Adventure Travel with Marc Leaderman - Wild Frontiers Adventure Travel

Area/Topic
Worldwide, Central Asia, Middle East

Marc Leaderman
Product & Operations Director
Wild Frontiers Adventure Travel

When I was younger we never journeyed anywhere as a family, so my love of travel really started at university when I spent one summer teaching English in Romania, in what turned out to be one of the most transformative trips I have ever experienced. It was just after the fall of communism and it was a real eye-opener for me to see people, the same age as me, living such different lifestyles - something I’d only really glimpsed on the news. They had all lived through the turmoil and violence of the events of 1989, so meeting them and hearing their stories really piqued my interest in the wider world.

After graduating, I taught English in Japan and then I went to Australia, where I spent some time as a door-to-door salesman. When I eventually came home, it was short-lived - I spent the next ten years as a UK tax-exile, tour-leading in over 60 countries from North Korea to Mali. On one occasion where I returned to London, I met Jonny. I thought I’d been to some of the most adventurous places out there before I met him! I attended one of Jonny’s talks on Afghanistan and he thought I was spying for a rival travel company, but I was just interested in what Wild Frontiers did and now I head up the Product and Operations department (and also, regrettably, have to pay tax!)

With my product hat on, I’m always looking at new areas to which we can travel - a role which is endlessly exciting, especially as the world changes. It’s important that we keep that Wild Frontiers’ edge on emerging destinations. But it’s also about visiting familiar places in new ways.

From the operational side, it’s really about managing the constant challenges that come up on tours, the ever changing rules and regulations and just making sure that everything on the road happens as planned. It’s no easy task and assuredly a 24/7 job as we will almost always have several clients travelling at any given time to one of the 90+ destinations we offer.

https://www.wildfrontierstravel.com/

summary
In this conversation, Jason Elkins interviews Marc Leaderman, the product and operations director for Wild Frontiers Adventure Travel. Marc shares his journey from a childhood with limited travel experiences to becoming a tour leader and exploring different countries. He talks about the importance of pushing boundaries and trying new things, as well as the impact of travel on one's perspective and happiness. They also discuss the changes in the travel industry over the years, including the use of technology and the challenges of staying present with clients. In this conversation, Marc shares his experiences as a tour guide and the challenges of balancing customer expectations with sustainable tourism practices. He discusses the importance of finding a balance between popular tourist attractions and off-the-beaten-path experiences. Marc also highlights the impact of technology and social media on the rapid growth of new destinations and the challenges of over-tourism. He emphasizes the need for respect and collaboration with local communities and the responsibility of tour operators to provide a positive and sustainable travel experience. Marc concludes by sharing the power of travel in fostering understanding and breaking down cultural barriers.

takeaways

• Travel experiences can have a profound impact on one's perspective and happiness.
• Pushing boundaries and trying new things can lead to personal growth and self-dis

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)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. Very excited today. We've got a great guest. We've got Marc Leaderman. He is the product and operations director for Will. I'm going to edit this part out. Your name is actually pretty easy, but is that Leaderman or Letterman? It is, okay.

Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. Very excited today. We've got Marc Leaderman here. He is the product and operations director for Wild Frontiers Adventure Travel. Marc, so happy to have you here. Did I pronounce everything right?

Marc (01:08)
You did! Very well done. Hi Jason, nice to be here.

Jason Elkins (01:12)
Good, good, good to have you. We spoke a few weeks ago and had an interesting conversation and I just thought it would be great for our listeners to come back and actually push the record button this time. So appreciate you doing that. And before we get into the business and kind of what you do on a daily basis, I'd really want to learn more about you because I think that's kind of what our podcast is all about. I think we have interesting people on the show and love to kind of hear a little bit about your story. How did you get from wherever you were to where you are now?

We can go back as far as you want to go. So how far should we go?

Marc (01:44)
I'm going to go back quite a long way because I think my background is probably quite different from a lot of the people that find themselves within the travel industry. A lot of people that I meet, they tell me amazing stories about how they'd go camping with their parents, you know, through Africa when they were kids or they would travel all over the place. And that's where they got the travel bug from. I never had any of that.

And partly that's because my mum controlled the purse strings in our house. And my mum's father died when my mum was a young girl, leaving my mum alone with two sisters and her mum. And back in the day, with no male wage earner, holidays were literally the last thing on anyone's mind. So my mum grew up with that mentality of not having a holiday. So when she got married to my dad,

and she controlled the purse strings, holidays were just not something that were ever considered. And we did literally one foreign holiday in my entire childhood. And that was a two week package holiday to New York or in Spain. It was nothing. I don't have these stories from childhood that I can go back to. And travel really wasn't a part in any way of my childhood.

We did, even in the UK, we did a week in Cornwall in a cabin that someone had lent to my dad. We did a holiday for a week on the Isle of Wight, but there was nothing really exciting in there. For me, yeah.

Jason Elkins (03:16)
I'm curious, Mark, I'm curious, what did your father bring into that relationship? Was he raised with vacations and travel? Did that all come to an end when he met your mom or what kind of background did he bring to the table?

Marc (03:30)
Not really. I mean, both on my parents are both either the children or grandchildren of immigrants to the UK. So I just think none of them grew up, neither of them grew up either in a family or in a community where going on a holiday was something that was seen as anything other than incredibly self -indulgent and for others. And I think it was the occasional

Jason Elkins (03:39)
Okay.

You

Marc (03:56)
day trip to the coast, that was about the extent of it. So I think that contrasts perhaps, obviously, Jason, you've spoken with a lot of people who've worked in travel, but I don't know whether that conflicts a little bit with their background.

Jason Elkins (04:11)
No, I think, I think you're right. A lot of folks did kind of were exposed to it early on somebody in their life, whether it was their parents or I've had quite a few guests that mentioned, actually grandparents or aunts and uncles that had traveled and sent back postcards. And although they weren't able to travel, they got inspired by someone else that was doing it or national geographic magazines. I can tell you that was a big one for me. My, my mom had the foresight.

Marc (04:38)
Nice.

Jason Elkins (04:40)
to buy like a full year's worth of National Geographic for the year I was born. So as I got older as a kid, we always had National Geographic around and I'd flip through them and I'd pull out the maps and post them up on the bedroom walls. And that was all before I had a chance to actually go anywhere. So I think there's a lot of different things that can inspire us and I'm curious. So without traveling a lot and without going camping or doing some of those activities,

if you were to reflect back on your childhood, was there something going on that was kind of maybe analogous to travel or adventure that got you inspired or do you remember anything from your childhood thinking, man, I want to go?

Marc (05:12)
Yep. Nothing as intellectual as National Geographic, if I'm honest.

Jason Elkins (05:25)
You

Marc (05:25)
And this is growing up in the eighties, it was probably Bond films. I mean, for me as a kid, I remember seeing Bond in Egypt, Bond in Venezuela, Bond in Hong Kong. And that for me, I think was probably my first exposure to another world. But no, I was quite an academic kid. So I was big into my studies.

