Adventure Travel with Justin Wateridge - Steppes Travel

Guest Bio

Justin Wateridge is the Managing Director of Steppes Travel, a specialist tour operator known for designing immersive, tailor-made journeys around the world. With decades of experience in the travel industry, including previous leadership as Managing Director of Abercrombie & Kent UK, Justin brings a deep understanding of both luxury travel and meaningful exploration.

Raised in Zambia and educated at Oxford, Justin’s passion for travel was shaped early through exposure to diverse cultures, landscapes, and wildlife. Over the course of his career, he has visited more than 150 countries, working as a tour leader, expedition guide, and pioneer of exploratory journeys. His experiences range from tracking wildlife in remote regions to leading ambitious overland expeditions, all of which continue to influence his perspective on travel today.

Justin is a strong advocate for travel as a force for connection and understanding. He believes that meaningful travel experiences foster empathy, challenge assumptions, and create lasting personal impact. In addition to his work in the field, he has spoken at venues such as the Royal Geographical Society and contributed written insights on global travel. He lives in the Cotswolds with his family and continues to pursue adventurous challenges, often in support of charitable causes.

Show Summary

In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Justin about a life shaped by global exploration and a career dedicated to meaningful travel. From his early years growing up in Zambia to leading expeditions across Asia and Africa, Justin shares how his experiences in the field ultimately led him to a leadership role at Steppes Travel.

The conversation explores how travel has evolved over the past few decades, from navigating the world without modern technology to today’s increasingly connected experience. Justin reflects on the value of human connection in travel, emphasizing the importance of local guides, cultural understanding, and stepping beyond curated itineraries to truly experience a destination.

Justin also offers insight into how Steppes Travel approaches trip design, focusing on personalization, deep expertise, and creating journeys that go beyond surface-level tourism. Throughout the episode, he reinforces a central belief: that travel has the power to break down barriers, broaden perspectives, and bring people closer together in meaningful ways.

Big World Made Small guest features are invitation-only and selected based on story, experience, and fit with the show. Some guests support the show through paid production features, cross-promotion, referrals, or other partnerships. This helps keep the show free of third-party ads and interruptions while keeping the focus on real, story-driven conversations.

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the Adventure Traveler. So excited to have each and every one of you back here today and also very excited to have a wonderful guest. We've got Justin Waterich. Justin is the managing director for Steps Travel. Justin, welcome to the show. Good to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Jason, thank you very much for having me here. It's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

It's gonna be a lot of fun. We spoke, it was only a week or two ago and chatted a little bit about kind of what you're doing in the world. And I thought, man, we just need to come back and record the conversation, share it with other people. So Justin, we're definitely going to dig into your background, childhood traumas, stuff like that, figure out what got you doing this crazy stuff. But before we do that, let's give our listeners a quick idea of what is, for those that haven't heard of it, what is steps travel? What are you guys doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

So Steps Travel was a specialist tour operator that was founded in 1989. As the Soviet Union was about, it was beginning to disintegrate and first went into sort of Mongolia, what are now the stars, and hence the name was originally Steps East. And then it bought a small safari company, it set up Destination South America and discovery initiatives that was travel that supports conservation. And we move on sort of 30 odd years to where we are today. We're a specialist tour operator, mainly FIT, so telemade tours. We do do some fixed departures that are expert-led. Most of our clients are from either the UK, US, or English-speaking Europeans. And we take them to 90 destinations around the world and we have a team who really, really know their stuff. Our business is predicated on their expertise and their service.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Very cool. It sounds like you've got pretty dialed in on what it is you guys do. That was very concise and great. Thank you so much. Hey, I don't want to make any assumptions, but I I'm kind of guessing where the word steps came from. Let's go a little deeper into that. What is the actual word steps? What does that mean and how did it get incorporated into the name?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Well, steps refers to the geographical feature that is grasslands that you get in areas such as Mongolia, also Argentina. And it was originally, as I said, they were setting up pioneering trips going into that region towards the end of the Soviet era.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

What inspired that? I'm just, I we're gonna we're gonna get into the background and stuff like that. I don't want to go too deep right now, but it seems like an interesting oh, okay, the Soviet Union's falling. Let's start a business sending people to all these former Soviet bloc places. Um I don't know. Tell me.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

I didn't set it up. So it was set up by a wonderful man called Nick Lane, who's still our chairman. And yeah, he's always had been a pioneering spirit and had this curiosity that takes you to different parts of the world to explore different areas and peoples.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

That's that's that is very, very cool. All right, let's let's get to learn about you, Justin, because people don't end up in this business by well, sometimes they end up in it by accident, but there's usually kind of a journey along the way. So how far back do we need to go to kind of figure out how you got from where you were to where you are now?

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Wow, that's a big question.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

I know.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yes. I had the the privilege and of growing up in Zambia, a wonderful country in in Africa, a wonderful childhood there. I came to school in the UK, and then I came here to Unit while I was here at University at Oxford. And then after that, I I worked in London for a bit. I loved London. I probably partied far too hard, but after a few years I realized that I wasn't enjoying what I was doing. And I saw a trip uh with another company leading leading trips in China. And in my year off, I'd been there very briefly, that was 1989, and I was fascinated by China then. Sort of mouse suits with Derriga, um, sort of bicycles ruled the road, um, and it was very different from anything that I'd seen before. And so I did it for six months, and I just thought it'd be a cathartic experience to work out what I wanted to do. I loved it so much. I spent longer with different guides, working with different guides. I met a different cross-section of people from sort of professors to postmen to nurses to doctors to whatever. And I ended up leading trips for them for several years in different parts of the world. I then went on to do some of my own expeditions. I met my night wife, and after a while she said, Look, if there's any future between us, you can't spend all of this time overseas. So I I've heard that before. Yeah, it was probably the only time I listened to her. Uh and I I looked for jobs in travel. And Justin? Yeah, yeah. Do you mind?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Can we we glossed over that grew up in Zambia thing pretty quickly? I'd really like to dig into that a little bit more. How did your family end up in Zambia? Were you born in Zambia? Tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

So, yeah, my my father was working in newspapers, he was running the Zambia Daily Mail, and yeah, both my brother and I were born there, and it was Zambia at the time in the 70s was everything was wonderful, but at the end of the 70s, uh, the copper market crashed, and Zambia had all its eggs in that one basket. And so during the 80s was a very, very difficult time for Zambia. So it was I we've always loved the people, I've always loved the country. My sister's still there, but yeah, it was and I had the best of both worlds because I I was lucky enough to come here to the UK for for education aged eight, um, and then would go back for two holidays a year to Zambia. Okay. Were your parents from Zambia? No. My father had grown up in what is now Ethiopia, Eritrea around there, Abyssinia at the time, uh, and in Egypt, his father would had worked in in the colonial office. So he'd he'd always he always had a love of Africa. And yeah, and he found work in Zambia in the late 60s. What about your mom? Where is she from? So she's Scottish, um, and while whilst we're in Zambia, she worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society, um, a US organization. And again, that I suppose one of my introductions into wildlife and love of wildlife was was through that and through her.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

I'm happy we didn't skip past that. It sounds like an important part. So, all right, so you would go, you were going to school in the UK from from what age? Uh you you mentioned you come back a couple holidays. Eight. So your parents stayed there and sent you sent I don't want I don't want to say it in a negative way, sent you off, shipped you off school school, and it's probably got a lot to answer for in lots of different ways. Was that pretty common for families in places like Zambia that could send their kids off for boarding school?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

It w it wasn't, it wasn't. Um there were options in South Africa, but my father um deplored apartheid, didn't agree with it at all, didn't want to send me there um because of the apartheid regime at the time. Uh in the in the late 70s, there was a war going on in in what was then Rhodesia before it became Zimbabwe in in in 1980. So again, that wasn't really an option for me. So there were there were there were no good options, so we say, uh, apart from coming for the UK.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Okay. Did what do you remember of those those years before? I know if you were eight, I'm sure you have some memories of when you actually lived in Zambia. You were going to school with local kids, uh, or what was that like?

