Adventure Travel with Kieron Wilde - First Nature Tours

Kieron Wilde
Founder and CEO
First Nature Tours

Kieron Wilde is an Ecologist and Entrepreneur with 18 years of tourism industry experience. His company First Nature specializes in curating tours for individuals, corporations, and school groups that blend education, adventure, and sustainability to make a positive impact on the planet. Kieron is also the Vice Chair of the Columbia Gorge Tourism Alliance – a bi-state nonprofit dedicated to promoting sustainable tourism in the Columbia River Gorge region of Oregon and Washington.

summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Kieron Wilde, founder and CEO of First Nature Tours. Kieron shares his journey from growing up in rural Wisconsin to becoming a leader in sustainable tourism. He discusses his early passion for conservation, his transition into the tourism industry, and the founding of his company, which focuses on bespoke travel experiences in the Pacific Northwest. Kieron emphasizes the importance of sustainability in tourism and the need for meaningful engagement with the environment. He also shares insights on the challenges and rewards of running a destination management company and the future of regenerative travel.

takeaways

• Kieron grew up on a hobby farm in Wisconsin, fostering a love for nature.
• His early experiences in Boy Scouts shaped his survival skills and appreciation for the outdoors.
• Kieron's passion for conservation led him to study restoration ecology in college.
• He transitioned from conservation work to tourism to have a greater impact.
• Kieron emphasizes the importance of service industry experience for guides.
• First Nature Tours focuses on bespoke, sustainable travel experiences.
• The company operates as a destination management company (DMC) for the Pacific Northwest.
• Kieron believes in paying guides well to value their expertise and knowledge.
• He is passionate about regenerative travel and creating positive impacts in destinations.
• Kieron aims to engage travelers in meaningful conservation efforts.

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Transcript

Jason Elkins (00:01.096)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. Today we've got Kieron Wilde here. He is the founder and CEO of First Nature Tours. Kieron, welcome to the show. Happy to have you here.

Kieron Wilde (00:15.483)
Thanks Jason, I'm glad to be here.

Jason Elkins (00:17.814)
As we right before I push the record button, you're telling me how cold it is up there in the north. And I mentioned I'm here in Colombia. It's where it's like the same weather all the time. It's January when we're recording this. And I often forget that there is a I'm from Wyoming. I know it gets cold up there, but sometimes I forget. how cold is it?

Kieron Wilde (00:35.862)
It's like 28 degrees Fahrenheit, so it's brisk. It could be colder.

Jason Elkins (00:38.484)
Alright, it could be colder then, right? Could get yeah yeah yeah. So where do you live?

Kieron Wilde (00:44.846)
I am coming to you from Mosier, which is just outside of Hood River in the Columbia River Gorge. So yeah, Mosier.

Jason Elkins (00:48.064)
Okay.

Jason Elkins (00:53.92)
Cool. Beautiful area up there. it? It's still pretty in the winter, right? It's just cold.

Kieron Wilde (01:00.866)
That's correct. It's beautiful. And I actually love it when it's cold because it's not rainy when it's this cold. So it kind of takes all the clouds out of the sky and, you know, sun comes out.

Jason Elkins (01:01.43)
You

Jason Elkins (01:10.038)
All right, very, very cool. Well, we'll probably, we're gonna come back and chat a little bit about kind of the area you're in, what you do. Let's, but I'm really, really interested in kind of your story. Cause most of the people that do this type of work have something weird or normal, which normal can be weird. That kind of happened along the way to kind of get them to where they're at. Before we get into that, it might make sense. Do you have a 30 second like elevator pitch about First Nature Tours that we can?

Just real quick, put that out just so the listener kind of understand, live just a touch of what it is you do, and then we're gonna go discuss your history, your story, and then we'll come back and discuss First Nature more.

Kieron Wilde (01:49.71)
Absolutely. Yeah. So I, I would say first nature, first and foremost, we're a destination management company, a DMC for the Pacific Northwest. Um, and for us, we kind of define that as middle California all the way up to Alaska. And for the folks that don't know the DMC term, we package experiences together for mostly B2B clients, like other, other tour operators that are sending people over from overseas. Uh, and they're looking for all the resources on the

experience. So professional guide, transportation, hotel, all the attractions and experiences. We put all that into a beautiful itinerary and then we operate that itinerary once they're on the ground here with us.

Jason Elkins (02:33.738)
Very, cool. Well, well explained on the DMC part. I was going to ask you to kind of clarify that a little bit because some of our listeners might not know what that is, but I think you, you, that was pretty spot on the boots on the ground. The guys that actually make it happen. So maybe you've got a tour operator tour operator. That's an interesting word, but maybe you've got somebody in Japan. I'm selling trips to the Pacific Northwest and that person in Japan is probably not going to hire the guide and contract the vehicle and do all those things. That's you guys, you guys do that and put the, make sure and manage the experience. Right.

Kieron Wilde (03:04.128)
That's right. It really comes down to having the destination knowledge to be able to piece everything together and having all those contracts and relationships with folks here in our destination. It's so much more efficient to work with the DMC to put all those things together.

Jason Elkins (03:18.046)
Yep, absolutely. Well, I appreciate you sharing that. Now that's the fun part. I want to know how you got from wherever you were to where you are now. And I don't know how far back we need to go. How far do you think we should go back? And maybe I'll push it to go further. All right, that's a good place. That's a good place.

Kieron Wilde (03:32.557)
I mean, we should, I always like to start at the beginning. Oh, kind of kidding, but yeah, I mean, you could go back to just, you know, I would say maybe college era where I kind of got the desire to get into, it's a restoration ecology and it's an environmental science. And I can talk about how that shifted into tourism if you want.

