always had a love for travel and exploring and curiosity. And I'm guessing some of that probably started when you were a little younger. So if you don't mind, how do you think that? Because not everybody has that love of travel. A lot of people have never left the city they were born in. So help me understand how you got into that.

Kim Bennett (02:49.314)
huh.

Kim Bennett (03:01.368)
Sure.

Kim Bennett (03:09.526)
Yeah. I mean, it was more I literally moved out of my parents' home the day after high school graduation and headed into the big city of Seattle, which was my hometown, really. I now live outside of Philadelphia. But, you know, I mean, there's so much more to explore and see. And I definitely had the bug of jumping in a car or a plane or a train and

and wanting to see different things. No, not at all. No.

Jason Elkins (03:42.27)
But were you exposed to that before you moved out? Okay. That's where I was going was because sometimes we have these conversations like, well, it's because somebody gave me National Geographic magazine and my parents never traveled. They never wanted to go anywhere, but I always had that. So when you were growing up, you weren't traveling. Were you thinking about going? Was there something that inspired you that as soon as you could, you went and did it?

Kim Bennett (04:01.31)
sure.

Kim Bennett (04:05.664)
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we all have these, you know, different ideas of what is different from their home, you know, space. And that was for me, I decided not I was, I wanted to get out of my small suburban hometown and try something new. And so no, we did not necessarily we were not a traveling family. But you know, I, yeah, National Geographic, of course, I grew up with that. In fact, that was my

first career idea was to be a National Geographic photographer. So I, yes, I love National Geographic and I love photography and that was kind of an early start for me is to be a photographer. I actually spent two years studying photography. So just having that, you know,

Jason Elkins (04:39.342)
okay. It's all coming out.

Kim Bennett (05:03.106)
just different vision of what you're seeing through the lens of a camera is very exciting. And I wanted to be part of that, but.

Jason Elkins (05:12.824)
Did you envision that before you moved out of the house though? Okay, all right, so there was something going on there.

Kim Bennett (05:15.832)
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely, definitely. So yeah, no, I, my comfort zone is to be kind of slightly uncomfortable. I'm fine with that. I like change. I'm okay with, with sometimes being a little, you know, things disruptive at times. And sometimes your best travel stories come from things that don't always work out as planned. So yeah, I'm okay with that.

Jason Elkins (05:42.594)
You know, I used to kind of think that was just something weird about me. grew up, we were pretty event. My parents, my father especially was kind of that type and we would go do some weird stuff. But most of the people I was around just, didn't feel like they got it. They didn't get me, I didn't get them. And then when I started working in the travel business, I obviously got exposed to more people like that. But I'll tell you with this pod, with the show here, the podcast.

I had an opportunity to have about 100 conversations now. And I see the thread. It's like, feel like almost everybody I've had a conversation with, it's that desire to be uncomfortable and the willingness to be uncomfortable and maybe that seeking variety or just seeking, just exploring the curiosity. that's...

think that's pretty normal for people to work in the industry. And then there's so many other people that don't travel at all. And I'm just like, I don't get it.

Kim Bennett (06:41.528)
Yeah, I mean, travel is very uncomfortable. And I do get surprised when some I mean, I it's something that is such a part of my life. And I do find it surprising when that's not everybody's life. But yeah, no, I, I, I like different and I like to seek out different and to explore different, you know, I'm not necessarily somebody on the road 300 days a year at all. I also like to be comfortable. So

Jason Elkins (06:53.229)
Great.

Jason Elkins (07:09.742)
Yeah.

Kim Bennett (07:10.974)
that I'm fine with six flights a year kind of thing and a couple international trips a year is great. But for me, it's also part of the daydreaming of exploring different areas and cities and thinking about what's next is, of course, just as fun as the trip itself.

Jason Elkins (07:20.942)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (07:32.11)
Absolutely. So let's go back. You mentioned you'd studied photography for a couple of years. Tell us a little bit more about that kind of stage of your life and after high school moved out and then what were you doing?

Kim Bennett (07:43.936)
Yeah. Yeah, so I did. I studied photography for a couple of years. Didn't make a penny and well, I did. That's not true. I did have a little bit of some some small jobs from it. But then I kind of, you know, I didn't want to say hung up the dream, but I shifted into marketing for a small company. And then from there is where I was really introduced to more the marketing side of things and working for different companies and marketing.

And actually I really loved it because marketing kind of combines the idea of the business and what you're trying to achieve from a business perspective and then how do you communicate to customers? And so it actually was a fun problem for me to solve and you get to add in the creative elements to that. So actually marketing and advertising was a great career for me. I really enjoyed it and loved my time with that. So I then slowly ended up kind of

putting away the camera and doing more of the business side of things. But, you know, that's okay.

Jason Elkins (08:48.748)
Were those early marketing jobs, were you working with clients in the travel and tourism space or did that come later?

