Adventure Travel with Chris Braunlich - Conservation Volunteers International Program

Area/Topic
Conservation, Voluntourism, Human Connection

Chris Braunlich
Board Chair and CEO
Conservation Volunteers International Program

Chris is Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Conservation Volunteers International Program. She has a bachelor's degree in economics and an MBA in finance from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to retirement, she spent her career working in banking and in finance in the corporate world.

How did a person with degrees in economics and finance "end up" volunteering as CEO for an environmental conservation nonprofit? She always loved the outdoors, she has volunteered since she was in high school, and she prefers doing to talking.

Brought up in a time when children were free-range, Chris rode her bike, climbed trees, scrambled among the rocks along the ocean cliffs - outdoors was fun, freedom, inner peace. In college her husband introduced her to backpacking, and once they figured out how a 5'3" woman could happily hike with a man who had a 6'3" stride, hiking in the mountains with her husband became her favorite getaway.

https://conservationvip.org/

summary
Chris Braunlich is the board chair and CEO of Conservation Volunteers International Program (Conservation VIP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping sustain landscapes, cultural heritage sites, and biodiversity. The organization focuses on international volunteering and runs programs in various destinations. They rely on revenue from volunteers who participate in their trips and also accept donations. Conservation VIP aims to preserve and protect important places and projects, and they align volunteers with tasks that match their skills and abilities. The organization emphasizes the importance of good trails and the responsibility of global citizens to contribute to conservation efforts. Public lands, such as national parks, are precious places that are increasingly appreciated as urbanization limits access to natural spaces. The maintenance of national parks is a significant challenge, with an estimated $22 billion needed for maintenance in US national parks alone. National parks play a crucial role in protecting biodiversity and preserving natural habitats. However, it is important to balance human access with the need to protect and preserve the natural environment. There is an opportunity for tour operators to partner with conservation organizations to offer trips that incorporate volunteer work and conservation efforts.

takeaways

• Conservation VIP is a nonprofit organization dedicated to sustaining landscapes, cultural heritage sites, and biodiversity.
• The organization relies on revenue from volunteers who participate in their trips and also accepts donations.
• Conservation VIP aligns volunteers with tasks that match their skills and abilities.
• The organization emphasizes the importance of good trails and the responsibility of global citizens to contribute to conservation efforts. Public lands, such as national parks, are valuable and should be appreciated and protected.
• The maintenance of national parks is a significant challenge, with a large amount of funding needed.
• National parks play a crucial role in protecting biodiversity and preserving natural habitats.
• Balancing human access with the need to protect and preserve the natural environment is important.
• Tour operators have the opportunity to partner with conservation organizations to offer trips that incorporate volunteer work and conservation efforts.

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 at bigworldmadesmall.com.

Transcript

Jason Elkins (00:00.548)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast. We're doing something different today. We've got a very special guest. We've got Chris Braunlich. She is the board chair and CEO of Conservation Volunteers International Program. Welcome to the show, Chris. Happy to have you

Chris Braunlich (00:18.438)
Thank you very much for inviting me. I'm happy to be

Jason Elkins (00:22.394)
We're going to dig into quite a few things, but since what you do is so different, I want to touch on at least the name of the organization so people have a real clear kind of idea of what we're talking about. And then we're going to dig into your past a little bit to help figure out how you got into this. what is, in a nutshell, what is Conservation Volunteers International Program, or Conservation VIP?

Chris Braunlich (00:45.16)
We are a nonprofit and we are dedicated to helping sustain some of the world's greatest landscapes, cultural heritage sites, and biodiversity. Our name is way too long for people to remember. Once they get past the conversation, it's a little tough. There was a lot of thought put into the words in there, and I'll give you some of the background behind it, and then we'll switch to Conservation VIP. Conservation is really at our heart. We are an environmental

conservation organization. The volunteer part is really important because we are a volunteer organization. I am a volunteer CEO. I am a volunteer who volunteers 40 hours a week for the organization. Our trip leaders are volunteers. We have a very small paid staff now to handle some of the, I'm gonna call the paper processing, but we are run by volunteers.

So volunteers are our heart and soul. International because a lot of volunteering is domestic. Many people volunteer in their backyard, they volunteer in the part near them, they volunteer for causes that they're aware of within their community. Not many people volunteer on an international basis. And that was really where we were headed when we started and where we've continued to focus.

And then program was, I don't know, maybe conservation VI didn't sound good enough, the program is really to say we have programs in the places that we support. We set up programs that we try to recreate and over and over come back and help with that program. But the easy way to remember is conservation VIP, which also kind of stands for very important places, which is what we care about, okay? And very important projects because we

we're not wasting people's time. really are volunteering on projects that matter. So as a nonprofit though, our website would be conservationvip .org as an.

Jason Elkins (02:55.376)
Okay, wonderful. And we will have a link to that in the show notes as well, because my goal, and as I mentioned right before I pushed the record button, is this is a little different. What we're discussing today on many levels is different, but there is some common threads here that I wanna get into. But my hope is that listeners to the show that maybe have never even thought about participating in one of your programs might be inspired to do it. And I remember the first time I spoke with you, you like, Jason.