Jason Elkins (03:55.936)
Well, let's go a little further if you don't mind, because sometimes I think there's interesting things that kind of happen in childhood that influences our decisions. I don't know anything about your childhood. So what was going on when you were young that kind of influenced it? If there's nothing, we can move right back to college.

Kieron Wilde (04:05.934)
Sure.

Kieron Wilde (04:15.278)
Well, plenty. Yeah. Plenty of stuff. I mean, I grew up in rural Wisconsin in the middle of the state on a 20 acre hobby farm with a single mother. And we raised chickens and raised a lot of our own food, vegetables, et cetera. I spent a lot of time out in the woods by myself because, you know, there's nobody, I couldn't see another house where I grew up and the closest other kid my age was about a 15 minute bike ride away. So it was.

Jason Elkins (04:43.925)
well.

Kieron Wilde (04:45.166)
You know, it's pretty isolating and I really, I actually really loved that in a lot of ways. mean, I really love being in nature and just having free run of this awesome landscape. And I got into Boy Scouts at a pretty young age, Cub Scouts, and then Boy Scouts. I did the whole thing except for the Eagle Scout, which is like one of the few things I can say I kind of regret after putting that much time in, into an organization, just not getting that last little project done.

Jason Elkins (05:04.406)
Hmm?

Kieron Wilde (05:13.24)
But everything, I literally was in it for 12 years and that was super transformative for me. was being able to go out on these expeditions and plan our trips and camp, not live off the land, but being able to learn survival skills. Yeah. Well, you know.

Jason Elkins (05:31.798)
Probably felt like it at that age. It kind of feels like you're living off the land. In your head, you've got this romantic idea, right? Yeah.

Kieron Wilde (05:39.118)
We did cool stuff. We did like cool like survivor, you know, we did like polar bear club stuff where you have to like, you know, create a shelter and like camp out overnight in the winter time. You know, pretty, cool stuff that I think would be considered extreme by a lot of people these days. And that was.

Jason Elkins (05:46.494)
Hmm? Yeah.

Jason Elkins (05:53.447)
Yeah. Were you home schooled or did you go to school? You went to a school.

Kieron Wilde (05:59.16)
I went to a school, a tiny little school, my little town of Wildrose. I I graduated 62 people, I think, in my high school. So it was pretty dang small, like small pool of folks to pull from as far as friends go.

Jason Elkins (06:00.533)
Okay.

Jason Elkins (06:06.846)
Okay. Okay.

Jason Elkins (06:13.874)
And like most, most of the boys were the same boys that you went to school with probably in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts with you, right? Yeah.

Kieron Wilde (06:19.98)
Yeah, there is a lot of overlap there and they actually had to pull from adjacent communities to get a full trip together. we, you know, we had to import folks because there were enough of us. But yeah, we got into.

Jason Elkins (06:25.246)
you

Jason Elkins (06:29.898)
Did your mom get involved in that? Was she like a den-mocub mom or whatever they called them, den-mother?

Kieron Wilde (06:36.608)
Not really. had a full-time job and then my brother that she was also raising and yeah, she just, it was actually just an awesome way for me to go, you know, have this awesome experience and be entertained and, you know, kind of off of her plate for a minute. So I think it was really beneficial for her actually in a lot of ways, not just for me. It definitely was.

Jason Elkins (06:38.102)
I was just curious.

Jason Elkins (06:43.413)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (06:54.774)
It might have been part of the plan.

Yep, all right, all right, very, cool. then let's kind of pick up there and move forward as you got older and what was going on.

Kieron Wilde (07:13.166)
Yeah, sure. So I was always really into nature, always really into science. And I decided to go to college in Wisconsin as well. I went to University of Stevens Point for my freshman year and taking general biology and then bumped up to a bigger school, University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is a very large state school, and studying a little bit more focused on restoration ecology and conservation work.

Jason Elkins (07:34.614)
Mm-hmm.

Kieron Wilde (07:40.93)
that's what I ended up getting a degree in, aspects of conservation. It's now just called conservation biology by the university. Aldo Leopold started that school and it's very much about big picture thinking, like the human elements in conservation and making sure that you take into account all the different facets and all the different factors that are involved in doing conservation work and doing restoration and ecology really well and effective. So.

you know, can't take the human element out of it really. And I was, yeah, I love that.

Jason Elkins (08:10.826)
Yeah, I'm curious. I'm curious, Karen. Did when you kind of started that path, maybe freshman year, what are at some point doing that? Was it like, I really want to do conservation and save the world? Or is it like, I just love the outdoors. I've spent a lot of time out of the door outdoors. If I'm going to go to school for four years, I might as well learn about plants and trees and animals. Just curious.

Kieron Wilde (08:37.768)
It was really, really at a young age that I realized, you know, this is, was growing up in the eighties and the nineties and you know, there was some massive sweeping changes going on globally. There was like a massive amphibian die off and like the rainforest was being deforested at this insane rate. And it was stuff that even in my tiny little town and my, you know, rural existence in Wisconsin as a young child, I was actually like very aware of.

and very driven from a super young age. I don't even know how young I first realized that that's what I wanted to do, but I've always been, you know, into the saving the planet, you know, mission for my life and, and, you know, captain planet.

Jason Elkins (09:18.036)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (09:22.622)
Was that was that hard and was that hard in college? Maybe I'm like other friends that maybe weren't studying the same stuff. Did they? Was that a challenge? Because college kids aren't always trying to save the planet. Yeah, OK.