SPEAKER_00 6:58

It was great. I loved it. Sort of my best friends were but there was a couple of Zambian guys and an Ethiopian guy, Gideon. I remember him very well as well. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

What did you guys what did you guys do? What does a seven or eight-year-old or six or seven or eight-year-old kid living in Zambia do for fun with with your buddies?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

So you you live for the weekends and going down to either the Kafui River or or one of the parks and stuff like that. It is a destination like that is about the w wilderness and it's about being out in the bush. Man, it's yeah, it's that that love appreciation of the bush.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

And presumably you weren't going by yourself with your buddies, your your family. I mean, it sounds like you just go as a family and hang out in the bush. Did you camp?

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Yeah, a bit of camping, yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

All right, what does camping look like in Zambia? Because I've been to Zambia. I saw some a lot, I saw a lot of animals, but I stayed in a it was a camp, I guess, but it wasn't camping.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Can you like just pitch a tent and sleep on the ground or you can't pitch a tent anywhere, and certainly not in the national parks. You you either on the edge of the parks or you go in uh for the day on on various game drives. So yeah, you can't where where the wildlife are, you can't really pitch a uh tent. But there were places down on the low Zambezi where you could camp before it was gazetted as a national park. And so yeah, that there was wildlife around.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

All right. Very cool. Do you remember? Obviously, you were interested, it sounds like in the wildlife. If I'd gone back, I don't know if I could answer this question, but I'm gonna ask you. If I could go back in time and find Justin when he was seven years old and say, Justin, what do you want to do with your life? What do you want to be when you grow up? Do you remember? Do you have any idea what you would have said? You know, I don't I don't, I'm afraid. I don't think I could either. I don't know an astronaut or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

And I I didn't expect to work in travel. It was something that, as I said, it was my six months working with Explorer Worldwide just really Yeah, just changed my outlook on different things. And I by By spending longer in countries, by seeing countries, you just learn so much more rather than through the echo chambers of social media or the news or whatever. And and I very much believe that when you travel to places that it does break down barriers, it changes sort of stereotypes that we have about different places, your your perception, your your perspective. It's uh and that's why I'm a big that's why I am travel. That's why I'm a big believer in that.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

I I I get it, and that resonates through a lot of the conversations we which is part of why I love doing this podcast, is you know, the people that come on are have been exposed to that stuff. We're gonna discuss that more. But tell me, were you pissed off when you were eight and they shipped you off to the UK?

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah. Yeah. Especially I I had to wear leather shoes, which I probably hadn't worn before. Um still wearing shorts. In Zambia that's fine, but in the UK it was a lot colder. And there were colds. I never really had a cold before until I came to the UK.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

And the other kids in the boarding school, were they mostly kids from the UK? I mean, how did you fit in? I guess it's like because you look like you're from the UK, but obviously you kind of you kind of have to fit in.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

It's sort of it's yeah, you you you swim or you sink, sort of thing. So yeah, you you fit in, and yeah, most of the kids were were from the UK.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Was did you get to the point eventually where you were happy with school and had friends and you weren't so butthurt with your parents?

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Yeah, I de definitely so. I I sort of uh I think it was difficult at first. It was was lonely, but uh yeah, you make friends and I've got some very good friends, not necessarily from my prep school, but from my where I was secondary school, 13 to 18, I got some very, very good friends from there.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Okay. What was your thought process during that time? As were you starting to think about what you wanted to do with your life?

SPEAKER_00 10:36

I didn't think about it. I I wanted to do something of good. I'd always been interested to save the world. And even after I worked with Explorer for a while, I did an MSc in development studies in SOAS, which is the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. But I I was quite put off by some of the bureaucracy behind development and the and the yeah, it's not all that it's cracked out to be. It doesn't necessarily these the small organizations achieve a lot, but some of the bigger ones it become it becomes all about them rather than about the the people, the area that they're trying to conserve, preserve, whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Right. At that point in time, did you kind of envision yourself considering to live in the UK, or were you having thoughts of going back to Africa to live?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Or I've always got thoughts about going back to Africa to live there, but I think my wife and children would uh not be so happy about it.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Well, you can just send them off to boarding school. Bad joke. All right, so fast forward, and what did you you studied? What was I don't know how the education system works. You talk boarding school, prep school, all these things, but what was your first like diving into a particular field of study? When did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

I studied history at university. I started three years, three years at university doing history because it's a it's a good all-aro degree, it's about analytical skills, and it and it enabled me to get to a good university and then hopefully a good stepping stone to a career after that.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

All right. So how did the opportunity to go? Tell me more about the opportunity to go to China.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

So I just saw an advert asking looking for tour leaders, and so I applied for the job and had a weekend sort of uh well, a series of interviews and and was successful, and they said, right, you're off to China for six months. And I I got very excited about it.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Were you intentionally looking for opportunities in tourism, or was it literally it just kind of came across your desk? Oh, that sounds interesting. What was going on?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Exactly. It sort of came across my desk, it looked really interesting, and I as I said I'd been there very briefly for a few weeks before, back in about uh five, six years previously in 1989, and I was just so fascinated by China that I was just interested in the opportunity to go back there. Uh and I was lucky that I did because it was a time that was changing so fast. I think when I went first in 95, there were a lot of cars for the first time in Beijing and Guangzhou, but still a lot of bicycles, and then you'd come back a year later and the bicycles had almost gone away. You'd see changes in social morals that uh in 95 it was still there was no public uh display of affection between men and women. Men would walk around holding hands, but not men and women, and suddenly you see that change the next year. So you just saw this society just changing so so so quickly.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

I think I'd heard that before, but you mentioned men holding hands. What was it about the culture that that that made what can you tell me about that? I'm just curious about that.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Well, you see you see it in many cultures. I I certainly certainly saw it in Africa a lot as well, uh, throughout Africa. And I think it's sort of it's not a uh it's not a statement, it's just a friendship thing that rather than one of bisexuality in any ways.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Yeah, it's interesting because then um I spent a lot of time in Latin America and it's very common to see women, you know, just friends just walking down the street holding hands, or adult women holding their their mother's hand, which and not because their mother needs the help, it's just it's super, super common, but you don't but yeah, but it doesn't mean anything about anything that you know what we might carry around in our heads. So you said you went to China you said 95 was the first time you went, or did I get the date?