Jason Elkins (05:30)
yeah, yeah, that's a good one.

Marc (05:54)
chess was one of the things that I was big into. I mean, literally people that knew me when I was a kid sometimes find it amazing when they look at my career today and some of the travel that I've done. And when I look back and I compare it, it is quite different. And I think that was part of it. That when it was a big thing, when I got into the late eighties, early nineties, one of the things that was really, really big in the UK was taking a break between university, between school and university. The so -called, yeah, the gap year.

Jason Elkins (06:04)
you

Yeah, the gap here, right? Yep.

Marc (06:24)
And I realized that I was very good academically. I had a guaranteed university place to go to, but I knew that I lacked a little bit of life experience and I knew that I needed to push myself outside of my boundaries. And that for me is, I think, where it started. And the first trip that I did, and I was not a sporty kid at all.

And some of my friends were doing a skiing trip and they asked me if I wanted to go. And I said, skiing me? I said, I've never been skiing in my life. You've been skiing since you were kids. I'm not going to be able to ski. And they encouraged me to go. I went along and on day one of the ski, I got put in a beginner's class. As expected, I was the worst person in the class. Day two, I was the worst person in the class to the extent that I was being taken up on the drag lift. One of my skis fell off and someone had to pick up from behind me. It was just a nightmare.

But by the end of the week, and it was just a five day course, I graduated top of my class. It was ridiculous. It was a beginner's class. It means nothing. I'm not going to be competing in anything anytime soon. But it was such a revelation for me. And it seems so naive now to think back to it. But I suddenly said to myself, in just one week, I can go from being absolutely rubbish at something to actually being OK.

And I suddenly, the world almost suddenly opened up to me where I suddenly thought, my God, how many other things am I absolutely rubbish at that maybe with a little bit of effort, I could actually be quite good at and enjoy. And I think that revelation, which some people probably have when they're kids, some people never have, I reached that age probably when I was about 18 or 19. That's when that revelation happened to me. And suddenly the world became a much more, much more exciting place.

And so that...

Jason Elkins (08:19)
Boy, I wish everybody could have that experience. I think of my kids, and I have the conversation. My son is 17 and I have that conversation with him. He's like, well, I can't do this. I'm not good at it. Well, you've never tried. And I would love to take what you just shared. And I'm going to make sure he hears this episode because I think that's useful.

Marc (08:22)
Yeah.

Yeah. And there's loads of things on your on on LinkedIn from inspirational people saying, you know, your first podcast will be rubbish. Your first webinar will be rubbish. Your first anything will be rubbish. If you're not prepared to go through that, you'll never get through the stages and.

I never felt that because I think academia had come quite easy to me. I'd always been quite good at the stuff that I did and I just did more of that. So choosing to do more things that I was rubbish at, I think encouraged me to give things a try. And I suppose within that context, my first, I suppose, real travel experience that I would put down, the one which I think set me off on the track that I'm now on was during my second year at university.

where we got given the opportunity to do a teaching exchange in the summer with Romania. Now, this was Romania in 1993. This was just four years after the fall of communism, after the fall of, after, you know, Ceaușescu had fled the country. I knew nothing. And obviously this is before the days of the internet. I had no idea. To be honest, I barely knew where Romania was on a map.

Jason Elkins (09:38)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Marc (09:54)
but in my new mentality of, yeah, I'll give that a go. I don't know what I'm going to be like. Let's go teach English in the summer in Romania. And that experience opened my eyes to just a whole other world. I think things which really stood out for me, they called it aggressive Romanian hospitality. And it was, it was incredible that at the end of my first class, and they said, you're nothing special. This is normal.

Jason Elkins (10:16)
Okay.

Marc (10:23)
there was a line of students waiting to demand that I came to their house for dinner. It was just the way that it was done. And it was great. And I'd never experienced this before. But one of the stories that really stuck with me and really sticks with me to this day was one of my students, a girl called Juana. She'd invited me for dinner at her mom's house. And we were walking from the university.

across the main square to where she lived on the other side of town. And she was a very chatty 16, 17 year old girl, everything going fine. And as we crossed the main square, she suddenly felt silent. We crossed the main square and I said, is everything okay? She was, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine. I'm fine, I'll tell you later. We got to her mum's house and we started to talk more. And I said to her, I said, why did you fall quiet when we crossed the square?

And she took a deep breath and she picked up a picture showing herself, her mother, and the guy who was her older brother. And she said, back in 1989, four years earlier, she said, my brother had gone to the square. She said, all of us did. She said, you know, we were, you know, shouting for peace and chanting slogans. And she said, the local police opened fire and my brother was shot dead next to me. And...

Jason Elkins (11:45)
wow.

Marc (11:49)
We then carried on with the dinner and it was obviously just a part of her life. But I looked at this girl, I looked at this guy and I thought, this is not some story from a bygone era. These are people who are within two or three years of my age and their upbringing and their life experiences are just so different. And I felt embarrassed that I'd never really given it a moment's thought. And I remember her telling me that she'd actually traveled to the UK as part of an orchestral.

group and she'd gone into a supermarket, Tesco, local supermarket and her mouth had just dropped open at the variety of things on display and she took out her little disposable camera because she wanted to take a photograph to show her mother back home and she decided not to and she said I can't, I can't show my mother and my friends what there is here.

Jason Elkins (12:40)
Hmm.

Marc (12:46)
I'd never thought about that. And it was only when I came back and I looked around a supermarket, which for me was as banal as anything, but seeing it through her eyes, having seen what life was like in Romania, where there was nothing. I mean, literally pickled vegetables was about, and this is after coming up, nothing available. You'd go to a restaurant and the only thing available was cheese or a tomato. That was the entire thing on offer.

And I really was forced to relook at my life, everything that I'd just taken for granted. And I wanted to know more. And that's really where, for me, it all started from that experience in Romania. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (13:28)
What a great story. Sad and profound. And that really kind of helps explain. You mentioned your story is a little different than other people. But that is something that I think that many of us that work in this business can really relate to. I know anybody listening to this that has traveled outside the country, especially to places where there's been recent conflict or serious financial limitations.

Marc (13:52)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (13:59)
Yeah, I've spent most of the last, well, two and a half years traveling most of that in Colombia. And sometimes I get that almost embarrassed thing. It's like, you know, I'm not going to pull out my phone and show pictures of, look what we have back in the US. Look, look what our grocery stores are like. I get that. I can. And of course, in Colombia, you know, not too long ago, they had a lot of.

conflict and you know, I've met quite a few people that lost parents. Yeah, yeah, I lived in Comuna Trese for the last five or six months. And that's a community where there's, you can find bullet holes and walls still. And you know, and there's people there that lost brothers and sisters and it's, it's a profound thing that comes up when you travel to places like that.