Kieron Wilde (09:34.062)
Right. No, it was really hard air in high school, you know, because we just some, you know, just a super small group in this mostly rural like farmers and you know, like just in a different mentality. So I kind of my mom's very much a hippie by most people's standards and I grew up on making our own tofu and granola and canning vegetables. So I mean, I, I was raised with kind of that lens of, know, living off the land and respecting nature and, and I just

Jason Elkins (09:45.846)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm?

Jason Elkins (09:54.966)
you

Kieron Wilde (10:04.12)
just took it to a different level, know, wanting to make that my career and kind of my life's passion. And so, yeah, very young age, I was identifying with Captain Planet and that mission to save the planet.

Jason Elkins (10:16.438)
I'm happy we took it back before college. think there's some nuggets in there. So thank you for, I'm making some connections.

Kieron Wilde (10:23.02)
Yeah, I was ozone man in the school. I was ozone man in like the school play. I mean, I was dressed up in like a in like a silver leotard with like a, you know, cape. I was into it. I was super into it.

Jason Elkins (10:36.128)
So you didn't do a lot of dating, it sounds like. Just kidding. I was a theater major in college and I voted the most talented boy in my senior class in high school, so I didn't do a lot of dating neither.

Kieron Wilde (10:38.702)
Yeah, right. Well, I didn't do a lot of... Yeah.

Kieron Wilde (10:52.876)
Yeah, well, I'll just go back to the small pool thing, the small pond thing again, just to reference that. Yeah, that was the main reason. I did plenty in college.

Jason Elkins (11:03.446)
okay. Well, that's for another episode.

Kieron Wilde (11:06.88)
Sure, yeah.

Jason Elkins (11:09.056)
So anyway, so you're going to save the world, which I think is great. I don't say that any disparaging in a way whatsoever. So went to school for this and then like what were you like, what did you envision your job being or maybe job business, whatever, what did you envision yourself doing five years after school had finished? And then tell me if that's what you ended up doing.

Kieron Wilde (11:30.198)
What? Yeah, does anybody? mean, I feel like that's very few people will end up I feel like doing exactly what they envision themselves doing.

Jason Elkins (11:39.082)
Mostly not the people I talk to on this show. I can tell you that, because I am not interviewing accountants and finance managers. Some people do stick with what they think they're going to do.

Kieron Wilde (11:42.711)
Right.

Right, yeah.

Yeah, and I have more power to them. for me, you know, I knew I wanted to do the work. I didn't know how that looked in the real world. you know, getting out of college, I went into immediately into internships to be out there doing actual restoration ecology work. So I entered in California for the BLM doing desert restoration work in these wilderness study areas and camping out for 10 days at a time in these remote areas to do this work.

And then five days off, I'd be like just hiking around national parks and also camping. So I basically spent a year not sleeping underneath a roof. And then I went up to North Cascades National Park and was doing fire ecology work for the North Cascades, monitoring like past fires with the GIS systems and going on doing vegetation monitoring out in the field. And this is like.

Jason Elkins (12:24.725)
Mm-hmm.

Kieron Wilde (12:46.126)
going from desert to like a rainforest, basically the Western side of the Cascades, very much temperate rainforest. So really cool to have that contrast and experience. And then I got a job with the Department of Ecology doing riparian restoration work, heading up a crew of conservation specialists doing mostly like invasive species removal and salmon habitat restoration work, which I did for a few years.

Jason Elkins (12:48.502)
Mm-hmm.

Kieron Wilde (13:15.222)
I liked it, but you know, I was really the disenfranchising part was really like I realized pretty quickly that to do the really big impact stuff that I wanted to do and really use my brain, it would take me going back to college. Like I would have had, I would have to go back and actually get a higher degree because most of that stuff is kind of menial labor. You know, there's, there's value to it and someone's got to do it, but you know, maybe I was just cocky, but I was like, I felt like I was wasting my, my resources and my assets.

Jason Elkins (13:29.503)
you

Kieron Wilde (13:45.006)
by doing a lot of this work that most anybody could do. I didn't need a degree to go out and chop down blackberries and plant trees. So that was when I got into tourism, basically. That's when the shift happened for me. I started to look for another job that was more fun and more impactful. And I felt like I'd actually use my faculties a little bit more. And I had been told by many people, you should just be a guide, because I love to share.

Jason Elkins (13:52.458)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (14:12.895)
Mm-hmm.

Kieron Wilde (14:14.368)
information about stuff I know about and ecology, especially, you know, talking about plants and, and talking about landscapes and all that stuff. retain it really well. So I was always sharing it with people, you know, against their will sometimes, but especially in the captive audience. And I found a company that was starting up that was looking for guides that were trained in in biology that were naturalists. And it was just a perfect, perfect timing.

Jason Elkins (14:29.65)
You

Kieron Wilde (14:43.382)
I'm very serendipitous.

Jason Elkins (14:44.95)
Do you remember the first moment that you thought that the word guide kind of like, maybe like when you were in school, did you ever think of that concept or was it kind of like what you've explained is, okay, I'm doing this work. I'm not using my brain the way I want to. Some people had said I should be a guide. Do you remember when the first time being a guide seemed like maybe something people do?

Kieron Wilde (15:08.618)
Not really. mean, it wasn't far before I actually encountered this opportunity with this company that was starting up Evergreen escapes is the name of the company. And yeah, I didn't really understand tourism at all. I never traveled as a kid really, other than kind of regionally around Wisconsin to do these backpacking trips, went to Colorado and to Canada as part of that. you know, nothing extensive and definitely not your traditional like trip that people travel on.

Jason Elkins (15:16.235)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (15:28.534)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (15:35.734)
Mm-hmm.