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Okay. So how old were you in 1989? In 89 I was uh just over 18.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Okay. And uh tell me more about that trip because who'd you go with? Was that a school thing? How did you end up there?

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Uh I was going out to Australia, to Sydney, to work at a school there um that had a a link with my the school I had been at in the UK. Um and I was what they called in Australia a rent a pump. So I was I was sort of like a a very junior teacher. Okay. And yeah, and that was a lot of fun, and it sort of went there via Hong Kong, and then from Hong Kong went into China for to Guangzhou, Gui Lin, and a few other places in Guanju.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

So oftentimes when something like this comes up in a conversation, I I always want to ask, well, what did your parents think of you off at 18 spending time at China and stuff? But with your parents, maybe it's totally different because you weren't living with them anyway. They sent you off to the UK.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Exactly that kind of kind of that you were semi-independent already and and off you go. Um and I think that yeah, there were no mobile phones then, so the only form of communication was with going to the post-restaurant, where you put you pick up your letter and you and then you you send your letter. And it was like always the decision when you go to the post-restaurant, do I do I open it straight away now, or do I find a cafe or a bar to sit there and read it? And yeah, so it's but the system worked, and we were still in contact with with parents, with loved ones, whoever it was when we're when we were traveling, and we've still met up with friends. I I don't know how, again, we didn't have phones.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Yeah, yeah. It's and a lot changed. You mentioned a lot changed in China, but just a lot changed in the world between 1989 and 1995. Because I remember I graduated high school, I should remember that, 91. And I went off to college, and there was this guy, an older guy, talking about oh, there's this electronic way of sending mail to each other, and a lot of the universities are using this. And I thought he was crazy. I was like, Yeah, whatever, that sounds ridiculous. But then within a couple of years, email was a real thing. Uh and I don't and even at probably around 95 was I mean, were you do you remember using the internet in 95 when you went back?

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Not really. I think it was probably first a little bit later than that. And I but I still remember in 99 I did a big trip up the Mikon, and the friend I was traveling with, I had to set him up a hotmail account or whatever whatever account it was so that he could uh AOL probably, right? You remember AOL? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, you'd you'd have to find a a little computer store, whatever, and send off your emails. An internet cafe, exactly that.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Internet cafes, yeah. Yeah, I I remember that. And it was, and I had done a little bit of traveling before all that technology, and it was. It was just it was just different. And uh it's almost so easy now, but that's a whole nother conversation. I mean, you know, everybody's got this phone and a map in their pocket. And for those of of our listeners that are listening and not not watching this, you know, you're sitting in front of a big map right behind you. And I don't know, I'm just curious. The the conversation around maps has come up a lot. Maybe it's because I bring it up like I'm like I'm bringing up right now. Do you did maps play? Was that were you interested in maps? I don't know. It's a weird question. But I see you sit in front of a map now. Was that something that you were into when you were young?

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Yeah, I love maps. I love pouring over maps and sort of uh looking at different things. And I think that this last weekend I was in the Faroe Islands and I was in somewhere they had a very old map of the Faroe Islands, and it was sort of the A, the depiction of Scotland, of Iceland and Norway, the surrounding area around the Faroes was was very, very different. And I so I love them for their for the history, what they say about different places, but there's nothing quite like being in somewhere, being in situ to to really understand and appreciate sort of uh the topography, the altitude, whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if you know if we were having this conversation, if our kids were having this conversation um 20 years from now, if they'd even talk about maps, if that would even be you know something that's on their radar, because you know, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

We use maps, you mentioned the phone, and everything's on the phone. So yes, yes, we we followed blindly sort of the Google Maps or whatever maps we use on our phone and take us from A to B. Again, last year I was in the Baltics and I was driving around there, and and so Google Maps took me from A to A to B to C to wherever, and it was really, really easy. But then you go to somewhere like Venice and you can almost do the same in Venice, yet that almost detracts from being in Venice because half the charm of Venice is is is wandering around that little side street or going off B and getting lost. Yeah. And then you find those little places rather than just going straight there.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

So I maybe it says something about people's personalities, but you know, I travel a lot. I'm in I'm in Bogota right now, and when you see people, I don't not necessarily tourists, just local people, even they're just walking following a map. You know, they've got the phone in their hand, just follow the little blue line. And you you almost want to ask them, like, okay, so when you finally get to your destination, what did you see? They saw a blue line the whole way. And I'm so much more likely to kind of like, you know, because I can hold my phone, it kind of points which way I'm facing, and I say, okay, it's roughly that way. And then I just put my pocket, my phone in my pocket, and I just walk roughly that way. And every intersection, I'm like, okay, should I go left or right? And I, well, whichever way just looks more interesting, is generally the way I'm gonna go. And then sometimes, you know, 40 minutes into a 20-minute walk, I realize that, oh, I think I got off course somewhere, but I don't care. It's like, you know, so what? It's there's all the cool things you see.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

I think that's exactly right. That you sort of you you have those serendipitous moments, you find things, you discover things, and you're also seeing it through your eyes rather than through Google's. I think that too many people just like they also listen to what Google tells them about a about a site or building or a place. And it's like, no, you should ask a local person about that, because he or she will tell you far more, or they'll tell you their own story rather than just a litany of facts about it.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

A couple of years ago, I was travelling from El Salvador to Nicaragua across the Bay of Honduras. And whilst I'd been in El Salvador, I hadn't seen many other sort of foreign travellers at all. But suddenly then when we got to the coast there, there were a load of backpackers. And it again took me back 30 years ago about the you've got the cool guy and girl on the guitar playing away, the very nervous traveller looking around, waiting for why why's the why is the the ferry not going, etc. And there was an El Salvadorian guy going around and said, Look, I speak good English, I can translate for you, I can translate for you. And all the young kids put up their phone and said, No, no, we've got Google Translate here. Yeah, yeah. Come on. And then when we when we landed in Nicaragua, uh the luggage had gone separately, so it was all sitting there on this sort of black volcanic beach. And you get out and you go, you go to your luggage, and then there's a guy from customs there who's looking at looking through bags. And there was one this backpacker, I remember she had a rucksack and it was full of badges from all other Latin American countries. And he simply goes, Where's Nicaragua? like this. And she she just didn't understand, she wasn't reading them. She looked to her phone for the answer on her phone. And I had to say to her, look, he he's making a joke. Where's your flag for Nicaragua here? You've got to just look at people, read them, understand people, not your phone.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

It's, I mean, if every yeah, if if it's it's an interesting thing because I think that the technology has opened the world up to an awful lot of people that may not otherwise go, you know. So maybe the young backpackers, it's like, hey, I've got my phone, I can I've got translate, I've got maps, and I can go anywhere I want, but they lean so heavily on that that they miss out on so many opportunities. And I I look back at maybe the backpackers or the travelers that were traveling back in the 60s, even, and and you wonder maybe it was a little harder, but I don't know. Do you think somebody that was traveling in the eighties is more adventurous than the average traveler? Now, I shouldn't ask that, but I don't you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