We don't do adventure travel. This is not us. That's not our thing. I have no idea why you'd want me on the show. And I'm not even sure I'm feel comfortable. That's what I remember from our conversation. And I wasn't sure either, but the more we spoke, the more I got kind of turned on to the idea of some of these projects you're working on. And I thought, they are adventurous. I mean, if you go to some of these places and do some of these projects, they're adventurous.

And adventurous to me just means stepping outside of your comfort zone, doing something you're not comfortable with. Probably easiest way to describe it is anything that's not sitting on a big cruise ship or sitting on a resort beach, on a beach hotel resort somewhere. So as you told me a little bit more about what you were doing, I thought, well, that sounds adventurous. And I also think the human connection part is super, super important. And I imagine that some of your projects and when you have folks

I don't even know if you want to say traveling with you, but participating in these projects, the connection part has to be huge. So thank you for agreeing to come on the show, even though initially it wasn't that. We don't do adventure travel. So I wanted to share that. What comes up when I just said all that? I should give you a chance to respond if you want to.

Chris Braunlich (04:39.344)
Well, we are in some ways connected to the adventure travel industry. And so I don't think we are unrelated to adventure travel. I think that our perhaps our purpose is so different that I feel it feels a little alien to me when I look at the adventure travel sites, because often the purpose that comes out when you look at adventure travel is let's

focus on exactly what you, you know, it's very self -centered, okay? What do you want to do that would give you a thrill? And it is not particularly outward looking. It doesn't really look at how does your adventure affect the place you're going. And to me, we're, you know, we are connected to all these places we go to. Even if you go as an adventure traveler, you are now somehow

affecting that place and you're connected to it forever. And if you take that seriously, how can you think of it only in terms of what I get out of it? OK, so that's where I feel like there's a little bit of division. But I don't want to sound critical of adventure travel because there plenty of, you know, I've certainly done adventure travel. OK, and there are reasons to do it. But I wish there were more focus on when I go to a place.

what am I doing to it? And I think the adventure travel world is waking up to that and there's more discussion about being sustainable, but they've set the bar pretty low. Okay, let's try not to damage the place. And you well, you wouldn't go to your next door neighbor's house and set the bar at, let me try not to damage it. Okay. You might go over and if he or she's working on a project, you might say, can I give you a hand? Okay. I would like,

Jason Elkins (06:35.62)
Yeah, yeah,

Chris Braunlich (06:37.712)
travel to focus more on that. Think of these people as you would treat your community, which is way beyond, you know, I won't damage

Jason Elkins (06:47.246)
Yeah, no, I think that was very well put. And I can see where you've been around the work that you do for quite a while. And I'm sure you've seen many examples of that self -centered part. It's hard for me to get my head around it because my favorite part of going to places is connecting with the community. And you'd ask me on our first call, Jason, what kind of volunteer work do you do? And that was a good question. was like, I've done some volunteer stuff.

was a volunteer coach for YMCA for kids at one point, I mean, but honestly, no, it hasn't, in a sense, hasn't been a direct like, okay, I'm going to volunteer. But it also got me to thinking, I do believe that there are some quote unquote adventure tour operators that are very passionate about their communities that they're working in. I know because I speak with, you know, anybody that's listened to the show for a while has heard the subject come up many, many times.

about what are we doing to the communities and how are we responsible for helping encourage people to participate and to be involved. But at the same time, if you look at the marketing, because I also do digital marketing for adventure tour companies, it's very much a, what's in it for me? What are you going to get out of this? What's your experience going to be?

Chris Braunlich (08:08.135)
Right.

Jason Elkins (08:12.24)
For me, I want the experience to connect with people. If I were trying to pick trips, I would want to pick trips where I'm going to engage with people as much as possible, which is why I was excited to chat with you, because I think there's a great opportunity for people to really connect. I know we're going to come back to this. And I also realize we could spend the next 40 minutes without ever talking about you. But I do want to dig in a little bit and learn, how did you get in? How did you get so passionate about it? What's your background?

We can go back as far as you want to go, but I'd love to hear more about

Chris Braunlich (08:44.092)
Well, my background, if you want to sort of not go all the way to grade school, but my background is I have a bachelor's in economics and an MBA in finance. So this does not sound like your natural background for going into an environmental conservation organization. But I will say that when I worked paid work in the corporate world, my favorite vacation was

Okay, so anytime I got off, whether it was a weekend or my two weeks a year at the beginning until I built up to more vacation, my husband and I would go off backpacking. He introduced me to backpacking. He'd started hiking way before I ever met him. And I loved it. And I think I loved it because I was always an outdoor person, even as a child. I was a sort of tomboy who climbed trees and rode bikes and jumped around and did that kind of thing.

organized sports, but I just liked being outdoors. So I always liked hiking and I live in California, which is, you know, heaven for outdoor being outdoors. Even in the winter, you can hike around the hills and in the summer get high in the mountains. After years of hiking and after I retired from

My husband saw an article in the local newspaper about a group who was going to take some volunteers down to Patagonia to do trail work. And we had long wanted to go and see the Andes and see Patagonia, but we had never gotten around to getting it organized because it was just too much trouble. And we thought, OK, this is an easy way to go. All right.