Kim Bennett (08:56.32)
No, later, retail. I've always worked in retail companies. So I've worked for Amazon, you know, back in the heyday and also Nordstrom in their corporate marketing. I worked for Martha Stewart in New York City on her retail business. So, no, most of it was all in the retail space. And the travel side of things really came, you know, after almost 20 years of working in corporate America. I've always loved travel.

Jason Elkins (09:03.47)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Bennett (09:26.2)
and I felt there was a real need for a better way for travelers to share their trip reports and to share their travel stories. And I was always struggling with building my own itineraries and thinking about, know, I only have 12 days off, you this is my one big vacation of the year.

how am gonna put this itinerary together? And I would dive into travel forums, right? I'd go down the rabbit hole of TripAdvisor or Reddit or Rick Steves and go through their travel forums and kind of read all the trip reports from travelers and kind of piece together, you know, what is the best way to put this itinerary together? And I was like, this is kind of a crappy, in the modern digital marketing space, this is kind of a crummy way of being able to cobble through. And so that was...

Jason Elkins (09:59.203)
Hmm.

Jason Elkins (10:13.602)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Bennett (10:14.876)
of the genesis of AtlasGuru is where travelers can upload and share their itineraries and trip reports and share their travel stories in a much more beautiful format. And that really was kind of the birth of AtlasGuru.

Jason Elkins (10:30.946)
When did that happen? When did you launch AtlasGuru?

Kim Bennett (10:34.206)
just before COVID. not the, thanks. I mean, COVID is not the ideal time to launch a travel business. the silver lining, I mean, it's also gives you an opportunity to look at all the different bugs and different, like what are users looking for? I was kind of able to launch quietly.

Jason Elkins (10:36.032)
Okay. Congratulations.

Jason Elkins (10:47.534)
But tell us the other side of it, right?

Kim Bennett (11:02.968)
just because the whole world was doing something different at that time. And so, you know, it was a time to do like a real soft launch and that's okay. I feel like it kind of set us back a little bit for a year, but you know, I think that I think it's it is what it is.

Jason Elkins (11:19.566)
I'm going to dig into your personal life. can decide how you want to answer it. But at that time, because sometimes people are just like, OK, quit my job, start my new business, and I need to figure out how to generate cash flow within the first two months. And COVID presumably would disrupt that plan. Were you still working on other projects while you launched? Or were you just like, man, got to eat ramen for a while?

Kim Bennett (11:22.007)
Yeah.

Kim Bennett (11:36.439)
Yeah.

Kim Bennett (11:42.28)
Well, no. Yeah, I ramen for a while. So now, I mean, I had a business plan for at least five years. So I sat on it for a long time. I saved my paycheck for many, many years thinking about, OK, I want to launch this business. You know, what can I invest? Can I go for it? And so it was a slow.

Jason Elkins (11:51.117)
Okay.

Kim Bennett (12:09.688)
transition. I didn't just wake up one day and say I quit my job and I'm going to do something else. It didn't work like that. So no, it was a very slow transition and takes a long time to launch a business. And somebody I once spoke to said running a business truly is a marathon. You are not going to make profitability in two months, that's for sure. So it's a long runway.

Jason Elkins (12:33.027)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Bennett (12:36.524)
that you got to think about. And somebody once said, nothing even gets interesting until year five into your business. So I was like, geez. So you've got to think of it as a marathon. It's not a sprint.

Jason Elkins (12:47.598)
Well, you've had a couple things that popped up. One we've already discussed was COVID. But then also, I'm curious about kind of the AI part of it, because that's a huge, huge shift that came in. Honestly, when I heard you kind of describing your thought process and accumulating stories and finding better ways for people to build out their own itineraries, I'm like, yeah, that makes perfectly sense, perfect sense for AI with AI.

but you actually started this before that tool was even there. I'm just curious, I'd to hear from your perspective, like that business plan that you put together, what were the major shifts that maybe you didn't expect or that you'd like to share?

Kim Bennett (13:31.766)
Yeah, mean, think original was that this was a content site, right? Like this was a user generated content site where users could share their travel stories and it was open source. Anybody and even today, anybody today can upload their trips and share their travel stories. So that was really the original business plan. We have

almost a thousand itineraries and trip reports now on AtlasGuru. And so we have, are a pretty robust content site at this point. But when Gen.ai really started to open up really to the public where anybody could, you know, really an open source, it is like a gift handed to me because the beauty of taking Gen.ai is that it can work with existing data and

Jason Elkins (14:17.326)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Bennett (14:25.506)
search it and repackage it in a way, whatever way that you put prompts to it with. So we have all this content and storytelling and data. And now using Chat GPT, the software Chat GPT, really creates another opportunity for travelers to be able to build an itinerary based off the content that's on AtlasGuru. So it's just this perfect fit.