Kieron Wilde (15:38.488)
So yeah, so it was, you know, I didn't understand really what it meant. And even that guiding was really a career until I found this company that was starting up and it was very much at the ground floor. You know, they'd just been not even a year in operation. So I was able to come in and really help grow that business from the ground up and apply a lot of my own knowledge about sustainability, which is really cool and helped to develop itineraries. I had great destination knowledge because I've been doing a lot of work in the back country of Washington state at that point.

This is in Seattle now that I'm living. So yeah, it was a really good opportunity and perfect timing, honestly.

Jason Elkins (16:16.565)
Was there looking back at it? Was there much? Were there many things that you felt like you had to learn about people? You seem you've got a very personable type of person, very well spoken. I'm guessing that you were. mean, I'm speaking to you now. I wasn't speaking to you when you were 20 or whatever, you know, in your 20s. But was that a challenge or was it super easy for you to get to figure out the kind of human part? Because you also said you like to spend a lot of time on your own in the woods.

Kieron Wilde (16:40.578)
Whoa, I've seen...

Yeah, yeah, the human part, I think it's just my personality type. I mean, I'm an ENTP if you're a Myers-Briggs person. I mean, I'm like pretty extroverted, I always have been. But honestly, I've said this multiple times. I think everybody should do some time in the service industry, you know, to really just understand the full spectrum of human condition and to, you know, maybe be a little bit humbled.

Jason Elkins (16:51.825)
huh, yeah, very much so.

Jason Elkins (17:11.434)
Mm-hmm.

Kieron Wilde (17:12.898)
Cause it is, it is like a unique skillset you develop when you're in the service industry and you're meant to take care of people and deal with all these different personality types in all different states of mind and conditions. So I, I actually was in the service industry all, I put myself in college bartending at, at country clubs, working with kind of a higher end service industry, country clubs and really cool bars and Madison and Madison, And so.

Jason Elkins (17:32.21)
Yep, alright.

Kieron Wilde (17:42.702)
I had that service experience already and that's really the that's the combo you need to be a really good guide. I mean, you have to you have to have that level of service and the anticipation of people's needs and their ability to assess whether they're at what they need. And also you have to have that knowledge, the knowledge that you're actually sharing with people as part of the experience.

Jason Elkins (17:53.814)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (18:03.926)
Do you think, because I absolutely agree with what you're saying, especially on the ability to interact with people. I've had several conversations with folks here on the show that, you know, like the question I'll pose is, if you were going to go out and hire some new guides for your staff for the upcoming season, like what careers or what jobs do you want to see on their resume? What things do you think transition well? And it's often it's servers, you know, somebody that's worked in a restaurant, bartenders.

people that because that's important and then I hear oftentimes and I've been through this as well. I mean I guided for a long time. I've been around for a while little too long. Well, I shouldn't say it that way. I'm happy to be around a lot longer, but my point being that. Sometimes you can take people that have that the people skills and you can teach them enough about the area.

to I think to do a pretty good job. So I think both things are important, but would you agree that you can you can teach the? Well, you know what? I don't know if you know what I'm saying. I don't know what I'm saying. What are your thoughts on what I'm rambling about?

Kieron Wilde (19:13.829)
Well, I understand I think we're going with this. mean, there's there's some things that are easy to teach, like the knowledge that you need to actually tell people about a destination and to talk about an itinerary. You know, those for most people, they can pick that up and do a little studying, actually being able to connect with a person and have empathy for a person is a much harder thing to learn. And it it really is something that

Jason Elkins (19:40.374)
Great.

Kieron Wilde (19:42.264)
Hopefully it's instilled in you from a young age and you hone it throughout your life. But some people actually just.

Jason Elkins (19:50.07)
Because that's a hard one to just teach. can't just, well, I'm sure when you were in school with a bunch of science majors that were probably really good at spreadsheets and analytics and data collection and all this stuff, but maybe using all that knowledge to convey it to clients on a trip, it's a really, really big long shot.

Kieron Wilde (19:52.992)
Sure.

Kieron Wilde (20:13.622)
Yeah, exactly. Because nobody wants to be talked at for like hours either. So like the delivery is also a big piece of it. You know, like, how do you turn this into something that's actually interesting? And, you know, one of the things we talked a lot about is the why like, why, why do you want to know this? Why, you know, why are you out here on this trail? And experiencing this part of the world, you know, and understanding how to tie that into the bigger picture of narration is huge.

Jason Elkins (20:30.763)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (20:42.88)
had a guy, Zach, can't think his last name escapes me at the moment, but we spoke on the show and he does dinosaur trips and paleontology trips. And he's like, yeah, we have these paleontologists that come out and lead these trips. And I was just like, man, just imagine trying to find a paleontologist that would be comfortable and happy to lead a group of.

But fortunately the people that go on those trips are probably they're probably all in the same kind of personality style. But yeah, but he said it was great. He wasn't, you know, it seems like it's working just fine for him. I just remember thinking, wow, that's going to be tough.

Kieron Wilde (21:14.786)
You'd hope. Yeah, you'd hope. But yeah, great.

Kieron Wilde (21:24.054)
Yeah, having a lot of knowledge doesn't mean you're really good at disseminating that knowledge to people in a way that's digestible or relatable.

Jason Elkins (21:31.87)
Because you could take the paleontologist maybe as a great, just this an example, Probably a professor, he probably stands in a lecture hall and gives lectures and probably conveys the information really, really well. And the challenge in a tour guide, the client relationship is it's more of a two-way type of thing. And that ability, yeah, that...

Kieron Wilde (21:54.538)
Yep, and a dynamic environment, you know.