you know, we'll join this group, they'll do all the work, they'll figure out the transportation and where we sleep and that kind of thing. And we'll just go along for the fun of it and how hard can trail work be, right? So we really kind of just dropped into it. That was actually a trip organized by the people who started Conservation VIP. And it was started by a guy who worked in the forest service and another fellow

Chris Braunlich (10:59.846)
at that point was no longer with Park Service, but he had worked in the Park Service and they had simply gone to Patagonia to go hiking. They wanted to see Torres del Paine. They'd gone hiking and thought it was stunningly beautiful, which I agree, and realized that the trails were terrible. mean, coming from the U .S. and knowing that people come from around the world to hike there, they were frankly appalled at the condition of the trails.

And therefore they took it upon themselves to go meet the superintendent of the park and say, what's going on? You know, the trails are terrible. And you know, in the U S we have better trails. Can we help you? First of all, he, his response was, why would anybody help me? Nobody ever helps parks. And it was true in Chile at that point, the only real volunteering in the country tended to be social services.

Jason Elkins (11:48.688)
Mm

Chris Braunlich (11:58.374)
which is common in many, I'm gonna say underdeveloped countries, lower income countries. Here in the US, we have many organizations that help the national parks, but that's not true in other places. And they didn't have the budget. They had no trail crew. They had nobody maintain trails. And really they'd never built trails. The trails were there from the hikers from years ago who got there and said, you know, the quickest way to get to the top is straight

as the early mountain climbers always do that, like what's the easiest way to get to the top? And it's pretty much straight up without switchbacks, which is great if you only have a few hikers. And then you start having more hikers and they follow the trek that they see because that's the easy way to go. And then you have more hikers and the next thing you know, you have a rut. And then you have more hikers and the rut gets worse and worse and you have erosion.

And the erosion gets worse and worse and it damages the land around it, the water course change, it affects the plants around it, affects the animals around it. And we're talking a very fragile part of the world. It has a short growing season. The trees down there, I love Torresdale Pine Bay because the trees aren't that big and I'm short, okay? For me to go...

For me to go to a place where trees weren't overwhelming was like, wow, this is cool. I mean, they're fine, but you know, they take many, many years to grow up to be short trees. Well, people trample things when they go off trail because as trails get eroded, as they get unpleasant, they become muddy and nobody wants to walk at muddy trails. So the next thing you do is you make a trail around

And then when that gets muddier, you make a trail around it. And this whole meadow is getting destroyed, the vegetation is being destroyed, et cetera. you know, it really was for people who cared about the environment, who worked in national parks and in national forest, this was a terrible thing to see. So they said, I'm sure we can find people who'd come down and help.

Chris Braunlich (14:15.592)
they organized these informal groups for a couple of years. And that was, I joined one of these groups that was run out of the guys, you know, back room. But at that point they realized that if we're gonna do this every year, we should set up a nonprofit. So we went down in 2007 and in 2008, the nonprofit was set up. But my husband and I had such a good time the first time around. We said, let's do it again. Okay, so, you know, we were only there for, you

10 or 12 days and it didn't, it just wasn't enough. We hadn't seen enough of it. We wanted to see more of it. And each trip was to a slightly different place. So, you know, if you fix trails in one place, you move on to the next place. So we wanted to see more of it. We really loved the other people in the group because honestly, people who volunteer to do trail work are pretty interesting people. So.

We went down the next year again and again had a great time. And after the second year, the folks who set up the nonprofit, of course, they get to know everybody. And they said, know, Chris, your background is in finance. I think as a nonprofit, we might need a financial person. anyway, they asked me to join the board as the CFO. And I have to say, at first I said no. OK, I said,

because I have volunteered with nonprofits before. Okay, I'm a sucker for nonprofits. A good cause, if I can use my skills, it's hard for me to say no. But I know how hard it is to manage a nonprofit and to keep it afloat. It's like any other business except that you don't pay taxes, but you still have to have money coming in to pay all the bills going

And that's, it's tough for a nonprofit because we're highly regulated. Okay. So we not only have to make sure the, you know, the bills get paid, but we also have to follow all the regulations of a nonprofit, do all the reporting, et cetera. And I said, that's too much work, too much work. Anyway, they kept bugging me about it. And so finally agreed to be on the board as a CFO. And then a few years later, I became the CEO and eventually CEO and board chair. So that's

Chris Braunlich (16:34.322)
probably too long a story about how I got involved. But basically, I love the outdoors. I thought the organization was very worthwhile and I was having a good time. And now I spend too much time at the computer and not enough time outdoors, but it's another story.