Marc (14:27)
Especially where you are in Medellin. Yeah. And it's finding me.

I'm not asking, you know, we all have our troubles and they may be first world troubles, but they are what they are. And we all have our issues and you can't always say, but yes, think of a villager in Somalia and your life compared to them is so much better. You can't do that the whole time. You have to deal with your issues. But I think just occasionally taking a step back and putting your life into perspective of people that you've met that purely for the chance and the luck.

Jason Elkins (14:53)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Marc (15:17)
of where you were born and when you were born completely defines your entire existence. And obviously none of us know what we would be like had we been born in a different time, in a different place. That's just the eternal question. We'll never know.

Jason Elkins (15:31)
And I also find it interesting though that when I'm in places that, you know, frankly, I meet a lot of people that would love to have the opportunity to travel to the US, to live in the US, to be in the US or the UK or Dubai or Switzerland. I hear Switzerland a lot. That's a popular one. And frankly, sometimes I think, well, but I love it here.

Marc (15:44)
No.

Jason Elkins (15:59)
That's like, why would you want to go there? I've, you know, I am, you know, I almost brag that I'm almost Colombian now because I love it, but I can also realize that their challenges and their struggles and their lives are different. Number one. But number two, the thing that I really wanted to touch on was how incredibly happy some people are. You know, when we visit these places and I haven't been to Romania, especially four years after the fall of communism, but I have been to Cuba.

Marc (16:19)
Yeah. Yep.

Jason Elkins (16:29)
you know, I've been to a few places, even Columbia, where I'm shocked at how just the energy and the passion that people have for life, regardless in Africa. I mean, the African people, there's many places in Africa that are financially not that well off, but boy, those little kids just smile bigger than you can imagine. And it's, it's an interesting, I don't know, juxtaposition sometimes when you look at.

Marc (16:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (16:55)
you know, a community and there's obviously some real challenges and struggles. But then you think, man, people here seem so much happier than they do back in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, some of these places, or maybe London.

Marc (17:09)
I think it's right. And I think obviously there's the danger of seeing things through rose -tinted glasses, but I think you're absolutely right. That does exist. And I think a lot of it maybe has to do with expectation of life. And I don't know whether in the West, we were almost set no limits. And so we're always going to underachieve what we are told we could achieve. And as a consequence, we're miserable.

Jason Elkins (17:23)
Hmm?

That's true.

Marc (17:37)
Rather than, I mean, even just going back to my parents' generation and my grandparents' generation, I just think they had lower expectations from their life. And so it was easier. Sales targets, you know, you set a low sales target and you get your sales target, you're happy. You work for a really competitive, ambitious company and they set high sales targets. And yeah, you may end up getting more sales and more commission and all of that stuff.

Jason Elkins (17:54)
You feel like you're a champion, man. I'm good at this.

Marc (18:05)
but you'll probably feel less satisfied because you're never attaining those very aggressive sales targets. And I don't know, and that's not why Frontiers at all, but I don't know whether or not it's that analogy that kind of helps explain a little bit why there are so many dissatisfied people in the West compared to, as you say, people you go through communities who have a fraction of what we have in many cases.

Jason Elkins (18:31)
You know, when you mentioned the expectations thing, I have to go back to the story you just shared about the young lady in Romania who didn't want to take a photo of the grocery store in the UK and share that with her mom. And that's very clearly it's like, well, I don't want my mom to be feel sad that she can't have this. It's like if, you know, and with the proliferation of, you know,

Marc (18:37)
Yep. Yep.

Jason Elkins (18:55)
Obviously television, the internet, everybody has a phone now, even in the most impoverished communities, they have phones, they have access to everything on the internet. They have access to Instagram. So they see all these people that are traveling around and doing these things or dressed exotically or whatever. And you almost kind of wonder what that might do to the happiness of just people in general. Because I think even Americans, I say Americans, Brits, first world, I'm not...

I'm still not sure how to use the terminology correctly, but we're constantly judging and comparing ourselves to others and feeling like, well, I can never hit that goal. But it's touching on exactly what you were just saying.

What's the solution? No, anyway.

Marc (19:41)
Agreed. That I don't know. But I mean, all I can say, I mean, just going going back to my story, that that set me off on a path and that put me in a bit of a dilemma because I'd gone to, you know, I'd gone to a good university and I'd studied classics. I'd done Latin and Greek and philosophy. Why? Because I was

always said, I'm going to be a lawyer. And I was told in the UK to be a lawyer, you can do any degree, do a good university, and then you just do a one year catch up course in your professional studies, and then you can go on to do law. So that was always my plan. When I came back from Romania, I suddenly realized I didn't want to be a lawyer anymore. And then I asked myself, what am I doing in the middle of a classics degree? And there was always a

a joke for classic students. They say, what do you say to a classics graduate? Can I have fries with that, please? Yeah, it's not the most vocation. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (20:45)
-huh. But as long as you have this, well, I want to be a lawyer, then it's OK. Then that makes sense. But if I don't want to be a lawyer, yeah, I get it. I'm with it.

Marc (20:51)
Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's not the most vocational degree. So I had a little bit of a panic attack if I, when I remember after graduating, all my friends were going off, they were joining big law firms, they were being caught up, they were, they knew what they were doing. I had no idea, but I knew what I didn't want to do. And I knew what I wanted to do had something to do with pushing my boundaries and travel. And I ended up learning how to teach English properly.

as a foreign language and I ended up going to Japan for a year. And then from Japan, Brits have got a working holiday arrangement with Australia and I've got some family in Australia. So I then went to Australia for a year. And when I was in Australia, well, you could, and it wasn't like I considered, but this is where...

Jason Elkins (21:42)
to teach them English as well. Just kidding.

Marc (21:51)
I had to make choices because a lot of the people that I did meet there, Brits, they were teaching English, but in one of the big cities, they'd be in Sydney, they'd be in Melbourne, and that was their existence. Or what they were doing is people were picking fruit up along the Gold Coast, the East Coast of Australia. And that was mainly what Brits did when they went to Australia for a year. And I didn't want to do either of those things. And I knew...

Jason Elkins (21:56)
Really.

Mm -hmm.

Marc (22:18)
I knew I needed to do something different and I found myself a bizarre job, but I ended up finding myself a job which was a door -to -door salesman traveling around the country with a group of people selling educational products for kids. And it was amazing. We just were given a little bit of money. We got given some products and we got told off you go. And we were going to remote mining communities.

Jason Elkins (22:36)
Mm -hmm.