Jason Elkins (14:52.63)
Was your revenue plan in the beginning, that going to be based on advertising? OK, but that's shifted, right?

Kim Bennett (14:58.614)
Yes, yes. It's shifted because now we're actually working with travel advisors and making this more of a modern AI travel advising company. And so where I see kind of a benefit in the marketplace is that people want to have the fun part of planning their trips. They really enjoy itinerary building and planning and kind of thought ideation.

Jason Elkins (15:09.742)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Bennett (15:25.954)
But it's the, now how do I make this happen? I mean, candidly, just booking a hotel is actually really simple. It's been done. The web has created this where it's a one button click to book a hotel. That's not the problem that we're solving for. It's, okay, I have this amazing itinerary, but how do I make it a little extra special? Or I have some questions about this. Should I tweak this a little bit?

So this is where we will bring in the experts. If you want to have a travel advisor kind of take it and run with it, we can now put you in touch with the appropriate travel advisor. And kind of the other third layer that we are working on now is sort of a hybrid model where it's an assisted model. Maybe you don't want to work with a dedicated travel advisor. It might be too high touch, might be too white glove. I don't need all of that.

But I do have some questions. I do want somebody to help me put my transportation together along with maybe, you know, can they do the hotels, the transportation and kind of pull the final piece together. That's really what's coming next for AtlasGuru.

Jason Elkins (16:37.038)
So what I kind of hear you saying is somebody can come to the website, look for some inspiration on some of the stories, use the AI tool to, I guess, I'm not sure the word I'm looking for. You probably know the word. But to bring something together that really is, let's say, completely unique.

And then maybe if they so choose, share that with the travel advisor. So let's say they want to go to Columbia and they put together an itinerary and then you've got a relationship with a great travel advisor that maybe specializes in Columbia. I don't know. So then that AI generated itinerary goes to the travel planner and then the travel planner basically works with the client to make it happen, maybe with some tweak, probably with some tweaks, I'm assuming.

Kim Bennett (17:28.62)
Yep. Yep. Exactly. mean, I think what makes it fun is I don't know if you've played around with perplexity or chat GPT or Claude or any of those AI. I mean, it's pretty fun to build itineraries using them. What makes us a little bit different is that it first

Jason Elkins (17:31.118)
All right, OK, very cool.

Jason Elkins (17:39.522)
Yep, yep.

Kim Bennett (17:49.986)
searches all of AtlasGuru's content. we have a, like, for example, we have a lot of Columbia content. So we have a lot of travelers that have shared their trips on Columbia. So there's already great knowledge there. We already have that human knowledge already on AtlasGuru. So ChatGBT is first going to that data source as opposed to just out on the web.

Jason Elkins (17:53.122)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (18:10.53)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Bennett (18:13.432)
So that kind of adds a little more richness to the itinerary that is being built for that traveler.

Jason Elkins (18:21.39)
Okay, I got that. You know, I'm curious, what's the incentive or motivation for people to share their stories?

Kim Bennett (18:28.472)
There's a couple of different people. It's one, the travel zealots that love to kind of self-publish. They create blogs on their trips, but a blog is a little bit of a heavy lift. So it is those people that just love to share. It's also influencers that also don't want to manage a blog. So we kind of have a little...

bit of everybody, but it's definitely those that love storytelling and want to share their travel experiences and then they can send it out to their friends and family.

Jason Elkins (19:04.742)
That's where I was, okay. So it sounds like what I'm hearing, correct me if I'm wrong, is you've basically set up a tool to make it easy, efficient, enjoyable, to share their experience as opposed to writing a blog post or as opposed to just trying to post it on Facebook. They can put together a cool looking itinerary and then say, hey, look what I did. They share the link onto their social media or whatever.

which then drives people to your website. Pretty brilliant. Pretty brilliant. Okay. All right. That's cool. And boy, I've got so many questions. And I suspect I'm thinking of other folks like myself that are curious about travel work in the business. You know, I do marketing for travel, for tourism. So it's very fascinating to me. And I suspect there's other people listening as well that would probably the question they would ask you if they were sent across from you is I'm a planner.

Kim Bennett (19:33.048)
Exactly, yes, yes.

Yeah.

Jason Elkins (20:00.362)
or I'm a DMC in Columbia or whatever. How do I partner with you? What does that look like? So what would you like to say to potential business partners that are listening to this?

Kim Bennett (20:12.246)
Yeah, it's actually our platform is great for that. So we have partnered with a few actually. So Intrepid Travel. So we've had some other new paths expeditions who do a lot in South America. They're fantastic. yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we do have content from those folks where they can then showcase their itineraries, their trips.

Jason Elkins (20:28.194)
I've had guests from both of those on here. Yeah, I get it. That's cool. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Kim Bennett (20:41.954)
They can share everything. Another one is Cherished Tours, which is a women-led and female-centric travel company. They're fantastic as well. What they can do is they can upload their itineraries and trips, and then we provide a link for booking, and then users can then go directly to them. It's also a really great platform for different destinations to share about their destinations on AtlasGuru.