Jason Elkins (16:49.112)
Absolutely. I love the way you described all that. You opened my eyes to something because initially when you started, said, well, these guys went down. They didn't like the trails. They thought we needed to fix the trails. And I've spent a lot of time outdoors as a guide. And I was like, how does a conservation organization approach if we fix the trails so more people can visit? And is there a conflict there? But then when you described the

the negative impacts of having poorly designed trails or not even designed, just up the side of the mountain, it all started to become really clear to me. I imagined, you know, we've all been to clearings or pastures in the mountains where, you know, the first truck drives through and it starts to create ruts and then it gets muddy. And then before you know it, this little clearing in the woods is completely covered in tire tracks and all the grass and all

the animals and everything that were there obviously are displaced. So I love that you described it in a way that I could get my head around it as someone who's been outside so many times in the outdoors. It makes a lot of sense. also, last time we spoke, you were kind of explaining to me a little bit about the regulations. And I guess the first question I want to ask is where does the majority of the money come from? Is it actually people that participate in the trips? that, or?

Where does the money come from?

Chris Braunlich (18:19.76)
We have two primary sources of money. The primary source is our volunteers pay to go on our trips. So we charge enough that we hope it will cover all the costs of the trip and something extra to pay the overhead, know, the website costs, the IT costs, insurance costs and all that kind of thing, regulatory fees, filing, et cetera. We also, as a nonprofit, love donations.

Jason Elkins (18:28.356)
Okay.

Chris Braunlich (18:48.937)
I will say that 98 % of our donations come from people who've gone on the trips and come back and said, this is a worthwhile organization. That was a wonderful trip. We want you to keep doing it. We're donating money. So, you know, I think there are many, all nonprofits in the U .S. can accept donations and give donation receipts for tax purposes.

Jason Elkins (19:04.833)
OK, bye.

Chris Braunlich (19:16.572)
I think it's easier to get donations if you have cute little babies or cute little animals that need help. It's hard to picture a trail and say, that trail, I'm just dying to give money for that trail. It's hard to do that. So some of what we do, it's harder to picture why donations matter. But yeah, we do also get donation money and we love donations. They're very helpful.

Jason Elkins (19:44.984)
I suspected that a lot of the revenue was coming from people that were actually going on these projects. I'm going to call them projects. I'm not going to say trips. And part of why I'm phrasing it that way is because last time we spoke, you were telling me because it's a not -for -profit, we have a lot of limitations on how we, I'm going to use the market, our projects. And you were describing, yeah,

Chris Braunlich (19:53.574)
Sure.

Jason Elkins (20:09.612)
If the powers that be look at our website and our website is like, Hey, look at how much fun you're going to have on this and you're going to make friends and you're going to get to hike and you're going to get to see these beautiful mountains. Then all of the sudden there might be people thinking, well, this obviously is not a not -for -profit organization. They're not following the rules, but then the flip side of that is that's how you raise your revenue is by encouraging people to go do these, these projects for you. So how do you balance

Chris Braunlich (20:38.984)
It's difficult. I guess I would explain it by saying we think there

plenty of people who want to go to the destinations we support. So you have to start by looking at which destinations we support. there are many, many places in the world that need help, but we go to the places that have a huge number of people who want to see them. And then we say, from that large number of people, surely we can find enough who are caring

the world who would be willing to go there and help the place as well as see it. So we do lead by talking about the destinations we go to. mean, Machu Picchu is overrun with people who want to see it. Many, many people want to see it. So they've really shortened up, you know, the tour now of Machu Picchu is, you know, a half a day tour to get in and get out kind of

So we know many people want to see it and therefore, you know, we talk about Machu Picchu and getting to see Machu Picchu. But we then talk about how you can help preserve it and protect it from what happens when all these people want to go there. That's really, we have to appeal to people in terms of saying, first of all, you know you want to go there. How about going there in a different way?

And usually for us, the hardest part is to get somebody to travel with us the first time. We have a lot of people who travel with us over and over once they go the first time because they say, wow, this is really a fun way to travel. Okay. But we can't lead with we're more fun than the other guys. First of all, nobody's going to believe it. You know, we are in many cases more fun than the other guys. We probably are.

Jason Elkins (22:35.63)
You probably are. mean, I, yeah, I would believe it, maybe.

Chris Braunlich (22:38.034)
But nobody's gonna believe it because we're saying we're volunteering and there's sort of this bias like, well, if it's volunteering, it must be work, it must be hard. We are careful. We have to be careful that nobody gets injured and that they have a good experience. So safety is number one, but number two really is let's be sure you have a good experience. So we align people with their skills and abilities.

and there are always multiple tasks to do. Even in trail work, which is relatively rigorous, there are some work that requires a lot of upper body strength, okay? And there's some work that's much less. I mean, I'm not a very large woman. Nobody's gonna see it with just voice, but I'm five foot three, 110 pounds, okay? I'm not really good at carrying heavy loads.

but I can do a lot of work that's necessary with trail work, like brushing, for example. Or when I'm shoveling, I'm shoveling smaller shovel loads, but I'm, you know, if I do smaller shovel loads, but I'm pretty quick, I can get as much done kind of thing. So we align people with their abilities so that they will feel good while they're doing the work.

Jason Elkins (23:55.482)
I was just imagining, if there was someone along on one of the projects that maybe wasn't really great at doing any of the actual trail work, but just had a really good personality and was just able to keep everybody cheered up and just keep people inspired, motivated, maybe the party planner type that sometimes we see. I mean, I can imagine all kinds of roles.