Jason Elkins (21:59.248)
Yeah, exactly. Not in a classroom that's fairly stable. And, you know, the worst thing you got to worry about is maybe the air conditioner is going to go out one day and the, you know, the students are going to be a little bit crabby or whatever, but, yeah.

Kieron Wilde (22:11.298)
Yeah, we're driving, you know, driving, navigating traffic or like kayaking down a river or rafting or, you know, like hiking on a trail. And there's so many variables to consider while you're trying to deliver this information and also make sure that they're comfortable and having a great experience.

Jason Elkins (22:27.37)
Yeah, because a lot of the folks that might be with you, they're way outside of their element. And sometimes the questions they ask, you've got to have a pretty good personality to respond in a way that doesn't seem very condescending or just the things that come up. it's just, I just remember like when I was a river guide in Montana for quite a while. And when the person asks you,

Kieron Wilde (22:33.229)
100%.

Jason Elkins (22:55.296)
How are we getting back to the truck? Does the river flow in a circle? I can say this right now on this podcast, but try answering that question when you're out there working your butt off, you're hot, you're sweaty, and your clients are sometimes challenging and they ask you a question like that. Try not to say something smart ass, right?

Kieron Wilde (22:58.734)
my God. Yeah.

Kieron Wilde (23:16.27)
I'd love to collect a whole book of those from guides all over the world. just like that. You like to say there's no stupid questions, but man, there are some, there's some stupid questions. There really are. Like I've had people ask me like what elevation we're at when we're on a cruise ship. I used to work on cruise ships and be like, what elevation are we at right now? And we're up like a, you know, in a fjord. And I'm like, well, you can see the sea right there. So I'd say about that far above sea level. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (23:20.177)
Yeah, I know you've heard him.

Jason Elkins (23:32.72)
yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Jason Elkins (23:41.305)
About 15 feet, whatever. We used to get it. I had managed a fishing and scuba diving resort in Belize. We're on an island in the Caribbean and we'd be sitting at the lodge eating dinner. Like, what's the elevation? Well, if you fall down the stairs when you leave, you'll be at about one foot. Yeah, it's interesting. Or in Wyoming,

Kieron Wilde (24:03.074)
Yeah, it's a good one.

Jason Elkins (24:09.11)
Fisherman, know, I was fit is mostly fly fishermen and everyone so I get someone in the boat It's like so is this salt water or freshwater?

Kieron Wilde (24:16.558)
I've had like what age does a deer become an elk? know, how old does a deer become an elk was a good one. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (24:24.688)
yeah, that's a good one. And the guides, that's one skill that you develop is, I'm not necessarily condoning it, but a guide that, a good guide sometimes can really convince, like they don't know the answer, cause you'll get questions. You'll get questions you don't know the answer to. Maybe you could argue that you should know the answer to, but I remember we were on a pack trip in Montana and someone asked the guide like, which range of mountains is this over here on this side?

He just he said something, but he said it was such confidence. Like everybody in the group said, cool. And I was a group leader. So these were all my clients. And I I lived in Wyoming, grew up in, you know, grew up in Wyoming, lived in Montana as like I knew he was just making it up. But he was so convincing that nobody cared. And I'm not going to say anything, you know, good for him. Yeah, it's a it's about the delivery. And we did a trip in Namibia once in the.

Kieron Wilde (24:57.496)
Yeah.

Kieron Wilde (25:08.45)
Yep.

Kieron Wilde (25:12.91)
Yeah, it's all about the delivery.

Jason Elkins (25:19.882)
These guys, they're like, we've never been in this area. This or just check in this area. It's with a bunch of tour operators. And they put us in these camps. And then at dinner one night, I think it was the first night our guide comes. some of our team found something really cool that we've never seen before. So tomorrow morning, we're going to get up early and we're going to go out and hike and da da da da. And so they took us out to this place. There were some burial mounds and they're like, wow, this is such a big discovery. This is amazing. And we talk, you know, they told us all about this and this and that.

And I remember at the end of the day, we're sitting around dinner. like, they should repeat this exact experience every week. And then it occurred to me that maybe they have. But it was so, yeah, like, wow, we're not sure. We think it might be this. We think it might be that. We're going to do some more research. we all, like everybody in the group, and we're all tour operators. It's on a fam trip. And we're all like,

Kieron Wilde (26:00.462)
They probably do. Uh huh. This never happens.

Jason Elkins (26:17.054)
this is so cool we felt like we discovered something you know archaeological find and and yeah so and then I figured out later yeah yeah

Kieron Wilde (26:24.664)
But that's great, they provided a great experience. mean, that's exactly what you want to do, right? It's in the moment, you're having a good time and who cares what's real and what's not? It's all about the experience.

Jason Elkins (26:34.88)
Well, in theater, there's this concept of the willing suspension of disbelief, which is what allows us to go see a play or watch a movie. We know it's not real, but we willingly release that disbelief in order to have the experience. And tourism can be a lot like that, too, you know, especially, especially in those situations, or even when they get stuck, you know, on the same trip, they got stuck in the sand in the Land Rovers a few times and like

Kieron Wilde (26:53.347)
Yep.

Jason Elkins (27:03.764)
going through my head is like, my gosh, we're all going to die out here. There's no way they're going to get this thing out. And after an hour or so, they get it out and I'm blown away. And I'm pretty sure that they knew they could get it out. There was no doubt in their mind, but they still played that like, well, I don't know, this one's pretty bad, you know, or the or the guide and the guide in Alaska or Canada that's, you know, when you're out in the woods, hey, bear, hey, bear, hey, bear. I don't know. Maybe they should do that. I.