Marc (22:47)
who were actually really keen to meet us because they're stuck in the middle of nowhere. And again, this is before the days of the internet. People didn't have access to educational products and games and all of these things. So I ended up doing that for eight months. And I think what that taught me, and it is something which I think has helped me throughout my professional career, is

they told us some very simple stats. They said, okay, this is how it works. You're gonna start off early afternoon and you're gonna knock on houses and you're gonna ask people if they're interested in seeing some educational stuff. They said, on average, you're gonna knock on about 130 doors every day. Out of those 130, approximately 10 will actually want to see the stuff that you're selling. Out of those 10,

three will actually invite you in to learn a little bit more and out of the three people that see it one will buy and that's fine you make one sell a day you're doing fine that meant that i had to hear the word no on average 129 times a day and still feel like i was doing a good job and that really screwed with my head

that was hard and that is hard. And it's something when I've been working with, you know, with my sales team at various stages to understand that there is this mentality that another no means you're closer to your next yes and that you can't give up hope. And when you're knocking on a door, hoping to go inside, and this is maybe more of an American attitude than a British attitude, you have to believe that you're going to get inside. If you've got this

Jason Elkins (24:10)
Mm -hmm.

Marc (24:38)
approach this mentality that's like, what's the point? I've already heard 25 people say to me no. So that was quite, again, just a very different experience. But it was that job that gave me the confidence when I came back to the UK, having been away for two years to go and apply to be a tour leader, to go out to a country that I'd never been to before.

to get given maybe one or two weeks in advance and then to be out in Turkey, Jordan, China, India, Pakistan, Mongolia, wherever, and to know you're gonna be okay, you're gonna handle it. It was that job probably more than anything else that gave me the confidence to go and do that.

Jason Elkins (25:23)
I love it. Now that that makes so much sense. I was actually just speaking with somebody about the power of the word no in a slightly different context. But I did I did real estate sales. I knocked on knocked on a lot of doors. And we used to, you know, I'd have coaches that say, OK, every time you hear a no, imagine you're putting money in your pocket, right? Because you got to get and then eventually when you get the yes, then you can take the money out of your pocket and put it in your bank account or whatever. You know, it's it's

There's definitely a lot of mindset things around asking for things that you sometimes don't feel like you deserve. You don't, you know, you've got your own stories and I can imagine somebody doing some other type of work in Australia, maybe picking fruit and then deciding, there's a job to be a tour guide in all these countries, but who am I to ask? You know, and you're like, I just heard no 129 times a day. So I don't mind. I'll ask and.

Marc (26:18)
Yeah. Yep. So this was for the company Explore Worldwide. And this was, in a way, I think it was a golden era because

Jason Elkins (26:21)
So yeah, I can see the connection. Yeah, that's very cool. So you got this job leading trips. Tell us more about that.

Mm -hmm.

Marc (26:42)
This was a time when they were in desperate need for tour leaders, Western tour leaders, it's called the Western tour leaders, because at the time in a lot of the countries in which we were operating, there wasn't the experience for local tour leaders. There would be local guides in some places, some explore trips. I was told, no, you're going to be doing all the guiding.

Jason Elkins (27:04)
Mm -hmm.

Marc (27:10)
So that was a challenge as well. But in general, no, you would go away, but you'd go away for six months. And that was one of the things you had to commit to be going away for six months at a time. And that was it. And again, before the days of the internet, before the days of mobile phones, I mean, it's not that long ago, but I remember, yeah, phone cards and having to go to banks to collect additional money with travellers checks and all of these things.

which I'm telling people today and they're looking at me literally like I'm talking about the Victorian era. It's like, it really wasn't, this was the late nineties going into the early two thousands, but it was the way in which it was done. And there was something quite magical about having to let go everything that you know, and you would have to embrace the new country that you were in. You couldn't be checking in on your friends and family every five minutes, liking posts and WhatsApp messages.

you were out there and yeah, you may get the occasional letter occasionally as time developed. I remember, you know, queuing to go into an internet cafe where there was the slowest connection speed ever. And if you were lucky, you may be able to get one message out to one member. But again, that would be something that you would do maybe every two or three weeks. It really was a different era. And part of me misses that. And part of me misses

Jason Elkins (28:32)
Yeah.

Marc (28:34)
not knowing what the next place is going to look like and having clients that don't know how amazing the next place that you're going to look at, rather than saying, are we going to see that view that I've seen so many times on Instagram or whatever? And obviously, we have to adapt. There are huge advantages now to the world in which we live in. But for me, I think that was a little bit of a golden era. And when I speak to

Jason Elkins (28:47)
Instagram photo that I've seen so many. Yeah.

Marc (29:03)
I think other tour leaders or other people who led at that time or immediately before, there is a little bit of old school mentality about it where we don't need our hand held. I remember being told for my briefing for my first trip, which was six months in Eastern Turkey, they gave me the notes. They gave me the contract. They said, yeah, two days before every trip, you'll get given a fax will get sent to your hotel.

and they'll tell you who your clients are going to be. They said, right, this is our 24 hour emergency number, but we don't want to hear from you. Just get on with it. And that was the mentality. And there really was something liberating in that, which is just get on with the job. And I think that came not just from me as a tour leader, but there was also, I think, an element of that from the clients that I was traveling with, that they were there.

Jason Elkins (29:41)
Yeah, yeah.

Marc (29:59)
They weren't constantly referring back to what was going on in the world, in the news. They were away having a break and embracing whatever destination it was. Obviously for me, it was Eastern Turkey for my first... Exactly. You're not going on TripAdvisor to check the ratings of the hotel, which... Yeah, exactly.

Jason Elkins (30:11)
They're not Googling the next destination, the next place they're going.

Make sure the reviews for the hotel you're staying at are good enough. Yeah, yeah. I get that. I was leading trips back in the day as well. And I remember I avoided, I lived in Vermont, very rural Vermont. Cell phones didn't really work that well there. Never really felt like I needed a cell phone at the time. I was leading a trip in Chile, didn't have a cell phone. There was an earthquake. All of a sudden the need to have a cell phone arose.

And that's when from then on I had a cell phone when I was leading trips, but it was, but we still figured it out. I still found all the clients without a cell phone and without the regular phone system. We got them all together. We went and had a nice time, but yeah, it was, it was nice to just kind of disconnect and really be present with your clients. And it's nice for them because, you know, hopefully they're not all running around on their phones the whole time. And we just see it. You go to a restaurant and eat any day this week, you go to a restaurant.

Marc (30:53)
Yep.

Yep.

Jason Elkins (31:16)
half the people in there are on their cell phone or people traveling, I'm on the Metro line here, everybody's on their cell phone for the entire trip. And yeah, it's changed a bit.

Marc (31:27)
And I think also as a leader, it forced me and anyone leading at that time to be much more organized than you need to be today. You can't leave everything to the last minute. I'll just, I'll book the restaurant while I'm on route or I'll do this. No, you sometimes have to think three, four days in advance.

Jason Elkins (31:36)
Yeah.