Chris Braunlich (24:20.348)
We have occasionally, yeah, will say we've occasionally, instantly when you said that, what came to mind is a woman who went on one of our trips to Torres del Paine and she was, she kind of became the group's grandmother, okay? She wanted to take care, I mean, she certainly did some of the work, okay? We found some tasks for her to do,

As much as anything, it was her personality and her encouragement of other people. And everybody in the refugio fell in love with her. The guys who worked there always wanted to bring us the best food because she was in our group and they just thought she was the most wonderful person. So yeah.

Jason Elkins (24:57.072)
Mm -hmm.

So it sounds like anybody could do this really.

Chris Braunlich (25:04.044)
anybody who has the ability to walk on an uneven trail. Okay. I mean, I'm still going to put limits. Okay. You've got to say, you know, the, trails uneven. but beyond that, yeah, it's, I never did any trail work till I did this. Now, I kind of want to go back to your other point, if you don't mind, because I want to say, I spent years and years hiking trails, never wondering where they came from. Okay.

Jason Elkins (25:08.848)
There you go. Well, yes, we should. Yep. No, I get

Chris Braunlich (25:32.998)
I took them for granted because more than anything, I hiked in national parks, public land, I'm gonna say, not just parks, but forest service, et cetera, public lands in the US, and there are trails. And yeah, sometimes the trails weren't that good. And I have actually done a lot of off trail work too, like high in the Sierra, we just used to go cross country, not on trails. But it never occurred to me to think about how they got

And when I realized, I mean, honestly, I didn't go to Torres del Paine to do trail work. I went there to see the place. Once I did trail work, I really started thinking how self -centered I had been to take him for granted and just assume that trails were there. And I realized how important good trails are because I'm more accustomed to good trails, okay? So, but once

begin to accept the fact that it's our global responsibility. If we're global citizens, we have global responsibility. That's my take on life. Then there are always things that we can do. I don't think we're really limited. We just have to think about what I can contribute, not can I contribute.

Jason Elkins (26:50.468)
You're right. it seems like trail work, there's the direct thing that you just mentioned that if a trail is not well designed, if people are just cutting across the switchbacks, going upside of the hill, causing all kinds of erosion, there's an impact from that. But then I also imagine, and it was kind of what I was starting to imagine before you made that part so clear, is

when we encourage people to get in the outdoors and when we make it easier for them to get in the outdoors, yes, sometimes we run the risk of overcrowding or over -visitation, but also people that use the outdoors tend to be more aware of the outdoors and more likely to contribute or more likely to make decisions around.

their waste products or around political decisions, voting, stuff like that. So I imagine there's a whole other level to improving these trails. It's not just literally about the erosion on the trails,

Chris Braunlich (27:55.906)
No, it really is the much larger picture. mean, if you think about it, public lands, lands that have been protected for the public by the government entity, whether it's in the US or elsewhere, tend to be the most precious places on Earth. The government doesn't save places that don't matter. So if you think about it, these

precious places that we take for granted as public lands. And as the world becomes more urbanized, as there are fewer, I'm going to say public places close to home where you can get to any real space. Clearly in the US, there's been a growth in appreciation of the national parks. With COVID, suddenly everybody realized, I want to get outside. Well, that outside

be there if somehow or other it's not protected. So thank God we have all these national parks. But even in the U .S., it's very, very difficult to maintain national parks. I I think at the end of 2023, National Park Service estimated that their maintenance needs were something like $22 billion for U .S. national parks. I mean, it's a huge number.

Now that includes a lot of things, but think about that. So even in the U .S. where we have a lot of resources, they very much welcome volunteers to take care of it. And national parks tend to be the places that protect biodiversity. Okay, you've got animals there who are protected and there's more of a biodiverse set of animals as opposed

places where we pick and choose and say, okay, we have this animal, but not that one, because we like this one, we don't like that one. Park Service does a much better job of understanding the biodiversity needs for animals and the plant life. And I think there's a growing awareness that biodiversity matters, both flora and fauna, and all of that has to be protected from people who want to just,

Chris Braunlich (30:14.534)
run through the woods doing whatever they want to do. Okay, you can coexist, but you've got to be careful about where you place trails and keeping people at enough of a distance that the natural life can continue to be natural. It's all sort of a piece together, if you

Jason Elkins (30:34.926)
Yeah, now that, and I'm imagining that the signs, you know, please stay on the trail, please stay on the trail.

Chris Braunlich (30:41.976)
You usually see that right next to the place where people are shortcutting, right? You know, it's like, you know, right, I'm in a hurry. I got to get back to the car by such and such a time or I'm going to catch the last ferry and, you know, heck with it. I'm shortcutting. And people then just tromp through a place and they have no idea what they've just stepped on. They honestly don't. It's like, really? How could they, how could they not care?

Jason Elkins (30:44.752)
Which makes sense. That'd be a good place to put

Jason Elkins (31:09.796)
I, I hate, man, it's such an interesting thing. I grew up in Wyoming, close to Yellowstone. I guided in Yellowstone. I've spent a lot of time in Yellowstone Park. And for anybody that hasn't been to Yellowstone, there's some very, I'd say delicate, maybe even dangerous areas that you do not want to get off the trail. And they'll have boardwalks, you know, so great. The boardwalks should help. And there's signs all over, stay on the boardwalk, stay on the boardwalk.