Jason Elkins (21:11.886)
So tell me if, let's say, Intrepid uploads an itinerary. One of your users looks at the itinerary, maybe looks at a few itineraries from a variety of sources, uses the AI tool, it mixes and matches stuff. When AI gets involved, does that itinerary, like no longer it's marked as an Intrepid itinerary,

So what happens then as far as your business relationship with Intrepid, how does Intrepid benefit when somebody uses AI to modify an itinerary?

Kim Bennett (21:45.272)
Sure, I mean, right now, yes, we don't have some sort of co-branding on AI with Intrepid. We could, absolutely. So we could showcase Intrepid in a way that makes sense for them. So that's, again, from a marketing standpoint, we can wrap it and promote it and market it and that sort of thing. there's lots of different pieces that we could do together and customize it for a destination.

Jason Elkins (22:12.342)
Okay, I just, I'm going to ask this exactly the way I think I'd ask it if I was on a business development call with you. Somebody uses AI, creates an itinerary they really like, they want to go to Columbia and now you're getting ready to hand them off to a travel planner. How, who's the travel planner? How has that decided? And how do I as a DMC or as probably not a DMC, but maybe if I'm in an Intrepid, how do I

get connected with your readers.

Kim Bennett (22:43.224)
Sure, mean, all Intrepid or a DMC has to do is tell me what customers are they interested in? Who are they looking for? Are they trying to sell more of Peru or are they starting to sell more of Colombia? And then I'm happy to put them in touch with the appropriate people. So we can do that. You just tell me what is it that they are looking to solve for? And we would be able to take leads and send them that way.

Jason Elkins (23:06.616)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (23:10.666)
OK, and then the financial end of that that can be discussed when you do have that call with their business development manager. But I appreciate that because I do believe that a lot of the folks that listen to that, you I know that a lot of the people I've interviewed on the show would love to have conversation with you. And I know that a lot of the people have interviewed on the show. Listen to the show. So that's why I wanted to get that out there just because it's all about making some connections. And I have a couple of clients that I do marketing stuff for that I'll be chatting with them as soon as I get off this call, you know.

Kim Bennett (23:13.89)
Sure, absolutely, yes, yes, of course.

Kim Bennett (23:36.508)
yeah. it's definitely and it's a very qualified client, right? They've already done some of the homework. So they've already said I'm interested in about seven days in Columbia. I want to go to a coffee region. I'm looking for also including some beach time. So, you know, what's great is you already have some insight as to what that customer or traveler is looking for. So it's you know, you already have pre qualified that customer.

Jason Elkins (23:40.11)
to see what we can do.

Jason Elkins (24:04.174)
Yeah, I appreciate that. And I'm curious about what your view is on the demographics or whatever, but of your typical. Well, because earlier you were talking about you used to spend a lot of time going here and there, put together, I've got 12 days. How am going to make the most use of my time? That's one mindset in this space. And then there's other people that I've got 12 days and I don't really want to customize. I don't want to do that. So traditionally, they went to a travel planner.

and said, I've got 12 days. Give me a few options. I'll pick the one that seems the most appealing. So I think there's two different types. But what I'm sensing is you're kind of bringing that together a little bit. So what are your thoughts on your typical user of your service, your clients? What do you call them? Readers? Travelers. That's a good word. I'll go with that.

Kim Bennett (24:53.046)
Yeah. Travelers. I call them travelers. Yeah. Just travelers. No, and there really isn't necessarily typical. But I do think what is helpful is that it's not necessarily just pure demographic. It's also, you know, what is it that they're looking for? They want, they have kids. Are they an adventure traveler?

you know, is vegan food important? Is, you know, what are some of the things that are important to them? And they can put kind of those, what we call prompts basically in, and that will help guide with, you know, how will this trip look to them? So, and again, nothing is, I do believe that there is a human element to all of this. There is, I don't think that technology is gonna solve everything for everyone. I think that this is a good,

Jason Elkins (25:29.708)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kim Bennett (25:49.248)
starting point for travelers and if they are like I don't want to do anything somebody had when you say I don't want to do anything I think a traveler has an idea they know that they want to go somewhere sunny and warm they have 12 days off this is their home city so it has to be flown out of there like they have some idea of what they're looking for and so I think that is helpful information obviously to then hand to a travel advisor and it does kind of force the traveler to

Jason Elkins (26:08.942)
Sure.

Kim Bennett (26:19.116)
think a little bit about like, well, where are you kind of thinking and what are some ideas that you've come to play? And again, having so much content on the site, they can play around and look at, Columbia, what's Peru all about? So we can kind of help ideate for those travelers.