I mean, I guided in Yellowstone, but I never did that. But I went with a guide in Canada that, hey bear, the whole time. And so, well, or just to give us this idea that, know, thank gosh we have the guide here with us to yell, bear. So anyway, off on a tangent there. Okay, so let's, you took this job back to the story here.

Kieron Wilde (27:40.334)
Just trying to scare them off, yeah. Or call them in.

Kieron Wilde (27:50.157)
Right?

True, might be something to it.

Kieron Wilde (28:03.085)
Yep.

Jason Elkins (28:03.318)
You took this job, helped them develop some sustainable itineraries. Obviously, we're guiding clients. And where did it go from there?

Kieron Wilde (28:11.884)
Yep. Yeah. And it was a lot about the business practices, a lot about cutting out waste, not using any plastic water bottles, using all like reusable, stainless steel water bottles that we refill every day. you know, even all of our tea and coffee that we'd serve was French in a French press. So they didn't even have like the wrappers like from tea bags, you know, like it was, we were really like setting the bar at that point. This is, know, early 2000s for sustainability in travel.

And so I worked for that company for gosh, about seven years, with some little forays, out with other companies during the off season. So I had to work, up in Alaska. Actually, I took a summer and worked up in Alaska on a cruise ship during the inside passage and got to have a great experience up there in small expedition ships and loved it.

Jason Elkins (29:07.328)
Mm-hmm.

Kieron Wilde (29:09.0)
And did that over a winter as well in Costa Rica and Panama working going through the Panama Canal over and over again, like on this nine day itinerary going down to the Embora people on the border of Columbia where you are right now. And visiting these indigenous tribe down there, which is so cool. So I had quite a few of these experiences during my time with them and then started my company in 2013 First Nature. so

Jason Elkins (29:23.115)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (29:27.914)
Yeah.

Kieron Wilde (29:38.016)
I started my business kind of like learning from, from working for a few of other companies that worked for adventures by Disney for a year as well down in South America and, Ecuador and the Galapagos islands, also like a cruise and land land and sea combination. but I got to learn from these luxury brands, what to take away from that and apply to my own business. And I got to learn from.

company I was working for, was really focused on these like kind of high volume became kind of focused on high volume set departures where people book a seat on something and you know, you're running like multiple tours a day with lots of vehicles and lots of guides and decided I wanted to do kind of the opposite of that and really focus on doing like bespoke custom private tours is the focus of the brand. And then that destination management piece of it kind of grew out of that as well, where it's just everything we do.

Jason Elkins (30:12.448)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (30:26.688)
Mm-hmm.

Kieron Wilde (30:32.27)
has a level of customization to it. So we're never kind of like doing the same exact itinerary over and over again. It keeps it really interesting for, from a guiding perspective and even from a design experience, design perspective. And then we're also always making money. Every time a tour is going out when it's a private tour, it's always making money versus trying to fill seats to make sure you break even and actually have a profit. So that's been successful.

Jason Elkins (30:55.702)
Yeah. Are you, so when we started, really kind of touched on the destination management part. sounds like what are you saying is when you started your business, was kind of the individual private, um, but direct to consumer. then you kind of mentioned that the DMC part came in. So have you transitioned completely to DMC then?

Kieron Wilde (31:19.04)
No, completely. So we, we still have private tours that go out in the Northwest that are direct to consumer. Most of them, a lot of them are return clients or referrals from local partners like hotels or local DMOs like travel Oregon or visit Seattle, for instance. But 70 % of our businesses is direct to consumer. And even in those early days, a lot of what we're doing was working 70.

Jason Elkins (31:33.994)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Jason Elkins (31:44.01)
Did you say 70 % is direct to consumer? OK.

Kieron Wilde (31:47.756)
Yeah, 70 % approximately. No, I'm sorry. Sorry. B2B. Yeah, yeah.

Jason Elkins (31:51.574)
Or is it the other? OK. That's what I was in. All right. No. OK, so 70 % is B2B or that destination management company stuff. Where are you working? OK.

Kieron Wilde (32:03.15)
Correct. Yep. About 70 % of the tours that we book are, we're working with the tour operator that, or a travel agent that has come to us to design the experience for their clients. And then 30 % approximately is direct to consumer. And that includes the corporate team building type stuff that we do. We'll take groups out and do, fun adventures with them, like rafting, or we'll take them out and do corporate stewardship work, or we'll do like a beach cleanup on order.

coast, for instance, and that's fits into that 30%.

Jason Elkins (32:37.472)
So you as a tour operator, or the DMCA, doing some direct to consumer. Do you own some boats and some vehicles, or are you contracting all that?

Kieron Wilde (32:48.622)
Yeah, we do have our own in-house fleet of Mercedes Sprinters and luxury SUVs and then we have, you know, some gear like snow shoes and stand up paddle boards that we have in-house as well. And then when it comes to stuff that's a little bit more technical, say, you know, whitewater rafting, then we contract that. We have a vendor that we work with that will subcontract that piece out.

Jason Elkins (33:12.222)
Okay. And do you have a lodge or facilities at all that? I mean, the place I were like, I'm looking at you, you know, on a, on a video camera. I don't, I can't remember if you said it your house or lodge. I'm just curious. Do you guys actually have facilities for people?

Kieron Wilde (33:28.418)
like overnight facilities like hospitality? No, but that's the plan. We have a our long term vision is definitely to get into the hospitality side of stuff. We have a we have a property in Portland that we have on Airbnb, you know, so we've been doing that for about three years. But living out here, you know, feels like we live in a lodge very much. But we're looking for that opportunity. We've we've been working on one.

Jason Elkins (33:29.876)
Yeah, I'm just yeah, okay

Jason Elkins (33:38.602)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (33:43.594)
Okay.