Chris Braunlich (31:31.154)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Elkins (31:37.732)
When you go into the park, they hand you a flyer saying, stay on the trail, stay on the boardwalk. Don't touch the water. Don't, you know, all these things, because there's chemicals and they're acidic and they're hot. And you cannot go into Yellowstone park without seeing somebody. You're stepping off the boardwalk, right? With the hot springs and the geysers all around or letting their dog run through the field. It's just, it's no wonder that every year there's, you know, a lot of tourists, you know, lose their dogs or sometimes themselves.

in some of these places. So it's just, I don't know if it's like they don't care or if there's just some people out there that just really are just dumb. I'm just going to say it that way. So, yeah, so maybe.

Chris Braunlich (32:08.018)
Yes.

Chris Braunlich (32:20.54)
Yeah, I think it's probably a combination and some are just naive. They think, well, these signs, it's kind of like they're asking me to do it, but it's not really necessary. Okay.

Jason Elkins (32:33.348)
I should not share this story, but my brother's ex -wife, it's his ex -wife, so maybe I can share this story now, her family were visiting in Montana and from Pennsylvania. They went to Yellowstone and they were in the car driving into the Hot Springs area and his mother -in was reading the flyer, like the water's hot, the water's this, the that, don't stay away from the water. And Justin, my brother, was telling me that as they were walking on the boardwalk,

He heard his mother -in -law behind him say, yeah, the water is hot. And he turned around and she was on the boardwalk with her hand in one of the hot springs. And Justin said he just turned around and kept walking. He's like, I don't know who she is. She's not with me. But it was funny for us because we grew up in Wyoming and we, you know, it's like, okay, the tourists, funny tourists, tourists do crazy things. So maybe we need

Chris Braunlich (33:07.424)
no!

Chris Braunlich (33:12.912)
No!

I don't want to be a spushy woman.

Chris Braunlich (33:26.512)
Right. Yes.

Jason Elkins (33:30.404)
on any of these trails that you're helping to improve, maybe we need some sort of marketing campaign to tell people if they step off the trail that, know, a puma is going to get them a mountain lion or whatever, like, give them, you know, but even then they still get off the trail. So it's a tough

Chris Braunlich (33:43.772)
You know, I want to go see the puma even though it could hurt me, right? I don't know.

Jason Elkins (33:48.56)
It's it's crazy stuff. Hey, this is going back to something you said earlier about, know, you pick areas where a lot of people want to go and you're not directly competing with the tour operators there because you're doing something different. And honestly, this thought popped in my head. I'm curious. I don't even know if it's something you could do or would make sense. But I I speak with a lot of tour operators here on the show. And I know that a lot of tour operators listen to the show.

I have tour operators in, you know, Torres del Paine area and Chile and Patagonia and all these different places. And I, I don't know. Here's the thought you tell me if it makes sense or not. think it is. I'm a tour operator. I've got a wide range of tours. Hopefully they're all sustainable and they're, you know, at least environmentally focused on some level. But as a tour operator, if I partnered with a conservation organization and said, Hey,

You guys are looking for volunteers. You're looking for funds also. Um, as a tour operator, can I market a trip in a fun way a little bit, maybe a little bit more fun way, because I don't have, um, the IRS looking at my website and saying, Hey, wait a minute, you're a not for profit. But if I, as a tour operator put together maybe a 10 day trip, and we say five of those days are going to be spent with conservation VIP building trails.

Could they do that? What comes up for you when I say something like that? Is that even a possibility?

Chris Braunlich (35:23.398)
Let me give you some history. The answer is yes, there is a way to do it and we would be very interested. But let me go back and give you some history. We early on, as we started to expand, so we started in Torres del Plane, the next place that we added to the list of places we wanted to help was Machu

Jason Elkins (35:23.758)
and then they pay you obviously.

Chris Braunlich (35:44.152)
And after Machu, we added Machu Picchu, we said, you know, we want to keep expanding to other destinations, but we can't do it as a volunteer organization and do everything. We went to REI Recreational Equipment Inc, you know, the co -op here in Seattle, as it turns out, they had a travel arm, which was an international travel arm. And for years, we partnered with REI Adventures. Now, REI Adventures

Jason Elkins (35:58.212)
Yep.

Jason Elkins (36:05.828)
Yep, very familiar with

Chris Braunlich (36:13.682)
both REI Adventures being the travel arm of REI. They advertise trips in the US and internationally, and it was always branded REI. But of course they worked with travel companies in all these places. You only saw the REI name except for us. Out of the goodness of their heart, they said, you know, we want to support volunteering.