I don't think more adventurous. I think I think travel is easier now, but it doesn't that the my children or other young people aren't aren't as adventurous. I think you can still be adventurous. And I think back then, 30 years ago, though you go to some village in Laos or something like that, and they would all the backpackers would be in one small little restaurant, despite the fact there's lots of restaurants, and that's because that was the restaurant featured in The Lonely Planet. And it's like, well, you know what, there is more to lying for bang or wherever we are in than than what the Lonely Planet tells us.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

So it's um there have been many times when I'm walk around looking for something, and I think, oh, I could pull out my phone, and then I'm like, wait a minute, why am I gonna do that? Like, I know it's easier to say this because I've learned enough Spanish now. I spent a lot of time in Latin America. I've learned enough Spanish now, it's probably easy for me to say, just go ask somebody. But even then, sometimes I I tend I think, oh, I'm looking for something. I I think to pull out my phone. I'm like, wait, why would I do that? I'll just ask somebody. Because you have such interesting conversations can just pop up when you just ask some. Like they might not even know what you're looking for, and they might even send you the wrong direction. But you know, half the time they'll just say, Here, come with me. Let's go, I'll show you. And they'll walk with you for two or three blocks. Not because they're trying to get money out of you, just because they're like that. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Yeah, no, and you mentioned language, and I think when I used to travel, I used to learn various phrases at least of the country that I was going to. And now I'm just I'm maybe I'm older, lazier, I don't know. But I think it's such a good uh thing to do is just learn some basic phrases. A the the people will welcome you much more warmly as a result, and it'll open doors for you in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

So yeah, and literally just a few words because I, you know, I spent a couple months in the country of Georgia this uh this past year. And when I got there, I was like, yeah, I'm gonna learn all these Georgian words. And I think after two months, I got three of them worked out, right? And I realized I don't really need more than that because it's enough. It's just, you know, when you see some gumar jobah or whatever, you know, or I learned some some Russian words because most people there knew some Russian. And it was just enough that they would, well, I don't know if I'd say they'd smile. They're not the smiliest group of people, but they would at least try and engage and uh you know and help you out a little bit, as opposed to if somebody looks like me just shows up and just starts speaking English, expecting everybody to just respond to what I say. It it's just a different experience, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's it's I suppose it's travel's about have having that empathy uh with other people, understanding with other people and trying to create that that understanding. Yeah. So how much Chinese did you learn? I could get by. I I could get by, but I never learnt it formally. And uh when I was doing the big trip up the Mekong, we were we were cycling and we were in in Yunnan, southwest China, and we were I was asking directions for somewhere, and the this guy had a local dialect, and he he'd probably say the same about me. He had I had a crazy dialect, but I I couldn't really understand what he was saying. And then he said, Okay, I'll write it down for you. But I said to him, But I don't read. And he looked at me and goes, Are you stupid? And I go, No, no, I'm just not Chinese and I haven't learned the kanji, I can't read.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah, I I don't know what you I mean, I I remember it had the little dictionaries, you know, the phrase books and stuff, yeah. Phrase books, so I assume you it's like I haven't even seen one of those in a long time, and I guess why would I? You know, I guess I've got that in my pocket already. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

But there's there's look, there's there's words that you learn like uh there's a word in Chinese, Urbai Wu, which is um 250, but it all if you say it well, it's also a slang word for you're crazy, like Nisha Urbai Wu like this, and you say that and the Chinese look at you go, wow, and it's that you create a reaction like that, or the Chinese, if they've been derogative about Lawai foreigners like us, they you say da bitsu, which which means big nose, and some are bigger than others, but you go da bitsuongwaha, like the Chinese, the big big nose speaks Chinese, and they go, Oh, again, it's like and especially in a especially in a village in the middle of nowhere as well. Um, that's where I think it's to speak put on to Mandarin is yeah, it's important.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

And you were leading groups. I mean, you were a tour guide there.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Yeah, I was a tour leader, but the the work with national guides, with local guides as well. They had the the expertise in China, and I was more I suppose the facilitator making sure that people got from A to B to C.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Let's let's talk about that because yeah, there's facilitators, but there's probably Chinese people that could do it just fine, get from point A to point B. But what do you see in the value of having like a a tour leader that maybe looks like, sounds like, thinks like the guests that are going on the trip? What does that add to a trip?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

I think at the time in China, tourism was still very sort of nascent, and there weren't that many good guides. So it was working with guides to to help them and also to get them to better understand sort of cultural differences. And like you can't call somebody a uh a Twitcher if they if they like burning until they unless you know them very well or that whatever. And so there are there's sometimes there's those cultural differences, and it's sort of um yeah, and it wasn't a di it wasn't a difficult place, but it wasn't an easy place to travel. It was traveling was quite hard, especially on trains. The Chinese trains now are just incredible. But then it was still still from a communist era. These they were normally very large men or women who used to run the restaurant cars and they were yeah, just surly aggressive, and yeah, it was no no customer-client service, really.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

So yeah, I mean I personally I see the value. I've led a lot of group trips and and been a tour leader as well. And uh it is useful. It's it's super, super useful because I've run into situations where okay, this guy's really good at what he does, but he's got a few things that he does that if you're not there to kind of explain to your guests, well, yeah, I know he does this weird thing, but and explain the culture behind it and and all that stuff, because uh otherwise yeah, it can it can it'd be a totally different experience. With well, I don't want to jump to steps quite yet, but let's go back Okay, so steps you said started around 89 as well with the fall of Soviet Union, yeah. And you were a tour leader in China in '95. How long were how long did you stay in China doing that?

SPEAKER_00 28:18

So uh over the next two or three years I was in China for six months period. I wasn't there the whole year, and then whilst I wasn't in China, I was in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Mali, Pakistan. Yeah, so just leading trips year-round then?

unknown 28:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Alright. So how far into that process was it before you realized, yep, tourism is my life, this is what I'm gonna do, travel. Did you figure that out pretty quickly?

SPEAKER_00 28:46

I did, but I also realized that tour leading is is is great, you mean wonderful people, but it's not it's not it's very difficult to make a living out of it. And so that's why I did a couple of my own expeditions to try and sort of, I don't know, just yeah, just do something a little bit differently with within travel. Yeah. So one of them was following the the Mekon from its from its mouth in Vietnam to its source in Tibet, so five months travelling the Mekon.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Did you do that kind of on your own or were with clients or what was that?

