I was in a real slump at the end of the year, complete with angst about my own business. I have hit a few low points in my life and realized a long time ago that the only way to go from down is UP and I’m the one who needs to do it.
I love travel and adventure and have always done as much of it as possible, which is why I now have my own travel business. For the first few years, I’ve been relying mainly on referrals from family and friends. I went to a river cruise expo last spring with the intention of focusing more on that avenue of travel.
That was until I went to an adventure conference and FAM in Ecuador! I felt I’d found my true niche, my tribe, and wanted to do nothing in travel not related to adventure travel. These people were focused on the natural experiences of where they were at, not just on the amenities. They looked at the natural environment and cultures and how they could be preserved and sustained more than merely meeting all of the wants and needs of modern society. I intended to focus on selling adventure travel as a way for people to have authentic experiences with a variety of cultures and nature in sustainable ways. These experiences didn’t necessarily need to have an extreme amount of physical activity.
I started putting all of my hopes and dreams onto this path. I signed up for adventure training courses, joined adventure groups and discussions etc. Then I realized that to have the small unique experiences that I wanted available for my clients, I would need to revamp my entire business. Even though I know I need to make changes to my website, I would need to practically redo the entire thing. I would need to find a new client base interested in this sort of travel. To work with small DMC’s (Destination Management Companies) directly, I would need to cover my own liability and not rely solely on my host agency’s as I had been doing in the past. Payments would be coming to me directly and then I would be paying the suppliers, so all of my money management and payments would need to be sorted. In a moment of panic, I paid someone a considerable amount of money to help me with the transformation, and that was only half of the payment.
Bottom line, it was going to take a great deal of time and money to make the transformation and it would likely be a while before I started showing any profit. It wasn’t just the time and money factor either, it was age – something I try to ignore, but it’s right there. It rears its ugly head most often when it comes to technology issues. I struggle with technology on many fronts. It was not around when I grew up and I struggle with it most days. What takes others a short period of time to do, often takes me hours. My husband is slowing down considerably as well, and I need to help him more and more with simple memory issues. Physically, I can no longer do what all I would like to and I need to stop beating myself up about it.
After much trepidation, I decided to pick myself up again and stop wallowing in the self-doubt. I had become paralyzed and not getting much of anything accomplished. With great sadness, I have shelved the idea of changing everything and going strictly into adventure travel. If I’d had this niche realization at 40, 50 or even 60 years of age, I’d have gone for it, but with turning 71 soon, I’m going to focus my travel business on river cruising. I will still sell adventure and other types of travel through my host agency, but my focus will be on the rivers. I am a good travel consultant. I research and work hard for all of my clients. I give honest responses to their needs and am not afraid to say no, if they ask for the impossible. I genuinely care about their wants and needs and do my best to make their trips as enjoyable as possible. Anything I don’t know directly, I have resources I can go to.
I love river cruising and know others will as well. If I can turn more people onto them, that’s all the better for everyone. I am about to embark on more detailed studies on the river cruise companies and destinations I don’t feel I know enough about. River cruising is a great way to see many parts of the world – unpacking once, traveling with ~150 people onboard smaller, calmer ships. They feel more personal, like a traveling extended family, than the big cruise ships do. There are a variety of great in-country excursions offered along the way that can be tailored to individual needs or skipped all together for self-exploring. Most ships have small workout rooms, bikes and massage areas. Some have exercise classes and pools. All of them have great food offerings, mostly with locally sourced ingredients as well as lounges, and some form of shipboard activities and entertainment. All of these amenities are great, but the major emphasis on river cruises, are the destinations you travel to.
I am not a failure for not following a dream. I am a realist and thankful for all that I do have and that I’m still able to continue doing what I love – selling travel and helping others create their memories. I try to be positive for others, it’s time I was positive for myself as well.