And so we were advertised on their site as a volunteer trip sponsored by both REI Adventures and Conservation VIP. But we did all the trip planning. We did all the trip leading. We did everything. But they signed people up for us. So they signed people up. They collected the money. And then when it was time to run the trip, they gave us all the information. They gave us the money. We ran the trip. And it was really a huge

to us because that's how were able to expand. Unfortunately, during COVID, they shut down all international travel. They just exited that market because they had enough challenges. I think the reason is they had enough challenges just with all the stores being shut down and the travel. Obviously, all travel stopped for a good year,

They then told us as we're starting to recover from COVID, we're not going back to international travel. So we had to take over all of the challenges of booking and collecting money, et cetera. It was hard. And we now do all that ourselves. So we survived and even more than surviving, we've added a couple more destinations, but we would love

Jason Elkins (37:55.054)
Mm -hmm.

Chris Braunlich (38:06.066)
partner with another travel company who'd work cooperatively with us. Because we don't have a big marketing footprint. We just, we can't afford it, okay? If we spent all that money on marketing, we wouldn't be a nonprofit. We'd need a lot more money. So yes, if there was somebody who understood that we really are actually important to them, okay, if you're gonna take somebody,

on these adventure trips to a place where a lot of people go, eventually the industry wears the place out. And then they think, let's move on to another place that's, know, green fields. Okay. And you see a lot of this, the latest place that hasn't yet been discovered. Okay. And what it really means is we've worn out the last place, let's move on to the next place. And then let's move on to the next place. So having a group who wants to help the place,

Jason Elkins (38:41.57)
Mm -hmm.

Chris Braunlich (39:01.37)
and partner with them as a way to kind of balance what you're doing, I think is wonderful. I also think that people can, our challenge is actually that we get a lot of people who want to travel with us, to, you know, keep saying Torres del Paine and Machu Picchu, but you say to the Galapagos or we go to the US Virgin Islands or Scotland, wherever. People want to volunteer with us, but then before or after the trip, they want to do something else.

Jason Elkins (39:07.705)
Yeah,

Chris Braunlich (39:30.98)
And so we introduce them to the local tour operator we work with who makes the reservations and the hotels and the lodging, the food, et cetera. And we say, arrange your travel with them. And that's what a lot of our travelers do. If they want to go early and stay late and do something else, they find another travel company. So it makes a lot of sense to me that some travel company would want to partner with us.

We looked around for that for a little while, but right after COVID, it just seemed impossible. And we've been so, I'm going to say overwhelmed, just recovering from the loss of REI and keeping going. And really the places we supported have, they suffered a lot during COVID. So even though there are fewer people wanted to travel.

to these places to help them. I mean, right after COVID, I'm gonna say everybody said, I wanna break loose and have fun. So actually it seemed like the number of people who wanted to help volunteer went down after COVID or they wanted to go visit their relatives. It's beginning to come back, but we've been so busy with that. We really haven't had the opportunity to go back out and say, what travel companies might wanna be associated with

Jason Elkins (40:51.322)
Very cool. I am so happy I asked because if no, no, that was, this is completely unscripted, but as I was listening to you, that's where my head was going. Cause I've worked in tour operations for a while. I'm like, man, if I was a tour operator, a larger tour operator offering trips in these types of places, cause well, let's back up. Cause you just a moment ago said, you know, we look for the new next place that the, use the word green fields or whatever,

Chris Braunlich (40:53.896)
I am too. That was a great, and I didn't even suggest that question.

Jason Elkins (41:20.058)
There's some of that, yes, but there's also how do I experience this place in a different way? So maybe I've got good operators on the ground already in Machu Picchu. And what can I offer my audience or my following that's just a different way to see Machu Picchu, for example, just an example, because there's a lot of value in that as well. It's like we have to offer Machu Picchu because how could we be a travel business if we didn't?

really aren't that excited about most of the experiences that are actually available right now. So how could we offer us a version of that that still incorporates Machu Picchu, but in a different way? I mean, if I was a tour operator listening to this, I would want to talk to you.

Chris Braunlich (42:08.134)
Well, you know, I'm glad you brought that up because it's one thing we haven't talked about, which is that our experiences, let's use Machu Picchu. Our experiences at Machu Picchu are very different from going to Machu Picchu with somebody else. Let's start with the fact that we are there as their guests in the sense that we are there with their permission.

Jason Elkins (42:25.464)
I'm sure of it, no doubt in my mind.

Chris Braunlich (42:36.05)
permits from them to volunteer. We don't walk in and say, here's what we're going to do for you. We walk in and say, what can we do for you? What kind of help do you need? And every trip is different, okay? But I'll tell you the last few trips, much of what they've wanted us to do is removing invasive species, which people don't even think about with Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu has high fire risk.

Jason Elkins (42:38.842)
Mm

Jason Elkins (42:46.882)
What can we do for you?

Chris Braunlich (43:05.36)
because of an invasive grass that has taken over in there? Well, first of all, we volunteer with park rangers. Okay, so we spend days working alongside Peruvians who spend their life at Machu Picchu. You begin to understand the park differently when you're with local Peruvians who care about Machu Picchu.