SPEAKER_00 29:14

With one friend.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Wow. What was the probably a lot of big takeaways. Sure, a few big takeaways of that trip.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Yeah, I think I I think just the So the We started in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Cambodia then was still there was uh the Khmer Rouge was still operative in the north round Stung Trang, um, and it wasn't it was still a very tense place. Then Lao and Lao was only just opening up and then into China. And I think that the colonial French had ex had an expression for Indochina that the Vietnamese grow rice, that the Cambodians uh watch rice grow, and the Laotians listen to rice grow. And it's a wonderful phrase that sort of aptly sums up the laid-back attitude of Laotians, but it also kind of risks stereotyping the Laotians into just being laid-back people. So and that's one of the sort of tight roads that travel faces. You've got to try and understand individuals, peoples, nations, different quirks and sort of idiosyncrasies, but but not label them as as such.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Right. Did you, when you started this journey, did you know you were like, was this a okay, we're going from the mouth to the source? It's a sure thing, or was it just like let's ride up the river for a while and see what happens, and you ended up at the source? How did that work?

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Yeah, we were we were trying to get to the source, but we always knew that getting into Tibet would be not easy. And we did so illegally, and we were in Tibet maybe some two weeks until we got put on a bus and shipped out.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Okay, tell me more about that. How did how did they find you? They just arrest you on the street, like, hey, you don't look like you belong here? What what happened?

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Yeah, because we were two foreigners and in we were high on the Tibetan plateau and I can't even remember it was the Zadoy, maybe I think it was, and we've been cycling for days or whatever. You find somewhere and where we could have some food and we're sat there eating away, and then in walks some uh local big wig officer, and he he looks at us and goes, You shouldn't be here really, should you? So Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Were they nice about it when they took you put you on the bus?

SPEAKER_00 31:18

They were. They were they they they were. But they they were were they nice, they were they were strict about it, but they were there.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

They were Yeah, but you actually made it to the source then. Or did that get the way?

SPEAKER_00 31:29

And we then we then came back in again, um and we And we were we were close to the source, and at that time again it was this is poor digital thing, so we had old it was actually old actually US Air Force maps of the region and trying to find where we thought the source was, and it started snowing very heavily and anyway, just it was and our bikes were beginning to fail, and so we we decided to come back and to pull out. So so in a sense the expedition was a failure, and it's a great thing I teach trying to teach my kids and others, it's okay to fail, and it's not necessarily about getting to that end destination, it's about what happens en route, the the laughs, the friendships, the the tears, the whatever.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Yeah. Did you have situations along the way where that were, I guess what you would rank very unpleasant with uh the people that live there?

SPEAKER_00 32:18

No, not at all. I think that my in my in all my travels I've always been just very taken by the the kindness of strangers, the generosity that you have, the hospitality you have, and I think that's my overriding thing. I I've sometimes done talks to schools and I'm often asked a sort of similarish question, sort of like, have you ever anybody ever harmed you? And I said, Yeah, I've been mugged. And they'll sit up and look, and I said, Yeah, it was in London. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yeah, it's uh I think that people that haven't had the and that's a big part of why I'm doing this podcast. It's you know, we talk about let's let's go do things, let's get out there, let's connect with people, let's make this world feel smaller by creating connections. I actually started the podcast when I was in my first trip to Asia because it had always seemed so far away. I'd traveled a lot, but I hadn't been to Asia because it seemed so far away. And what I realized was once I got there, it's a long plane flight, but it wasn't that far away, in a sense. These are just they're still people, you know. Obviously culturally very different, but they're still people. We're closer than we're different, I think.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

I I think that's so true. I think that um it was years ago I was in Sudan, uh, I was on a ferry up in the north, and uh this when a man found out that I was British, he's he started he didn't get aggressive, but he was accosting me about the Iraq war. And I had to explain to him and said, look, okay, I might have been British, but I I didn't vote for the then government, and then I also marched in London against the war, and so don't judge me because of my government. And I think people around the world are the same, they don't want to judge you because of their government. And I think that when we when we travel, we realize that despite the differences of either location, religion, dress, geography, what it is, that we want for the same things. That we want stability, that we want education for our kids, that we we care about the same things, friends and family, and we laugh about the same things. Laughter is uh such an important part.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Yeah, I uh it was on that that trip that I actually was in Asia, and I remember I stayed at a hostel in Kuala Lumpur, and we were up on the top. They had a big patio thing up on the top of this big building, and there were I was the oldest, you know. I'm I'm I'm the older digital nomad, but there's this group of probably 15 people. Every single one of them was from a different country, and we're sitting around in a ring of chairs, just like you would at a college party, you know, in London or whatever. But it's like you've got the guy from Saudi Arabia right here, you've got the guy from Singapore, the woman from Ireland, you know, and then there's me from the US, and it was and we were all so friendly, you know, and it was just like the guy from Saudi was up dancing, he wasn't drinking, but he was up dancing with us, and you know, he stepped away from him at moment to go to his prayer, came right back in, and it was just such a fun experience. And um, yeah, and it's like it didn't really matter where any of us were from. And I enjoy that because uh, you know, I'm from the US. So talk about people maybe judging, you know, you know, me on the country I come from or the politics or whatever's going on in the world. But I I hardly ever run into that. I mean, not you know, and and there's so many people that won't leave the US because they're afraid that if they go somewhere, they're gonna be treated poorly or they're gonna be, you know, all these things are gonna happen because they're from the US. And I just I haven't seen that.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

I've never seen that. I think we the the media prey on it. The media give us these negative stories. I don't know. If you're lucky enough to travel to travel or to have traveled to Iran, maybe not now, but uh the people are just so wonderfully friendly. I remember just a guy coming and said, Look, uh, do you want to do you want a cup of coffee? And he says, No, I don't want to buy anything. He said, No, no, just come and just have a cup of coffee. We just sat there and we chatted, and he had links to England and the UK in different ways, and it was just a fascinating hour just chatting away with him.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

It's it's those those small little people moments, people moments.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah, the the that if you're not going out and having those moments, you don't get it. You're just living through the lens of whatever the news wants to put in front of you. When I was in Georgia on this last trip, went out and did a day tour thing, and there was a couple from Iran. They lived in Tehran, and they were just so sweet. We had the most fascinating conversation, and they invited me to come down. They wanted me to see it. He sent me, that was like in August, September, and then for Christmas, he sent me a note through WhatsApp. Merry Christmas, Jason. I hope you're doing well. And you know, it's you you create these connections that you you're never gonna get if you're sitting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, or Detroit or whatever. I mean, you'll have experiences there as well, I'm sure, but it's uh it's pretty cool. All right. So you did this big expedition. I want to figure out, I want to see how it all ties in with what you're doing now. So you did that big expedition, and then did you continue tour leading or what what did you do right after that?

SPEAKER_00 37:06

So uh after a while, as my now wife uh became a bit frustrated with me spending so much time overseas and followed with ultimatum.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Let's figure out, let's start with how you met her before you're not sure we should go there. You went straight to the ultimatum thing, but and here's why I asked, because I also realize that working in tourism, especially if you're a tour leader traveling around a lot, you might meet a lot of people, but sometimes it's hard to meet somebody and create a connection with them. You don't tell us, you know, you don't have to tell us too all the details, but I'm intrigued by that.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

By by what how we met?