Marc (31:45)
and make sure that everything was organized and planned. Where am I going to be able to make a call from? Yeah, some of the leaders that we work with now who are brand new and complain about certain things, there is an element and I do feel like, my God, I feel like one of these kind of old timers, but there is an element of do you realize how easy it is these days? Yeah. I mean, I remember navigating, God, you've just reminded me on.

Jason Elkins (32:06)
GPS? I mean, what is that all about?

Marc (32:12)
I think it was my third trip to Eastern Turkey. At the time you had to have in Turkey what was called a silent guide, which was even though I was okay being a UK tour leader, but in Turkey in the East, you needed to have a Turkish approved guide with you. But at the time, none of the Turkish guides wanted to go to Eastern Turkey. Why? Because it wasn't as much fun as Western Turkey, which was where all the parties were. It was where all the, you know,

Jason Elkins (32:35)
Hmm.

Marc (32:42)
The Westerners were going to the beach. And yeah, this is a reality. There wasn't any shopping to be done, which was one of the perks for the local guides. So the only way that the company would deal with it is every trip that I did, I would get a different guide that would sit there with me. They didn't do anything, but they just sat there because they had to. And I remember some of them, some of the Turkish guides freaking out about being in Eastern Turkey.

because it was just so different from their world. But one of them had left us and we were coming back to Ankara to get an overnight train to Istanbul. And the driver had never been to Ankara before. And we're running late because we'd had a puncture on route. And I'm looking at my watch and we're going to miss the train. We need to get there. And I'm using the map from the Lonely Planet Guide to navigate our way through the streets of Ankara.

No GPS, that's kind of way you just reminded me. Driver had no idea where he was going and I'm literally using this tiny little map, which is not designed for navigating a bus through the streets of Ankara, but I'm using Thank You Lonely Planet eventually for navigating. We did go down a street, a one -way street the wrong way, but we eventually got to the train station five minutes before the train left and I got my entire group on board. So that was a little success story. But yes, I do remember those stressful days before the days of GPS and other lovely things.

Jason Elkins (33:43)
Mm -hmm.

Wow.

And so I can imagine you, you know, dealing with in your job, dealing with, you know, the newer, the newer guides and all this. And they're like, well, all these problems and all these challenges. I'm like, you have Google maps on your phone. You can find it. You know, you can WhatsApp. WhatsApp is huge. You know, we've got so many tools right now that make it seem like it'd be easier. But at the same time, a lot of those tools as we were discussing can kind of pull you out of being that present.

Marc (34:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (34:40)
with your clients, because it's like, you know, I can imagine, I mean, I'm a father, I've got kids, and I'm not saying that tour guides are like parents, but there's some analogies. And when I'm with my kids and I should be spending time with them and being present with them and I'm on my phone, you know, thinking about what I'm going to do tomorrow or thinking about work or this or that or whatever, I can't really be present with them. It's kind of the same thing. I can envision a tour guide, you know, with a group.

worrying about where they're going next and on the phone constantly the entire time and driving past some amazing things that are those opportunities that you and I used to have like, wait, look, look, what's going on over here. We're going to stop the van here. It's not on the agenda. It's not on the itinerary, but we're going to stop the van and we're going to go look at whatever street market thing is going on over here. So, yeah, there's a trade off. And then, you know, I've had several folks have the conversations about just that Instagram thing where it's.

Marc (35:20)
Yep.

Jason Elkins (35:35)
You know, I, they, people think they need to go there. They need to see this particular thing. and you as a tour operator, realize that there's so many better things and, and trying to cater to their desire to see, let's say pizza or whatever, their desire to see pizza because their friends all showed them pictures of these and it's all over, you know, Instagram or whatever. And, but everything else about.

what they're telling you they want, it's like it's in direct conflict. So how do you work with your sales team and your product and product development? How do you find that balance?

Marc (36:07)
Yep. Yep. This is really hard because I think you're absolutely right. Often what people think is going to be the highlight of their trip rarely is.

People think, you know, they go to India, they think going to the Taj Mahal, which is an incredible experience. But when we ask people, what were the highlights of your trip? No one writes the Taj Mahal. I mean, no one writes the Taj Mahal. They enjoy it. But it is the it's the experience that they have in the back road, staying in the the rural palace. It is the eating the street food on the corner. But I have to balance that. And obviously, this is one of my jobs with

Jason Elkins (36:23)
Yeah.

Marc (36:51)
What are people going to buy? Again, I've designed trips that have been nominated for awards and haven't sold a single place. And I have to balance that with the fact. And I think I grew up a lot with the challenges, and I'm jumping around a little bit, with the challenges that COVID faced having to say,

Jason Elkins (37:00)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.

Marc (37:16)
I can't just have a bunch of self -indulgent trips, which are great and which people that really know are happy to buy because I need to provide jobs. I now feel responsible for the people that are employed here. So it is finding that balance. And there is also the element of, you know, not everyone wants the same thing. And you can find a balance. And I think probably that's the way I go about it now, that I'm going to take you to the Taj Mahal if I were organizing a trip in

Jason Elkins (37:37)
Mm -hmm.

Marc (37:45)
Italy, I'd take you to Pisa. But one, I'll see if there's a way in which I can do it differently. Maybe I'll take you there at a time of day that is not considered the optimum time to go. And as a consequence, you'll have a much nicer experience. Or I'll organise it in the off season. Or in addition, I'll take you somewhere else. And maybe with time, you'll start to trust me when I start not to include.

Jason Elkins (37:52)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Marc (38:15)
those highlights in trips. And that is really, it's the balance. And the world of travel is constantly changing. At the moment for us, Albania is a really good example of a destination which a few years ago, few people would have really considered. At the moment, it's absolutely booming. And it's great. And I was out there last year doing some guide training with some of our Albanian kind of leaders and guides that we have out there.

and I was blown away by the history. It reminded me, there were elements that reminded me of Romania with its link with communism in recent past, the mountains and everything. I mean, it's a beautiful country, but we have to keep an eye on it because in two, three years time, places where we were able or at the moment now able to give people those really special experiences.

suddenly find themselves potentially within two or three hours from a cruise ship docking station and before you know it we have to move on. So that's what keeps I think the world of travel exciting constantly having to pivot I suppose is the word of the day to keep things fresh.

Jason Elkins (39:28)
Do you think that the new destinations get, I don't know if overrun is the right word, but over tourism? Did they get to that point of over tourism much quicker because of technology and social media? I can just imagine it just happened so much faster.

Marc (39:36)
Yep.

Yeah, I really think so. And I think there are additional pressures that happen as a consequence. We saw it in Georgia in 2019, and we saw it a little bit in Albania last year, where there is such a spike in interest that suddenly there's not enough capacity in hotels. There's not enough capacity in restaurants. There's not enough good guides available.

And there reaches a critical point where we've actually got to the stages where we stop selling that destination for that year. We can't, and we've had these discussions with our partners to say, I know you want the business and maybe you in Albania, you haven't had business like this ever, but you need to tell us when you can't provide the level of service that you know we want our clients want and you want to provide. Say no, there'll be more for next year. And these are the discussions that we have on a fairly regular basis and it's hard.