Jason Elkins (26:35.362)
Well, and it's you mentioned the human connection, even if they're having a conversation with chat bot, chat bot is pulling stories that, you know, travelers have uploaded their personal human experiences and drawing from that. And honestly, think there's some amazing travel planners out there, and I think that the best ones are the ones that ask the right questions. But they're still.

Kim Bennett (26:41.784)
you

Kim Bennett (27:01.164)
Definitely.

Jason Elkins (27:03.752)
Sometimes we miss things, right? As humans, get going on one direction and then we forget to ask them about dietary. I'm just using a random, mixing random thing. know, we forget to even have that conversation around food. They book a trip to Columbia and they don't eat meat or rice or bananas. It's going be difficult. Where, you know, with the AI, can be an interesting conversation. And honestly,

Kim Bennett (27:24.054)
Right. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (27:33.578)
I think, I'm just curious what your thoughts are. One of the things I noticed when I started mess around with ChatGPT was I was finding myself feeling like I had to be polite and that I had to be nice and I didn't want ChatGP to have to work too hard. If it gave me a result and I didn't like it, I almost felt like I can't really.

Kim Bennett (27:46.262)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (27:56.95)
It did what I asked, but I didn't really mean that. So I felt weird. was almost, almost to the point of saying, I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you, can you please go do it again? And that's because if, cause we're used to working, you know, with colleagues or maybe employees, someone on your team, where those sensitivities get in the way. And once I got comfortable with what I was doing as I didn't care, like, Nope, I don't like it. Give me 10 more. Give me 10 more. Give me 10 more. And I felt no shame, no guilt about it.

And then recently I've got another friend that does some AI in the travel space as well. And I had an opportunity to play around with one of his chatbots. And I caught myself just kind of testing it, just saying things that I'm not sure I would have said to a human being that were important to me. So for example, mentioning specific medical issues that people in my family have.

And I was able to say, okay, my son this, and this is important, and these are his sensitivities when we travel, he's got autism. And I realized I was pretty comfortable having that conversation with the chatbot. And I was frankly blown away by how sensitive the response was. It was like, this chatbot actually understands what autism is. And I'm sure a lot of great travel planners do as well, but that's just an example of

I can work through some of this stuff without feeling weird, without feeling embarrassed, and get to the point where, OK, now I've got some ideas that make sense. And then I can absolutely work with a human travel planner to put it together. And I don't know. Do you see that as well? Is that a good example of?

Kim Bennett (29:42.252)
Yeah, I mean, we're not quite at that level of sophistication yet on AtlasGuru, but I mean, we are actually actively working on ways where users can edit the itinerary that was created and continue that ongoing discussion. But I agree 100%. I think it's why people used to, that they still do, Google medical questions as opposed to even asking your doctor, which is crazy, right? But we all do it.

Jason Elkins (29:56.792)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (30:07.02)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kim Bennett (30:11.896)
And we just were too uncomfortable and embarrassed to ask the real human about it. We all do it. Why do you think WebMD is so huge, right? So.

Jason Elkins (30:23.252)
Or we ask Google what our wife is thinking. Why did she say this or why did he do that? Just like, OK, yeah, instead of just asking them.

Kim Bennett (30:25.972)
I mean, it's just, it's crazy.

Kim Bennett (30:31.628)
But it is very, it's shockingly, I mean, I know there's several camps that people are very nervous about AI, but I have to say every single month or so, it is getting smarter and smarter. And it does understand tone and the more you put in. So if you say, you know, I'm female, I'm from the United States, I'm doing this, I like this. It does seem to get much better results, right?

It is wild and it's the wild west. really is. What we see today is not the same experience that we will see in one year from now. Yes. It's kind of, yeah.

Jason Elkins (31:10.584)
Well, it definitely has changed because I remember when it first came out, it was interesting. It was fun, but it sounded like the tone was weird. And it's like, this is just, if I were to use ChatGPD to write a book, I'm going to have to do a lot of editing, a lot of work on, because it just sounds that. But I'll tell you what, I've been building itineraries for my clients and blog posts using some ChatGPD. And it's like, wow. It's like,

Kim Bennett (31:18.816)
weird.

Kim Bennett (31:36.994)
Pretty good.

Jason Elkins (31:39.278)
Pretty good. I'm not sure I would notice that that was, you I mean, you still got to work it and edit it. But I think you're right. It's about the input. It's about the question. And I remember.

Kim Bennett (31:40.129)
Yeah.

Kim Bennett (31:44.812)
Yeah.

And it's all about the data. And that's where AtlasGuru comes in is that, again, we have so much content in certain countries. And the better the data, the better the results. another really fun technology tool that we've played with, and not sure how we're going to use it, is Google's Notebook LM, which can take any content and turn it into a podcast. It is wild.

Jason Elkins (32:00.653)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (32:13.774)
Mmm.