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Well, that you yeah, that you met. You were living that life, you met somebody, and then she said, Okay, enough. In your it's kind of weird.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

So we we we met through a friend uh and I just come back from six months in China. I think she just came back from she's a teacher, just come back from Mexico. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

But so she was so she was traveling and adventurous.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

No, she's she likes traveling and she is adventurous, but she's she's well, she was a teacher, so for many, many years.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Yeah, all right, very, very cool. So you guys so she said, Okay, I think um you don't need to be in a different country every few months, and so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

So there was a company called there were two there were two adverts that I looked for travel jobs. One was with the Steps East, I met with Nick in his flat in London, and there were wonderful Uzbek carpets on the wall, there were these Yemeni daggers, and I thought, you know what, hell what, if I can't be Peter Pan, I'll work for Peter Pan. Um and Nick's Nick has that curiosity for travel, similar to me, a lot of people and places, and and yeah, and there was a big connection through.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Was he is he already running tours? Because you mentioned he started Steps, Steps East because you know, around the time of the fall of the Soviet Union. Was he doing tours elsewhere, other type of stuff before that?

SPEAKER_00 38:58

No, I don't I don't know. He wasn't he wasn't in trouble. It was just something suddenly to it was something a little bit different for me. Maybe the opportunity, the the cure curiosity to see what it was like. So, what was your first role in the company? Trying to sell holidays, and they realized that I wasn't very good at that. And they they had another small company called Discovery Initiatives, whose strapline was travel that supports conservation. And I think they were ahead of the time. We worked a lot with the Don Fossey Guerrilla Fund with Global Tiger Patrol, with Galapagos Conservation Trust, with the Orang and Tang Foundation, and so we were sending clients to different parts of the world, sometimes with conservationists, but there were always monies were going back to those different agencies, and that was yeah, that was one amazing time working for them. Again, we were very pioneering, we were sort of one of the first companies to go back into Rwanda at the time. We went into DRC, into Gabon, the Congo. So yeah, it was Alright.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

So what was it about? You said you you didn't really enjoy or weren't weren't good at the sales part. So what was what was the hard part for you when it comes to that?

SPEAKER_00 40:03

That I I I told people how it was really, that I wasn't there embellishing different places or whatever. I sort of, I don't know, I'm a doer rather than a talker, I think.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

So fair enough. So so how did that role work out for you and what was the next role?

SPEAKER_00 40:18

So it was quite short, but then they wanted me to go and run the Discovery Initiatives, which was very small, but to help them sort of grow and help them set up different trips and tours and ideas and stuff. So yeah, and that was uh yeah, it's it was like being a in a small travel startup that was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Okay, so like product development operations type of stuff. Or how would you describe what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Yeah, that kind of stuff. So we we set up new trips to go and swim with orcas in in the fjords in Norway to um yeah, into Central African Republic, to Tsangatzanger to see the forest elephant there. It was, yeah, it was just that was a time of looking at maps and going, okay, let's find out what's there or what species is there, what can we do with that? And that was like that was just wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

And presumably you were still traveling, maybe not to the same level you were when you were a tour leader. But um, did did this uh new new lifestyle work better for you and your family?

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Yeah, well it did because we were all still together. There you go. Congratulations. That's that's great. Yeah, you have to go and research different areas. So there were sort of recce trips and research trips where you go off and uh and sometimes uh sometimes it's quite hard especially if you're in the first sort of wave of people operators going through into an area. So I remember going to Yemen back in two thousand and five to Sukotra in Yemen and that was very difficult then. I think that obviously now's not the time to go to Socotra, but early this year Sukotra was beginning to to change. There were sort of more hotels being built.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

Say the name of the place again.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

Socotra. It's an island um off the coast of Yemen in the Red Sea. It has a large amount of endemism, so endemic uh so there's 210 bird species there, nine of which are endemic, so only found on the island. There are 900 plant species, of which 300 300 plants that are found nowhere else in the world. One of which is called the dragon blood tree.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Do you have a favorite? I I don't want to ask you your favorite place in the world. Uh you can tell me if you want, but I I it's a weird, it's a tough question that I have sometimes. I don't know if you like that question, but I am curious like the type of trip. If if you maybe I'll ask you this way if you had to lead, if you had to go back to trip leading, what kind of trips, maybe by region or whatever, but what kind of trips would you most want to do?

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Pioneer interests where you're going to somewhere new or you I like breaking ground in different places. For me, it's not about where you it's not about the property I stay in. I think some camps in Africa have become so the the actual tents or they become so big that you if there was a hippo outside my tent, I wouldn't know. I'm so far away from it. And I don't like that. I think that the I like places without walls that are raw, so when you hear that other roar, that the roar of the lion, it's far more visceral. So I like that that's what I'm I'm about. I'm it's not about hardship necessarily. I'm not it's not not not that, but I it's not about the feathers and the pillow or the the paint scheme on the walls. That's not that's not about it for me.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

So what I hear you saying is if you had choice between running an interesting trip, but running the same trip week after week after week after week, or doing a different trip every time, it sounds like you're the type, yeah, no, I don't want to do the same thing over and over. Um am I picking up on that?

SPEAKER_00 43:43

I think that's very yeah, very observant of you that's a lot of people. Well that's basically what you said. I'm I'm pretty observant. I I I like different I like difference. I like difference, yeah. But there are places that I like to go back to, and then there are places that I haven't been to for a while that I definitely want to go back to. I think Pakistan is one of them. I was there last year, but I Back in in the nineties, I was in the Northwest Frontier province in Pakistan. It's so that's still one of my favourite places that I've been to. Just because the scenery is so epic, the people are so wonderful, they're Ishmaeli, they're very, very relaxed, very hospitable, generous people. But I've got a very maybe uh idyllic sort of halcyonic image of that. And I'm sure it's different now, but it was it was then it was wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

Yeah, very cool. Is it challenging for because at steps, you guys have you have tour leaders working for you? You mentioned you do mostly FITs. Uh kind of the that custom stuff are you doing lead trips as well?

SPEAKER_00 44:38

So we do have some expert lead trips, yes. They're normally I don't know, historian, broadcaster, not to say archaeologist, but uh if they've got expertise on sort of weaving of the culture or textiles or whatever. So they they normally have some expertise that he or she brings to the trip. And then they also have local guides who know Tbilisi or Kazbeggy, wherever it might be in Georgia. So right.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

So if you had somebody that was a historian or I don't know, um somebody with a following, I'm just gonna say somebody with a following that has an audience. Photographers perfect perfect perfect example that that you guys knew or they they reached out to you and said, Hey, I'd love to start leading some trips, but I don't want to handle the marketing, I don't want to handle the operations. I just I you know I've got an audience, I'm happy to put the trip in front of them, but I want you guys to handle all the stuff and and set it up. It sounds like you do that type of stuff, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:32