Jason Elkins (33:50.89)
Mm-hmm.

Kieron Wilde (33:55.992)
called Fur Haven actually out here for a while. That's gonna be freestanding, A-frame style guest houses that folks can book and they can be booked out for retreats. And it's very much about making it more affordable than a lot of the options that are out here too, because so many of these are popping up all over, but they're like $500 a night to stay in like a little like, you know, little tiny cabin, little tiny box. And we want to...

Jason Elkins (34:04.352)
Cool.

Jason Elkins (34:15.082)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (34:20.83)
Are they using the term clamping there or is it above that?

Kieron Wilde (34:23.754)
Yeah, some of them are. Yeah, some of them are calling it glamping. But we really want to connect people with the experience too. So, you know, we want to make sure when people coming out here, they're able to, you know, bike to the spot and then plug in their e-bike and, you know, be able to engage in some projects that are going out here, especially like the regenerative travel stuff that we're doing, like engage in like some, restoration work of a trail system or, you know, maybe they're planting trees.

Jason Elkins (34:40.97)
Mm-hmm.

Kieron Wilde (34:54.21)
Who knows, but those are the kind of people we want to bring out here and kind of engage with.

Jason Elkins (34:55.456)
Yep.

You said you started your business, was it 2012, 2013? Somewhere in there?

Kieron Wilde (35:03.485)
yeah, it's 2013.

Jason Elkins (35:06.422)
Okay, if you were able to go back to that time, because you said you kind of start out direct to consumer, start and then do majority now, B2B, is there any major differences? Would you have gone in different direction? Would you just jumped in and said, let's just do DMC stuff? Any major changes? Like if someone was listening to this right now, not necessarily one of your competitors there in your neighborhood, but like what are...

What did you learn from the experience that would be helpful to somebody else that maybe has a lot of background, has done a lot of the type stuff that you've done, but wants to start their own business? What's a little nugget you would give them?

Kieron Wilde (35:47.182)
Find people that are really good at this stuff you're not. I think that's like one of those universal lessons probably, but for me, know, that's as we've scaled up, I've found myself doing.

Jason Elkins (35:52.851)
Now, yep.

Jason Elkins (35:59.946)
Yeah, what is that for you? Tell me what that is for you.

Kieron Wilde (36:03.366)
I mean, we're like, I don't know, we do pretty well. We're like a million in revenue a year, approximately. So for like a small, you know, privately owned company, it's okay, especially with the seasonality.

Jason Elkins (36:15.766)
But when you say find people that are good at what you're not good at, because you mentioned you're an ENTP, I'm an ENFP, pretty close. I know there's things I'm not good at. I suspect there's things you're not good at. So what did you need to go out, like as far as partners or other people around you, what were the skill sets that you found valuable in other people because you just didn't maybe have them in yourself?

Kieron Wilde (36:32.91)
Sure.

Kieron Wilde (36:41.74)
Yeah, I mean, like classic stuff for my personality type for sure has to do with the minutia and, you know, like organizational skills and, you know, like client management, like those kinds of things. Like I'm always onto the next like shiny object and like thinking of like a new way to do something and make the next new tour that we can put together. And I don't know.

Jason Elkins (36:56.63)
you

Jason Elkins (37:04.64)
Maybe you should start a podcast. I don't know, that was me a year ago. Shiny object.

Kieron Wilde (37:08.342)
Yeah, I don't know. mean, it's a cool idea. I mean, it's, it's, but that's like what feeds your soul, right? It's like the, you know, like, keeping things kind of new and exciting and that I'm just like, I'm also not that great at managing people. Like I don't love the people management piece of it. I'm like the visionary and strategist when it comes to what the company's doing. And if I get pulled away from that, you know, the company

Jason Elkins (37:16.916)
Yeah.

Kieron Wilde (37:37.056)
suffers from it. I, I so like I would have, you know, earlier on, I probably would have tried to find some of the compliments my skill set a lot better and was able to kind of provide, you know, the services so that I can actually still keep guiding to and like, that's the other big thing if you're, started my business so I could stay in the tourism industry and make it a viable career.

Jason Elkins (37:54.57)
Mm-hmm.

Kieron Wilde (38:01.944)
most guides, I would say most guides can't do that. Most guides are underpaid and they experience seasonality in the extreme. And sometimes they have to float around from one destination to another just to like, you know, pick up enough work to get through the year. I, one of the, honestly, one of the reasons I started my company was to be able to connect the visitor with expert guides with like these incredible

Jason Elkins (38:05.846)
Yeah.

Kieron Wilde (38:32.494)
knowledge, you know, people full of knowledge and passion that are so good at what they're doing, but are undervalued and underpaid. And we pay the best that I know of in this whole region. I mean, we pay guides very well as contractors. a lot and I've, I've helped mentor a lot of guides into becoming their own business and starting their own guiding company. And then we continue to work with them on a contract basis because

Jason Elkins (38:36.596)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (38:58.027)
Right.

Kieron Wilde (39:02.22)
That's the only way you can really do it and make it a sustainable lifestyle unless you want to live out of a van and just travel around.

Jason Elkins (39:09.97)
It's hard because you're a ski lift operator in the winter, fly fishing guide in the summer, or river guide or whatever. one of the things that, especially anybody that's listening to this that's thinking about maybe, I'd love to be in a guide and it sounds amazing, is that relationship part. So before we wrap up, I just wanted to ask you that one question, because we haven't had any conversations about, like you were moving around, you're doing all these things. How did that?

Work for creating relationships. Did you learn anything along the way that you'd want to share with somebody else that might be dealing with that? The challenges of finding a relationship when you're a guy or work in those business.