We also are often working on terraces where the ordinary tourists can't get to. You're not allowed to go there, okay? But there are all these terraces around there that need work in terms of getting rid of the vegetation. Now, other times we've ink and walls on some of the ruins that nobody's allowed to see, but we've gone there and cleaned off the walls. I mean, it's almost spiritual, if you will. I mean, it's just amazing to be there. And we are

not for the four hours where you run through the entrance gate, up, go on the route as fast as you can, stop at all the designated spots to get the little lecture on what this building was, was this for the high Incan guy or the lower worker guys. And we don't just get those lectures, we're there for several days. And you get a very different sense of it, okay? So, you

Jason Elkins (44:26.404)
Yeah, you've got me sold. I think it sounds great.

Chris Braunlich (44:32.73)
We see the people differently or we have different, we're not just in a vendor customer relationship, which is so typical. I mean, if you're meeting somebody and they're selling something and you're buying something, they wanna please you because they want you to buy the product, but you really don't know that person at all. And with us, it's, we're helping them.

Jason Elkins (44:39.866)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Elkins (44:51.834)
Yeah. Yeah. I can, I can see so many opportunities. Yeah. I can see so many opportunities for a tour operator. Obviously REI was doing it. sounds like, and for like, you know, I've got somebody who wants to go to South America for three weeks and, and you guys are running a project and at Machu Picchu for the second week of June or whatever. And I incorporate that into, into the trip for them. And I I'm able to put together a nice package for them.

You know, we, as a tour operator, give you whatever a volunteer would pay to pay their way. So you're getting the same resources financially and you're getting volunteers in. They're probably going to honestly come back to you and want to do another, another project with you at some point in the future. I think it sounds pretty exciting. I hope somebody's listening to this that will jump on board and reach out to you. I mean, I've, I've got some ideas we did when I worked at Orvis, Orvis is very conservation focused and I ran their travel business for

Chris Braunlich (45:39.496)
Happy Dice, yeah?

Jason Elkins (45:49.796)
And we worked with a couple not -for -profit organizations, do similar things. We worked with Bonefish Tarpen Trust, which was about conserving Bonefish Tarpen and permit. And we would do week -long trips and bring people together and we'd bring a scientist in and they would tag bonefish and they would actually do things that was assisting the research. And it was so much fun. Those trips, those were some of our most popular trips because people were doing some.

hands -on, actually got to do things that, know, vast majority of fly fishermen have never tagged a fish. But the clients that went on my trip were tagging fish. They were catching fish that had tags, they recording them. were, and it was just a totally different experience. And to have the conversations with the scientists to really explain why are we doing this stuff? It's not just we're doing this because it looks cool. This is something they wanted to tag fish and it's just so much fun.

Yeah, I hope somebody's listening to this. That'll reach out to you. do believe a lot of tour operators listen to this. So if that's what comes out of this conversation, then I'm really happy we did it. So very, very cool. Chris, we discussed a lot of things and I want to be respectful of your time. I understand you're actually at a conference right now, conservation conference, and you were nice enough to take about a break, about an hour break between meetings to come meet with us. So I want to be respectful of your time so you can get back. But I also want to ask, you know, what did I forget to ask or

Chris Braunlich (46:54.086)
Good.

Jason Elkins (47:16.476)
What should I have asked or what do you want to make sure our listeners know about either you, conservation in general, conservation VIP or really anything you want to share with them before we wrap

Chris Braunlich (47:30.28)
would like to end on a note to encourage people to really appreciate public lands. Whether it's with us or, you know, the park nearest to them, these are places that we cherish, okay? Those are the places where you have those, you know, sort of moments of awe. Okay, you're high in the mountains and you're in a tent and you look up and you see the stars, right? You can't beat that experience.

and we need these places, but in order for these places to continue, really, I would like people to say, I can do something to make sure they continue. I can do my little bit. And it's not hard. It can be fun, okay? It can be a lot of fun, but it matters. so, you know, kind of thinking beyond, you know, what's the one thing that I have the most fun doing and trying to do it over and over and over? Think about how you can come back from a

and actually feel good about yourself, okay? Because I think that's the thing about volunteer travel is you not only come back saying, wow, I saw this place I wanted to see, you come back feeling good about yourself. And that's because you recognize that we're all a global community.

Jason Elkins (48:49.294)
I love that. That reminds me of you growing up with my father. spent a lot of, a lot of time in the mountains and every time we left a place, he would say, okay, we got to leave it better than we found it. You know, and I know that that's a, it's maybe that's a little cliche, but at the same time, if you, if when you're out in the parks or just in the wilderness and just in the world in general, not even, not even nature, but like with other people too, that would be nice is leave it better than the way you found it. And if we all did

Chris Braunlich (48:59.416)
Exactly.

Jason Elkins (49:19.396)
You know, we wouldn't even need to be having these conversations. So thank you for sharing.

Chris Braunlich (49:23.91)
No, think that connectivity, I think that connectivity with the rest of the world is how we feel good about.

Jason Elkins (49:31.182)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I appreciate you coming on and helping me achieve that goal of making the big world feel just a little bit smaller. It's all about connectivity. So thank you so much, Chris. I appreciate you taking time out of your day to join

Chris Braunlich (49:42.042)
Okay. Thank you very much, Jason. I appreciate it. Okay. Talk to later.

Jason Elkins (49:45.763)
All right, talk to you soon,