We definitely do that, yeah. The nuts and bolts and the insurance and all of that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Yeah. Because over the years I've I've dealt with that a lot where you've got people that just aspire to lead trips. They don't necessarily want to get a job leading trips, they've got people that, you know, I worked in the fly fishing business. It was fly fishing travel. So there were a lot of people that owned fly shops, or they were local guides that did really well with their business, and they wanted to go to Patagonia and you know, in the what is our winter in the north, they want to go to Patagonia, take a group of people with them. But they weren't, they didn't necessarily want to do all the the work and the logistics and and manage all that stuff, so we would set up a lot of trips for them, which is um right. And I just wanted to share, I want to share that because anybody that's listening to this that's in a similar situation ought to reach out to you guys.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

We were we're more than happy to speak to people. And yeah, that that's what trouble's about. That's why I work in trouble about the people you meet. Not just necessarily in, I don't know, Uruguay or Bolivia or wherever it might be, but it's it's the yeah, the the the fly fishermen, women, etc. The people the guides we work with, the I don't know, whether it be uh safari guides to cultural guides in in Cusco, wherever it might be. Yeah, that we you meet wonderful people. So I gave a talk, I gave a talk the other day that and somebody came up to me, you you when you mentioned your guide, you always mentioned their name. And I said, Because I remember their names. He said, Well, uh but you've traveled a lot, how do you do that? And I said, Because that that's that that's what it's it's about, it's about people.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

So I often thought about you know just the importance of connection and the reason that I enjoy traveling and the reason I've wanted I've worked in it and I've I've enjoyed it so long is about the connections. Because I believe you could drop me at probably the most beautiful place on the planet, and if I'm there by myself, I'm gonna be pissed off. I shouldn't say I'm just gonna be like, what the f there's nobody here to share it with. That's just me. I'm not saying everybody's like that, but it's like if I see something beautiful, I want to either share it with a local guide, another traveler, someone in my family, just somebody. I just personally want to share it with people. And that's what honestly, that's why I like trip leading. That's why I like taking groups of people. Um, because I I'm sharing it with them and I'm sharing it with the guides, and it's it's just such a such an important thing that I I don't know. What about you? Are you able to enjoy stuff by yourself?

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Uh I I I do. But I think you're right. I think that that that shared experience is is much stronger. And even whether it's somebody else uses a a different word to describe something, or yeah, I just uh so I'm I'm happy either way, but um but yeah, I think traveling with either friends, family, or but I and when I'm I will normally always travel with a guide. Again, back to that point that that he or she will then give me an insight or open a door or whatever that that I'm not gonna be able to to find on my phone or on the internet or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

I remember I met this young lady in Bali. I was out on m one of my walkabouts, just generally walking the direction I thought I should, and there was this little gathering of street vendors, and there was this young woman there ordering some food, and I had no idea what the food was there, and I just she spoke a little English, so I was asking her, like, what are you eating? And tell me what this is and help me help me order some food. So she helped me and described what everything was, and I ended up basically getting the same thing she was eating, which of course, because that's what was good. And uh and she wanted pictures, we took pictures, and then um I bought I bought her dinner, and she's oh you don't have to. I said, No, it's it's for guiding me. You're my guide, you should be a guide. And she just grinned ear to ear, and it was just so just having that, whether it's an official guide that you're paying or just creating those those moments with people, just asking them to help you and explain things to you, is so much fun for me. Yeah, I just you know, because I mean I could probably now with chat with AI, I could probably pull out my phone, take a picture of the food cart, chat GPT would tell me what's on the food cart, what I should order, what it's called. But oh my gosh, how boring would that be? Anyway, so what else do you want to share with our listeners about about steps? Exciting new things, new neck the next steps that you're gonna take.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

Just kidding, that's you know, I think that they're there's a lot of information out there on the internet, on AI, but it still doesn't stand up against the expertise that the the team have here in terms of their knowledge and also working out and then they'll also tell you what they're not order takers, they're there to listen to what clients want and what clients think they want, and certainly where they want to go, but they're not order takers and we'll come back and certainly say, No, I think you think you should think about this or or that, or so I love that.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

What does the process for look like for you guys? If I go on your website and I think, oh, I want to take a trip, it sounds like it's much more of a consultative, consultative type of approach. So do they go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

It it definitely is. So yes, we the you can make make an inquiry through the website if you want, but uh we will definitely want to speak to you on the phone. We won't do everything through email or whatever. We want to speak to somebody and we really want to understand what what they want out of their trip. It's not just going there to sort of tick off different sites, it's like how can we add value for you? And that's that's what we we do. And if it's a bigger trip, we would we would try and meet with somebody as well. Again, it's so much easier when you meet face to face. We can't do it with all of our clients, but when we do, we again we yeah I don't know, you you pick up little things that you might not have done on a Zoom call or whatever. It's sort of that they're they're I don't know, six foot five or something rather than five foot five, whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Yeah, you you're absolutely right. And uh the the zoom call or the video call thing has become easier, people are more likely you know to have access to that. They they kind of have done it. But I also know with technology too, some people are less and less likely to want to have direct contact. I mean, I suspect there's some people that connect with you guys. Oh, we can we I'm really busy. Can we just do this by email? I don't really have time to do a call and and all that stuff. Have you seen more resistance or less resistance to jumping on a call in the last few years?

SPEAKER_00 51:46

I think possibly less. I think that people understand the value of it and uh and especially now that you where the various AI devices, whatever it is, will record the conversation and then give you a transcript of it and say, right. That's cool. Yeah, these are the key five things that I took out from my conversation with you. Do you agree that you only want rooms with with I don't know, white walls or whatever it might be? So yeah. So yeah, so I I think that the clients like it, and also I think that they in a way, in a world that's increasingly automated in different ways, that you're actually speaking to somebody rather than to an AI generated whatever. And I think that also yeah, they they also realize that that the team are not speaking, they're not reading from a brochure or from a screen. They they know the stuff, and so it's coming, it's coming from here, from the heart. And they're also that they're not all we're we're we're all individuals here. We're not we're not sort of there's not sort of one sort of uh cookie-cutter travel consultant. They all have their little idiosyncrasies, whatever and that's that's that's why we're in travel, that's why clients come to them, because they're they're a little bit quirky and different in different Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

I I have a story in my head that some people are reluctant to get on a call because uh in their regular life and their regular business dealings, it might be a lot of sales calls. Right? So let's say they're a CEO of a company and they're used to getting people reaching out to, hey, let's get on a call, discuss your website. Hey, let's get on a disc on a call to discuss new light bulbs for your buildings or whatever. So they've got this kind of knee-jerk reaction of, oh, I don't want to get on a call, I don't want sales call, sales call, sales call, and then they decide they want to go to Africa, and maybe they need to kind of shift gears for a minute and say, no, wait a minute, this is one of those situations where I do want to get on a call because it's not you guys necessarily trying to quote unquote sell them anything, it's trying to create a good, memorable experience that works for them. Do you think that's just a story in my head, or do you think that does happen a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 53:50

I think that there are there are some who probably are, because they do it all the time for work, don't want to get on a call, but then it's up to Eleona or Chris, whoever it might be upstairs, who again through their personality, look, I think it'll be worth our while doing this. And as soon as they get on the call, it's it's not a sales pitch. They're not saying they're they're they're wanting to it's a two-way thing, they're wanting to find out about the clients, about what makes them tick, and and then the clients get it.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