Kim Bennett (32:15.512)
We have one, I did it for a trip that I took to Scotland and I dropped in all the content from my Scotland trip report into Google's notebook LM. And the output is like an eight minute podcast of two people talking about a trip report from Scotland. It is wild. And visit Scotland, you were talking about, you know, working with countries and DMOs.

Jason Elkins (32:37.623)
Wow.

Kim Bennett (32:45.016)
like Visit Scotland, you know, helped guided me in some ideas. And there's a little call out and shout out to Visit Scotland and saying like, hey, this trip was also inspired by Visit Scotland, you know. So it's pretty fun. It's neat. It sounds like a podcast. It's a little hokey. There's some things that aren't, you know, perfect. And it did take some liberties that I actually had to tweak on. It said I...

summited the top of the highest mountain in Scotland. We did not summit it, but we did hike it. So it took some liberties. So I had to tweak it. So it's, you know, it's still weird and buggy, but it's pretty fun.

Jason Elkins (33:28.17)
It'll be, you know, and like you said, it's changing so fast that, you know, in a year I'm open to going with technology. So I don't want to say in another year, I won't be able to have a podcast because it's all going to be AI, but maybe in another year, I won't need to be sitting here in front of a computer screen. Your persona can have a conversation with my persona and it's all AI. And then we just go back and listen to it to make sure we're not embarrassed. And then we publish it.

I don't know.

Kim Bennett (33:58.616)
I mean, you never know. It is pretty fun and wild. some of it is just like not sure what to do with this yet kind of technology, but there could be a use case for it in a different way. So I think it's just a fun, interesting, another tool in the toolbox.

Jason Elkins (34:07.224)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (34:19.182)
And it may be obvious to any of my listeners that also read the show notes, the show notes for this podcast are going to be, you know, AI generated. And it's not that hard to tell they're AI generated, but at the same time for me to go back and to try and take notes as I'm having this conversation with you or to try and have them make any sense would just be very, very time consuming. And it wouldn't be any, it wouldn't be.

There's that point of diminishing returns. wouldn't be that much better than what the AI notes are. And then the whole transcript. And you can use AI to actually edit the words out of the transcript. it's pretty amazing.

Kim Bennett (34:58.86)
The one thing that I do tell people who are uncomfortable with the idea of AI is I do still tell all travelers, go directly to the train website to check the train schedule, to check your flight schedule. There are things that if you are really needing data that has to be precise and

are looking for driving directions and things like that, go to the source. But if you're looking for ideas and conversation and inspiration, AI is amazing.

Jason Elkins (35:38.508)
I think that's the best use for it really is ideas. I mentioned earlier, said, give me 10 more, give me 10 more, give me 10 more. And that's an example of me just looking for ideas for the title of a blog post or for the name of my business, Big World Made Small, know, whatever. There was some of that, give me taglines and you just, and they give you ideas that you may never even thought of. like, wow, I really liked that tagline, but actually.

Kim Bennett (35:43.799)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (36:03.2)
I'm not really interested in taglines right now. I'm interested, you know, and then you shift directions and you can go anywhere and you don't have to feel like you're wasting anybody's time. You don't have to feel like anybody's judging you for being a, you know, ADHD scatterbrain because that's definitely defines me. And I can just mess around with it all day long and nobody's like, Jason, would you please just decide what you want to do and leave me alone and let me move on with my life? So it's good in that sense. I do want to touch on.

Kind of just the people around you kind of talked a little bit about, you know, when you moved out of the house, your parents weren't really into traveling, adventure, that type of stuff. You moved out, you were, you started traveling. How has that impacted, I mean, what are personal relationships like you? Have you figured out how to balance that out? Do you have people in your life that are supportive or what does that look like for you?

Kim Bennett (36:57.568)
Yeah, I mean, I think from the travel angle, I'm lucky that I have a partner, my husband also enjoys travel, not to the extent that I do. He, you know, it does kind of stress him out a little bit to have too many trips on the calendar. But he is also up for pretty much most adventures and we're actually pretty compatible travel partners. But then I also have friends that are

also up for travel. So, and that's hard to find, you know, it's hard to find different friends who can go with you on different trips and everybody's at different life stages. So that's not always an easy thing to find for a partner. I've done solo traveling too. So I'm very comfortable traveling by myself. It doesn't bother me. I mean, I prefer, I actually prefer to travel with friends, but it,

I mean, I shouldn't say that. I mean, I'll do certain things by my I was like, yeah, I know. I'm like, now that I think about it. No, but I do love certain. And then I'm like, not really. No. But there are certain things like I go I love watching tennis. And so I'll go to New York, the US Open, and I'll go by myself because I get to see and go and do whatever I want. And I get to, you know, take the time and

Jason Elkins (37:56.322)
careful you don't know who's gonna be listening to this. I love traveling with my friends I love traveling with my husband.