Kieron Wilde (39:45.038)
Like a personal, like a marriage or like what kind of relationship?

Jason Elkins (39:49.192)
Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, romantic relationships are just or just friendships even because sometimes guides mean they can bond fairly quickly with people. But if they're moving every three, four months going on the next thing. So is there anything that that's that you think somebody should hear that maybe is thinking about being a guide or struggling with like, I don't want to be alone. OK, there you go. Yeah, OK. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.

Kieron Wilde (40:07.598)
Yeah, do it while you're young, I guess. I don't know, I know some guides. There's a great couple down in the Mackenzie River that have Horse Creek Lodge down there and they met as rafting guides and then they just like, you know, built this really cool destination hospitality thing together and they're doing great.

Jason Elkins (40:24.438)
I think that's why I'm asking the question. I think I'm asking you, Karen. How do I find somebody that wants to live this lifestyle? Like I'm 51, I'm still trying to figure it out. anyway, kind of just joking, but it's just something that came up as you were mentioning that. anyway, yeah, yeah, it is. There's no magic bullet. We've discussed quite a few things. wanna...

Kieron Wilde (40:30.984)
right.

Kieron Wilde (40:36.236)
Yeah.

Kieron Wilde (40:41.388)
It's hard. It's hard.

Jason Elkins (40:48.544)
Give you just a quick chance. there anything that I forgot to ask, should have asked or anything you want to make sure our listeners know about you? First nature tours or just conservation stuff? Anything we should bring up before we wrap it up?

Kieron Wilde (41:01.516)
Yeah, I would say, you know, I was really grateful for the pandemic, even though we lost a ton of money in that time. And because I had a chance to reevaluate what I was doing with my life and what we were doing with First Nature and really came to the conclusion that to make this the career that fulfills me and like feeds my soul the way that it's meant to, I needed to put more effort into the sustainability stuff and more effort in conservation stuff.

So we started doing a lot of work to create regenerative travel projects is what we call them. But basically these, this tour product that allows people to engage with stewardship in the destinations where we work. And we do that by creating relationships with nonprofits on the ground there that otherwise wouldn't be interacting at all with tourism. And a lot of times lack the capacity to do so. So we come in, look for grant money.

help increase their capacity, pay them to help create these experiences that we can then take visitors to engage with this restoration work and help leave the destination better than they found it. And that's like a movement right now that I'm super passionate about. And I see as being a big part of the future of tourism and definitely the future of sustainability is like getting folks to engage in meaningful ways with the places they visit and leave that positive impact.

So there's so many facets to that that I could spend a whole podcast talking about but

Jason Elkins (42:32.51)
It's pretty cool stuff because I had interviewed Chris, I cannot pronounce her last name right off without looking at, but with Conservation VIP and they're a not-for-profit organization. And she was kind of explaining the challenge. Like if you're not-for-profit organization, it's really hard to market, hey, come here and do this, have this experience. So we talked about how an organization like that can partner with a tour operator. The tour operator can put together the package, market it, know, however,

they need to whatever and then collaborate with the organization to come have the experience to make a difference. And it was kind of an interesting conversation. So that's kind of what I hear when you're saying that is just figuring out ways to work together. Yeah.

Kieron Wilde (43:16.032)
Absolutely. Yeah, that's, there's a recipe for it that we've kind of, I wouldn't say we perfected it, but we've gotten really good at it. And I understand the nonprofit world fairly well. the vice chair of a nonprofit that is bi-state focused on sustainability tourism really in promoting this Columbia Gorge region as a bi-state region to visitors and also helping make it more livable as a destination. So I understand that nonprofit lens to some degree.

Jason Elkins (43:23.988)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (43:36.214)
Mm-hmm.

Kieron Wilde (43:45.559)
I'm super passionate about creating more of these experiences everywhere that we can, like internationally as well. And I see that probably as my own future from a consulting perspective is just going into destinations and helping make that destination more sustainable with the tour product that they have to offer and also making it more appealing. Cause the marketing piece of that you can generate is really incredible as well. Just capturing that.

Jason Elkins (43:50.389)
I love it.

Jason Elkins (43:55.957)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (44:10.004)
I a lot of this came up as a result of COVID. A lot of communities that were so dependent, even indigenous communities that just kind of became dependent on the tourism. And they quit doing their normal things that fed them for thousands of years. And now people are like, OK, we need to not let these communities become so dependent on tourism. also sustainability, don't want them necessarily burning down the forest either.

Kieron Wilde (44:21.229)
Yeah.

Kieron Wilde (44:34.667)
Yeah.

Kieron Wilde (44:39.138)
Well, it shouldn't be extractive, right? I it shouldn't be like extractive tourism. It shouldn't be a negative impact on the destination. It needs to be one that really helps the destination be better and grow and thrive. And that's not always the case. In fact, it's rarely the case. feel like that all those stakeholders are really considered when it comes to tourism development.

Jason Elkins (45:05.608)
Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, that's a whole, whole nother thing. well, I, I appreciate that. It sounds like you're doing some great things. I look forward to kind of keeping a, keeping track of, know, what you guys are working on, collaborating on some, some more stuff in the future. Obviously we've got a lot of things we could talk about, so maybe we'll come back and, and do this again sometime, but appreciate you, taking some time out of your day to share your story with me and our listeners. And thank you so much, Karen.

Kieron Wilde (45:11.052)
Yeah, for sure.

Kieron Wilde (45:34.498)
Yeah, I appreciate you too, Jason. Thanks for taking the time. You too.

Jason Elkins (45:37.942)
Have a great day.