And I appreciate it from their point of view. And sometimes it just comes up a little bit unexpected. Hotels just don't know what they're doing. And suddenly they find, yeah, maybe they've always overbooked by a few rooms and it's always panned out. And suddenly they're finding now they've overbooked by a few rooms and it's not panning out. No one's cancelling. They're all taking them up and we're having to deal with that situation on a fairly regular basis. So yeah, that does happen when countries suddenly start trending.

Jason Elkins (40:55)
and it's not bad. It's not panning up.

Yeah. And what comes up is that ability to say, no, that's actually come up in a few conversations I've had today. And just that, because I can, I can appreciate they're like, we've got a great partner that has sent us a lot of business. They've been sending us a lot of business. We don't want to disappoint them because the minute we say, no, we can't do it. They're going to go find somebody else that can, and they're going to lose that business. They're not just, you know, and it's like, they'd rather just take a little bit of a crap shoot and hopefully they can figure it out along the way. But yeah, it's.

Marc (41:21)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (41:34)
It's a challenge. I mean, and then also just the attitudes of the people living in some of these communities. I mean, I think we all, we all get to be sensitive to that. Cause if you're a tour guide or you own a hotel or you own a restaurant, you might be pretty excited about having a lot of tourists show up all of a sudden. But if you.

are a carpenter, a dentist, something else in the community. And all of a sudden, your neighbors are renting out their Airbnb's or their places for Airbnb. So you've got people that you're not comfortable with in the neighborhood constantly coming and going. You've got illicit activities that sometimes pop up in some of these places. I get that. I'm in Columbia. I see it. And I just heard recently, I saw something where, you know,

Marc (42:02)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (42:22)
There's some protesting and there's been protesting a lot of places, but specifically in Spain was this article I had read about people that just like, okay, tourists go home. And so we all kind of have some responsibility to try and whether our partners in Spain.

Marc (42:30)
Yep.

Jason Elkins (42:39)
want us to slow down the business. I think we all kind of have a responsibility to kind of figure out how do we do this in a way that's sustainable because it's not good for our clients. If we send our clients to Spain and people are throwing water balloons at them telling them to go home, that's not going to be a good experience either. So it's an interesting, interesting challenge.

Marc (42:57)
Yeah, and I think this is where I, as always in my years of being in travel, I've always tried to do good business, where for me it's not about, you know,

I come from the rich Western country and I've got money and clients to give you. It's very much a tit for tat service, which is, okay, yes, I have got some clients. They want to eat. You've got food. Can we do something that is beneficial for me and for you? And so there's a couple of instances come to mind. One was, this was when I was tour leading. I was leading a trip in Ethiopia.

which is a country which is going through some issues at the moment, unfortunately, but absolutely one of my favorite destinations. Northern Ethiopia is one of the most beautiful mesmerizing places that I've been to, incredibly poor. And one of the highlights, which was a real highlight, was there were some waterfalls outside of a town called Bahadar called Tisza waterfalls. And they're about 400 meters wide and beautiful.

and to do with used to do a really nice walk where you'd go from the plateau, you'd walk down and you get these full views, but it was a little bit rocky and there would always be about 10 to 15 children there to greet the buses and they would try and grab, you know, the hands of clients, assist them down and then demand, you know, a tip. And this used to stress.

Jason Elkins (44:31)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Marc (44:35)
clients out because sometimes they'd be so busy trying to say, look, just let me walk that they'd actually trip up in response. So I tried something one time and we arrived in the bus and I asked the group just to stay on the bus and I called all the kids together and they spoke enough English to understand and I just said, okay, you are all providing a service. I said, your services, you're going to assist and guide people through this walk. I said, that's great.

I said, and anyone that takes your service absolutely should pay for that service. I said, but not everyone wants it. And I said, I don't want you, you are not a beggar. You are someone who's providing a service. I said, so when my group come off, I said, there are some people, I've already spoken to them. They will require some assistance, but I want you to organize yourselves and to work out who is going to guide those people. And those people that don't want to be guided, you leave them alone and you'll, I'll make sure that you get paid well.

Jason Elkins (45:15)
Mm -hmm.

Marc (45:31)
but I want the others left alone. And at first they were a little bit shocked, but they had a bit of a discussion. And from that time onwards, I used to go back every two weeks, they'd see me arrive and they'd get into their, you know, they'd work out interns. And I, it worked. I mean, look, it didn't dramatically change the country, but I learned something from that, which is if you treat people like...

beggars and like poor people that are an annoyance and are just getting in your way, they'll probably act the same way. And maybe they'll even feel the same way within themselves. But if you actually treat someone as a service provider whose time you respect, they'll probably show you the same respect in return. And I've tried that on quite a few occasions.

Jason Elkins (46:08)
Mm -hmm.

Marc (46:24)
And nine times out of 10, it works and people respond very well to it. So that, I think, goes along with that, that if people don't want you there, you need to listen to them. And maybe you can find a compromise as to why they don't want you there and is there a way forward rather than either just completely abandoning them, which in the long scale may not help anyone or ordering regardless because you've got people wanting to go there. So it is a delicate balance and it needs to be

Jason Elkins (46:47)
Mm -hmm.

Marc (46:54)
I think sensitive to both sides.

Jason Elkins (46:56)
Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that those are some really good points. It's I think it's a big part of when when the locals don't feel respected, you know, and I think that when they feel that, you know, these foreigners are coming in and, you know, maybe, you know, increasing traffic, electricity issues, water issues, all these things, and then they don't feel respected. It's like, well, screw you. You know, you guys need to get out here.

Marc (47:04)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (47:21)
Maybe, you know, if you're coming in using up some of these resources and you're saying, Hey, we realize that we're using up some of these resources and we respect you and we want to work with you to figure out solutions. Then, then the protest might go away. It's like, you know, it's, I think people just want to be respected in life and everything, not just tourism.

Marc (47:26)
Yeah, I'd agree. And I have had that there are interesting and especially you being in Latin America.

There are some cultural differences which sometimes put that to the test. And I remember being with a group in Bolivia and the bus broke down. We're in a town and the driver said to me, he said, okay, I'm going to get it fixed. I'll be back in half an hour. Okay. So I said to the group, fine, go off, get a coffee, be back here in a half an hour. I came back in half an hour. No driver, nothing.

Jason Elkins (47:50)
Yes.

Marc (48:15)
waiting, another 15 minutes went by, nothing, another half an hour went by, nothing. I said to the group, okay, look, it's lunchtime now, go get some lunch. I'll see if I can locate the driver. I eventually found him. He was only two, three minutes away. And I said to him, I said, we've been waiting by the side of the road. And he said, it's taking longer to fix. And he just said, you're trying to impose your hora ingles, your English time here. And I was just like, I said, I'm not. I said, I understand. I've been in Bolivia for long enough to know there are limitations.