Jason Elkins (38:19.468)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Bennett (38:22.744)
plan it out the way I want it. And, you know, it's probably the control freaking me. But of course I enjoy going with friends and I have, but I also, I don't mind going alone because then I can do whatever I want. you know, so I'm, enjoy solo travel too.

Jason Elkins (38:34.88)
Right, right. Well, and when you do travel with your husband or your friends, do either you or they think that you're always working on the trip? Because I heard you say, you your trip report. I'm sure you do a trip report every time you go somewhere. So does that get in the way? Does that create conflict?

Kim Bennett (38:47.83)
Yes. Yes.

Kim Bennett (38:55.032)
No, it never gets in the way because it's easy to do. But I am typically the one who is the driver of the itinerary. I am typically the one that comes up with the ideas and then I present it to my friends. Yeah, I know. No surprise there. I mean, everybody knows that about me. Yes.

Jason Elkins (39:10.51)
No way. I can't imagine that about you. You built a business around a trip planning website. OK. I can see you driving the train. If I were to ask you, what kind of personality do you think you have, how would you answer that question?

Kim Bennett (39:21.357)
Yeah.

Yes, I do.

Kim Bennett (39:31.23)
Ooh, would say positive, adventurous. mean, cautiously adventurous. mean, I don't do, I don't skydive or anything like that, but I definitely love exploring different areas and I love the outdoors. I like, most trips I like to have some sort of outdoor component to it, like hiking or something like that. Active, I like to be active.

Jason Elkins (39:34.219)
Well, yeah, okay.

Jason Elkins (39:57.362)
Well, it's interesting. OK. It's interesting because you don't always meet somebody that really likes adventure, likes active travel, and also would be interested in having a conversation about AI or website design or call to actions or email marketing campaigns. And I've noticed because I'm one of those types that I actually really enjoy that stuff, which is why I do what I do.

Kim Bennett (40:05.228)
Right.

Kim Bennett (40:11.606)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (40:25.902)
But at the same time, I recognize it's unusual. lot of the guests I have on the show, it's like super passionate about spending time with clients in the field and sharing experiences. But then they've got somebody else on the team that actually keeps things running.

Kim Bennett (40:41.078)
Yeah, the technology side. Well, that's why I mean, because I've worked in marketing and technology for many years. Seattle was like the tech boom, right, in the 90s. But it's also an incredible outdoor city. So skiing, hiking, boating, I mean, the Pacific Northwest is incredible. going up to Canada and that whole Whistler I love up there.

Jason Elkins (40:51.756)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (40:56.536)
Yeah.

Kim Bennett (41:10.036)
The outdoors that I was born into. So it's always being in the outdoors, always outside, fishing, hiking, skiing, all of it. Yes, yes, yeah. So that is definitely rooted in my childhood and has been, and that's very culturally what the Pacific Northwest is all about. So then you layer in technology. So you have that combination. So I mean, it's...

Jason Elkins (41:15.618)
Okay.

Jason Elkins (41:20.384)
Okay, yep, there's some elements there that came from your childhood.

Kim Bennett (41:38.466)
That's like the home of REI, right? So it's at Microsoft and Starbucks and Amazon. And so you have that combination of tech plus outdoors. That's just the cultural norm in Seattle.

Jason Elkins (41:50.062)
I wonder because with marketing, some of it can be very interesting. That all depends on what your view of interesting is. For me, website design, trying new things, learning new things is fascinating. If you want to pay me to do Google Analytics for more than a few weeks, I'm like, phew.

You know, or the spreadsheets. I'm just like, hey, you know, maybe that's that's for somebody else. So I can see the creative part of it being very tied into my desire to travel and explore new things and see the things I can spend the day working on a website. And I finish at the end of the day and visually see the differences. Plus, if you do an adventure tourism websites, the imagery is exciting. You know, it's not I'm not, you know, retail is different. Just for me, I one of the benefits is

Kim Bennett (42:15.927)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (42:45.774)
If I'm building website for a client that does African safaris, it's looking for pictures. fun. As opposed to, the shade of red on these shoes isn't quite right. I'm going to spend an hour on trying to change the

Kim Bennett (42:49.224)
amazing. Yes.

Jason Elkins (43:00.738)
So I'm curious for you, if that resonates for you or are you more on the creative side of it or?

Kim Bennett (43:08.064)
I'm definitely both. I being having a marketing background, you have to have analytics in everything that you do, because it's like, if you can't track it, then you can't, you know, you don't, it didn't happen. And you don't know how to, you know, what's the attribution to it. So I definitely have an analytics mindset. But where I struggle, it's as an entrepreneur, it's that

Jason Elkins (43:20.514)
That didn't happen.

Kim Bennett (43:34.21)
super tactical execution piece that can be challenging, right? So, you know, understanding how many social platforms do we have now? I mean, a dozen, it's painful. and understanding Google SEM and knowing what kind of Google marketing needs to happen, like being an expert across multiple platforms is almost impossible.