And then will you will you flat out refuse to book somebody that won't get on a call? No, if they've got a lot of money, no. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

Do you make them do you make them sign a waiver or sign some sort of disclaimer that says there are sometimes, yes, where where something's conducted over email or whatever, but it it's it's so much our preference to not have that because it's harder for us to add value and to really understand what the clients want. And I think that's why 60% of our businesses repeat and 20% is referral, because it's that understanding that that that's created. It's not this, it's not an automated sort of transaction, it's it's about personality.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

I love it. And I would I would go as far as to say, in my experiences anyway, if somebody just absolutely nope, I don't need to get on a call. I I know what I'm doing, this is what I want, just set it up for me. I would think that that person is the one most likely to give you the slightly lower review than what you're gonna like if your average is five-star reviews and you get the three-star review. If I didn't even like if I'd recently dealt with maybe 10 groups and one of those groups said, No, I don't want to get on a call, whatever. And then a month later something pops in and says, Oh, you got a three-star review. If I had to guess which one it would be, I would say it's probably the one that wouldn't get on a call with me. I don't know. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 55:41

I I think there's something in that. I think that also that they they'd be the one who say, Well, I don't like a hotel A, and it's well, hang on, we told you to go for hotel B, but you wanted hotel A and you wouldn't listen.

SPEAKER_01 55:51

So Yeah, so it's I mean, I think that most people like yourselves, your team, and a lot of people that work in this business really do care about people having good experiences. So if you don't work in the business, just believe that when somebody says, Let's get on a call, in my opinion, if they say let's get on a call, it's because they want to be able to see your face when they say, you know, like, hey, tell me about an experience, a travel experience you had in the past that didn't go well. And what was it that went wrong? And if I can see your face as you're describing that story, I can say, Oh, okay, maybe we need to shift gears and go a slightly different direction here, you know, to make a better experience for them.

SPEAKER_00 56:29

So I don't know. No, I th I I don't yeah, I don't what about your kids?

SPEAKER_01 56:35

Are your kids uh interested in travel?

SPEAKER_00 56:37

They are. I think that they've been lucky and they've to travel to some of the places they've been to. Like a couple of years ago, uh I suddenly announced we were going to Dominica in the Caribbean, and I got two girls and a boy that got they all got very excited by it. And then my eldest doctor said, Whoa, daddy, you you're not one for sitting on beaches, so what's this about? I said, Oh, I forgot to tell you we're gonna go swimming with sperm whales in Dominica. So, but they did have some time sitting around a pool because you weren't on the the water the whole time, but they they also swam with with sperm whales, which is one of the most incredible experiences to be swimming alongside the largest predator in the world, some 15 meters, five tons.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

It's just like that's uh that's very cool. How old were your kids uh the first time you took them on a trip? Probably a different answer for each one of them, I'm sure, but yeah, a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

I so with my girls, they were about uh three and a half and eighteen months when we went to Sri Lanka. So Sri Lanka's wonderful with children. Sri Lankans are so good with kids. Uh I think my wife regretted it that the yeah, the younger one didn't sleep much on the plane and she wasn't very happy when when the pilot and we when the pilot announces a big thunderstorm and she turns around to me, I told him we should have gone to Wales. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

So based on your experience. What do you tell a parent that likes to travel, has kids on the way? Like, what do you do you think there is a right age to start traveling with them? And anything before that is just kind of stressful for everybody? Or is there a right age?

SPEAKER_00 58:10

So you've got a uh a good American client, they travel with a young kid to Guyana. Um, and and John in the office who looks after Guyana was so excited, he said, Look, I don't we hey we don't do much business there, but I've certainly had not somebody with a sort of uh an 18-month-old kid. Um and and they loved it. So you can start from any age, whether the children will will remember it is a different issue. Uh, there are some things that I would certainly wait with children. Certainly, if you're gonna go into safari, I wouldn't do it much before 12 because they haven't necessarily got the patience just to sit and wait and watch, and they get they their attention span's not long enough to be able to perhaps appreciate the wildlife or wait for the wildlife around them. So there are some things like that.

SPEAKER_01 58:51

I guess the thought there too is you know, I've I've remember situations on safari where you're with other people that are not necessarily in your group. It's one thing if you've got a private guide. You know, if you've got a private guide in vehicle and your kids are, you know, losing interest, it's one thing, but it's also bringing kids on these situations where you're interacting with other guests or you know, at the lodge or or that type of thing, I'm sure plays into it. Do you guys um do you do many family trips with young kids?

SPEAKER_00 59:19

Yeah, so maybe a quarter of our business is family, but not necessarily the the young, young kids. I think that for us it's more the experience, sort of it's a 12 plus. I think before that, kids probably want water, whether it be the sea or a swimming pool or something, and we can do it, but it's like there's only so much value we can add to that. Whereas ours is designing the right itinerary for the kids when they're a bit older. And they can do fun things, sleep out, they're hiking, biking, whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

Right, right. And you and you mentioned earlier in the conversation we discussed how steps kind of came out of the fall of the Soviet Union. Is that still the bread and butter? I know you've expanded to do a bunch of other things, but is that still the bread and butter, or is it shifted away from that?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

It was. Nobody's going to Russia at the moment, so for obvious reasons. So but the the the stuns are uh a big part of our business. So but our biggest destinations are probably India, Kenya, South Africa, Ecuador, the Galapagos, Peru, Argentina, China, Japan.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

All right. Very cool. Justin, we've we've discussed a bunch of things uh about your past, about steps, just kind of philosophical stuff, tips, pointers, all that. What did I forget to ask you? What do you wish I would have asked you so we can cover that before we uh before we wrap up? I want our listeners to get a chance to hear whatever you think is important that they hear.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:40

Well, I I think we've, as you said, we've covered a lot, and thank you for that. It's been great speaking, talking with you. I think that it's for me that don't be afraid to go outside your comfort zone. I think that's where the magic happens. I think it's about that, and travel is about breaking down barriers and borders, and that we are we have so much in common with other people around the world. There are some what wonderful differences and then difference, cultural differences or maybe genetic, genetic in different ways. But we're essentially we are we are the same people, and I think that we and also just positivity. I think it's it's so easy in this sometimes negative world, and certainly the one that the media portrays to us, that the positivity and and smiling make such a difference.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:21

Yeah, absolutely. Well said. Justin, thank you so much. This has been a a lot of fun conversation. I learned a lot about you and steps, and and uh we're gonna have the link in the show notes. So anybody that's uh that feels a connection with Justin and his team, through Justin, because he's the one that's here, um, click on the link in the show notes. Go take a look at their website, they're doing a bunch of cool stuff, and um you kind of have a better feel for kind of what his philosophy and thought process is, and I like that. So Justin, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

Jason, thank you very much. Uh have fun in Bogota, and I see you traveling in a or meeting on a bar in in Singapore where wherever it is. Sounds good. Let's do it. Take care.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

Thanks, Justin. I'll chat with you soon. Thank you.