But I'm sorry, it's not showing respect to the clients to leave them stood by the road in ignorance for potentially two, three hours. You could have literally come back and talk again before the days of mobile phones. You could have just told me it's taking a lot longer and worked with me. And we had a little bit of a clash over that. And that occasionally manifests itself. So the respect does need to work both ways.

Jason Elkins (48:58)
Mm -hmm.

Yes, no, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. So great, great stories. Do you, so I want to make sure we didn't miss anything in kind of your journey because you were doing the tour guide thing for Explore Worldwide and.

Marc (49:21)
Fine, okay, yeah, sorry, I had been jumping around. So I went to Explore Worldwide, I started leading for them and I was leading back -to -back trips and I was away 10, 11 months a year. I'd do six months in Turkey. I'd come back, see friends and family for three, four weeks, then I'd be again away for six months. I led predominantly in the Middle East. I went to Jordan, I went to Oman. I then went out to India, China, Pakistan.

And I did that solidly for two years. And then what happened is what I was told would happen by the MD at the time of the CEO of Explore at the time. He said, after two years, you'll get a little bit bored. He said, you will think that there's nothing more to do. You've got the job down pat and you'll have a little bit of a crisis. He said, before you hand your notice in, come and have a chat with me. And so I did.

Jason Elkins (50:02)
Hmm.

Marc (50:14)
And I said, I've reached that stage. And he asked me what types of trips that I'd done. And I told him, and he said, right, I think you need a new challenge. He said, you've been doing Middle East, Asia. He said, why don't you go and lead in Latin America? I said, I'd like to. I said, but I don't speak Spanish. And he looked at me and he said, we'll go and learn.

And again, it was one of those revelations that just hadn't occurred to me. In my mind, I was someone that didn't speak Spanish, so I couldn't lead trips in Latin America. And I thought about it, I was like, why don't I? So I went to Spain, I did a crash course in Spanish for a month, came back, had an interview in Spanish, they went, yeah, you'll do. And they sent me off. And my first trip leading in Latin America was in Nicaragua. This would have been 1990.

T, I know, would be about the year 2000 perhaps. And I had no guide. And it was chaos. And thank God I had an American couple on my first trip who spoke fluent Spanish. And I love the story they told me. The reason why the guy spoke Spanish is his dad had been in the military and during the Second World War, there had been rumors.

Jason Elkins (51:22)
Nice.

Marc (51:30)
that the Japanese were going to invade the US through Mexico. So his dad had been posted to Baja California in anticipation of a Japanese invasion via Baja California, which never happened. So he grew up as a kid in Baja California having a lovely life. So he spoke fluent Spanish and he together with his wife helped me through that first trip. And once I got through that first trip, I suddenly had the confidence to know I can do this. So

Jason Elkins (51:45)
Mm -hmm.

Marc (51:58)
I led in Accra, I led in Costa Rica, I led in Cuba, Argentina, Chile, all over. And so I spent the next kind of two to three years all in Latin America. And then I think after that time, I then asked to explore for the odd countries. So then I got given Iran, North Korea, Mongolia, all the kind of the more challenging ones, but the ones then that really started to appeal to me.

you know, the ones that would appeal to people who've done quite a lot of travel and now want something different. So I did that solidly as a tour leader for eight years. And I came to the conclusion that I loved the job and I could have continued doing that job probably forever. But I thought I don't want to be doing this job probably when I'm in my 50s, the age that I'm at now. So I thought at some stage I'm going to have to stop. And the longer I leave it, the harder it's going to be.

Jason Elkins (52:44)
Mm -hmm.

Marc (52:51)
So I decided to ask Explore whether there was a job that they could offer me in head office. So I did. I became an operations manager. I did that for two years. And then it was doing being an operations manager at Explore. And at the time, I thought Explore were offering the wildest, the wackiest trips out there. And I absolutely loved it that I came into contact with Johnny Bilby, who's the current CEO of Wild Frontiers.

And our connection came because we had a mutual acquaintance who'd actually been on a Wild Frontiers trip. And she said, I'm going to a talk by this guy, Johnny Bilby. He's talking about tourism in Afghanistan. And I was like, Afghanistan? I said, I've been to some places, but Afghanistan? So I was intrigued. So I went along to hear Johnny talk about Afghanistan. 50, 60 people was a small little talk.

Jason Elkins (53:33)
Mmm.

Marc (53:46)
And I went up to him afterwards. And when he found out that I was working for Explore, he thought that I'd gone there as a kind of the competition and that I was checking him out. And I was like, no, I said, literally just come as an individual, genuinely fascinated by the fact that you've been running trips in Afghanistan. And we started to chat a little bit. And then a few months later, we bumped into each other at the world travel market, big trade show in London, because we happened while Frontiers and Explore shared the same local

Jason Elkins (53:54)
Hmm.

Marc (54:15)
supplier in Ethiopia and again we acknowledged each other and then we exchanged email addresses we started talking about some challenges that we were both having with the Omo Valley region of Ethiopia that was suffering exactly the types of things that we're seeing now in Barcelona you know with local people saying we don't want you to come or the whole experience so we started really just discussing ways in which maybe together we could put pressure on our local partner to bring about a better outcome.

Jason Elkins (54:32)
Mm -hmm.

Marc (54:43)
And he invited me out for a drink to discuss that in more detail and after about five or ten minutes of me going on about the Omo Valley when actually Mark he goes I'm not really that interested in the Omo Valley. He said fancy a job and that is how it happened and it happened at just at the time that I think Explore were starting to rein in some of their more adventurous stuff. They were developing their family brochure

Jason Elkins (54:57)
You

Marc (55:11)
They were developing some of their UK travel and some of their more Western Europe cycling products, which was all good, but it interested me less than some of the more outlandish stuff. And here was someone offering trips to Afghanistan. And I felt that, yeah, this was the time for me to make the move. So I did. And...

That has been the journey that I've been on really for the last 15, 16 years, being with Wild Frontiers, starting off in operations, moving into product. We've gone from a company where I was employee number 11, and now we're up to about 40. And it's been incredible. John is still around. I'm still there and yeah, it's going well.

Jason Elkins (55:50)
12.

And you're not bored.

Okay. Very, very cool. I've got a couple of questions for you. I know there's many more that I should have asked, but I've got a couple that I want to make sure I ask. And one is, so go back to the beginning of the conversation, your, your mother and your father, who both kind of had this mindset and probably more your family, kind of a generational mindset of travel is, you know,

a waste of money, or not a good use of money, especially when you have limited resources. So I'm sure that they already had some attitudes that conflicted with the conversation we're having. So what were their thoughts when you started doing this full time and were traveling the world leading group trips? Were they excited, supported? Did they think that was kind of frivolous? Like some people think music and theater is when their kid says that's what they want to do.