Jason Elkins (43:56.864)
Yeah.

Kim Bennett (43:57.068)
So, you I know my limitations. I know what I'm good at. And sometimes it is not that. I can't be an expert of everything. So my superpower is, I think, vision, you know, coming up with product ideas for the website, meaning design, understanding UX, directing a team. I'm good at that. Where I struggle is kind of that, as you were saying, like,

Jason Elkins (44:17.132)
Hmm.

Kim Bennett (44:27.148)
drilling down into very tactical execution, that can be a challenge for sure.

Jason Elkins (44:33.55)
There's so much. I had learned some website stuff, some technical skills, kind of coming up through the ranks and doing several different things. And when I started the podcast and decided, OK, I'm stepping back into this space, I completely opened book. Anybody that's listening to this, like, Jason, I don't know why you're saying this, but there were several areas I really did not know much about.

But I built my website. I'm like, OK, I need to be able to do search engine marketing, search engine optimization. I need to do social media. Because I'm like, these are what people are looking for. So I built this website with all these things. And then I'm like, really don't actually want to do any of that. But I also see that those are things that you can hire people to do.

Kim Bennett (45:21.314)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (45:22.456)
person that maybe is really good at search engine optimization maybe doesn't really want to have conversations with clients. So it's like, OK, I do. Obviously, I like having conversations with clients. Most of my guests on the show are potential clients, and pretty much all my clients have been on the show. So it works for me. But I'd much rather spend eight hours recording podcast episodes than

Kim Bennett (45:30.199)
Right.

Jason Elkins (45:48.974)
one hour of doing SCL. So, yeah.

Kim Bennett (45:52.468)
I hear you, it's brutal and you need it. You have to, otherwise nobody can find you, but I couldn't agree more. That is always the biggest challenge is how to be an expert in all. And it's just, it's truly impossible. So you have to like pick your challenges and yeah, I get it.

Jason Elkins (46:08.174)
Yep.

and surround yourself with people that are smarter than you in those areas.

Kim Bennett (46:14.708)
Always, always. Hiring is like the best thing you can do is find people that are good at their jobs and let them run with it. Know your strengths, know their strengths, and know your limitations. We don't have finite budgets, so something's going to have to maybe not happen, and you have to figure that out.

Jason Elkins (46:22.86)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (46:35.662)
Yeah. Time is a challenging one. I've caught myself many times. I'm like, I'm really enjoying what I'm doing, but I should not be doing this right now. So yeah, it's a bit of a challenge. Which, by the way, your link to your website is going to be in the show notes. And it's a beautiful website. I mean, it's really, really, really nice. So it's

Kim Bennett (46:39.895)
Yes.

Kim Bennett (46:59.81)
Thank you. Thank you.

Jason Elkins (47:01.492)
I was like, man, that's pretty cool. if for no other reason to go to her website, just go take a look at her website because it looks great. If you care about websites, most tour operators have websites. Obviously, I'd love to chat with them as well. But go look at Kim's website because it looks great. So Kim, we've discussed a bunch of different things. I'm sure we missed a lot of stuff as well. Probably could just come back and keep talking.

Tell me what should I have asked or what did I forget to ask or what do you want to make sure that our listeners know about you, the world, your philosophy, AtlasGuru, anything that you want to put out there before we wrap up.

Kim Bennett (47:44.492)
touched on it. do welcome tour operators and travel advisors. Hit me up. can find me on LinkedIn. It's just LinkedIn, Kim Bennett. I'd love to partner with people if they want to showcase their travels and their trips. I'm happy to do something with them. I think that

The ultimate goal is storytelling on amazing experiences. And that's what we're trying to do is that we're trying to give travelers incredible experiences and have them find what works best for them, whether it's working with an advisor, whether it's just exploring, there's lots of different opportunities.

Jason Elkins (48:29.782)
I love that and I can't not make the connection to why we're doing this podcast. It's the same thing. It's just to connect. I'm not getting paid a dime to do this podcast. I end up connecting with people that we do projects, but it really was that idea of just connect people. Let's give them stories about the people.

Kim Bennett (48:50.175)
Absolutely.

Jason Elkins (48:53.39)
If they hear an interesting story from someone that is a bicycle guide in Romania, and they've always wanted to go to Romania and they like riding bikes, then great. They make a connection. They go to the website, they connect and I may or may not ever even know about it. And that that's okay. It's just about, you know, I'm going to sound cheesy, but it's about making the big world feel just a bit smaller. And I really appreciate you coming on and having a conversation and basically having, you know, having a very similar.

similar goal, what I'm working on. I look forward to connecting you with some tour operators, the planners and, the, some of my clients as well. So Kim, thanks for coming on the show.

Kim Bennett (49:30.326)
loved it. Thank you so much, Jason.