Marc (56:46)
Nice, this is a really good question. I have to say I was so lucky

that neither of my parents went to university. So I think by that point, I was already beyond their realm of experience. And they genuinely had this view, which is, we want you to be happy. And I think my dad said probably one of the nicest things to me when I was about two, three years into the trip, which was,

If I was your age, I can't think of a better job that I would have wanted to have been doing now. So I've never had, no, I've never had any of that pressure coming from my parents to get a proper job, which has been, which has been really nice. I mean, I'm sure behind the scenes, they were maybe a bit concerned. And it was very interesting was I ended up with While Frontiers going to Afghanistan a couple of times.

Jason Elkins (57:23)
Wow.

Be a lawyer, you know.

Marc (57:45)
I told my parents that I was going to Afghanistan. I sat them down with a map and I explained to them why we were going, how we were going, how we were going to do our very best to ensure security and all of those things because I wanted them on board. And of course they worried, but they were okay with it. I had people on my trip in their 60s and in their early 70s who hadn't told their parents that they were going to Afghanistan.

So everyone has a different way of dealing with risk and of dealing with these things. But no, generally my parents have been very, very supportive of the life that I've chosen.

Jason Elkins (58:27)
I'm happy I asked because I could imagine a scenario where, okay, I'm going to go to a great school, presumably, you know, took some resources, family resources to make it happen. I don't know, but I'm going to go, I'm going to be a lawyer. And now you're leading trips, you know, in these random places that they've never heard of when they, you know, weren't adventurous themselves early on. So that's, that's cool. I'm happy to know that. And the other question I want to ask is the American couple that joined you in Nicaragua.

Marc (58:45)
Yep. Yep.

Jason Elkins (58:57)
So was it clear to them? Like I'm imagining this scenario. It's like you don't speak Spanish. You're their tour guide. They're their trip leader. And I'm guessing, and it's your first trip to Latin America. So I'm guessing some sort of conversation. Was this a, hey, this is my first time here and I don't speak Spanish. Or was it like, I'm still working on my Spanish. I'm just a slow learner.

Marc (59:15)
Yeah. I, well, I'm still working on my Spanish. I think one, it's always, cause I led trips up Kilimanjaro and there's, there's always, you're always going to do a trip the first time. You can't avoid it. There will always be a first time. And there is this dilemma.

Jason Elkins (59:29)
Yeah, yeah, I remember some of those. Yeah.

Marc (59:34)
Do you tell people it's your first time or do you try and blag your way through it? And I generally came to the conclusion that a lot of travel, people are putting a lot of trust in you. And I thought that if you get caught out being untruthful with people, then what are they going to believe? There might be a serious situation later on where they don't believe you. So I was always...

Jason Elkins (59:54)
Yeah.

Marc (1:00:01)
very honest with people, I'd play on the experience, which is I've been leading for two, three, four years. I've led X amount of trips. I know my job. This is my first time here. I've been here for a while. We've got local partners. I've got incredible notes and I worked really hard to make your experience, but work with me. And generally people were very accommodating. And yeah, I said this couple were

were very, very nice to me. So yeah, no, that's generally my approach. I'm not going to try. It's too easy to get caught out. It's too easy to get caught out. So no, I would never try and blag my way through, I'd be honest. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (1:00:32)
Okay.

I, I've always kind of felt similar. You know, you're right. Some, you're always, anytime you go somewhere, it's going to be the first time you're there. Anytime you lead a trip, there's going to be a first time. And I remember my very first guide trip of any sort. I was working in a fly shop in Montana and last minute, you know, cause I had a drift boat, I had a guide license, but I'd never guided a trip. And one of the guides didn't show up that day. And my boss was like, Hey, instead of working in the shop today, you want to take these people fishing. I'm like, geez.

So I did. Super scared, super nervous. I'd fished the river many times by myself and with friends and other guys from the shop. And we got up, put the boat in the river and then promptly forgot to leave my keys in the gas cap of the car so they couldn't move the car down for me. But I was oblivious and we went and had a fun day and the rest of the world conspired to get a spare key from my ex -wife and get it, you know, whatever. So the car got there. And at the end of the day, they never once asked, is this your first day?

Marc (1:01:26)
.

Jason Elkins (1:01:42)
I had already decided if it comes up, I'm going to be honest. But I'm not like, boy, I'm so excited. You guys are my first clients. Because you're on the river, there's moving parts. And it's like, yeah. We got to the end of the day, and I dropped them off at their car. And they said, wow, we've never been on a guide trip. This was really amazing. You really set the bar high. And it took everything I had not to say, you know what? I've never been on a guide trip either. I had never even been a client.

Marc (1:01:44)
Yep. Yeah, yeah, I think I, yeah.

Jason Elkins (1:02:11)
on a guide trip. So it was, yeah, it was, but it was, it felt good. It was, it was good for the confidence builder. I'm like, if this is my first one and it wasn't a total train wreck, it's probably good. They hadn't been on guide trips before because you know, maybe their bar or whatever, but it's a lot of, a lot of good memories and people are great. You know, it's just so much fun to share things like that.

Marc (1:02:12)
That's great.

Yeah, I was also, I think, taught not to be intimidated if there's someone on your trip who has better knowledge of some aspect of the country than you. I've had people who are incredible birdwatchers. I've had other people who are farmers and they've got incredible knowledge of the agricultural fields that we're going through, some people who know architecture.

It's not a competition. You don't have to be the master of everything. If you can use that, remember it, then when you get your next group, you can take some of that knowledge and share it and pass it on. And it can be a really nice experience. And I think, you know, Wild Frontiers now we do, you know, probably about 60 % of what we do is still small group tours, which is what I was used to from my days at Explore. We also do a lot of tailor -made, but I think

outside of just the incredible interactions with local people and the experiences, there are your fellow travelers. And I think some of my best memories are just some of the experiences that I had with fellow travelers. And there's just this one story which always comes to mind. And it was, I was leading a trip in Cuba and there'd been three people, it'd been a couple and then their neighbor.

And they came from the north of England and the neighbor was German and they were very quiet, very nice, but in a very English kind of Germanic way, just very kind and sat at the end of the table. And we were about a week through the trip and I sat opposite them over lunchtime. And we'd just been talking about Castro and how he'd spent, I think it was 18 months in prison before the revolution.

Jason Elkins (1:03:59)
Mm -hmm.

Marc (1:04:20)
and the German lady was sat there and she said, Mark, very interesting what you were saying about Castro, that he spent 18 months in prison eating her food. Same as me. I said, sorry. And she said, yeah, I spent 18 months in prison. She said, during the, she says, I was in Berlin. She says, I was caught tunneling under the Berlin wall. She said, I was arrested, as she said, and eventually,

I was exchanged in a prisoner swap, and that's how I ended up coming to England and, yeah, living next to these neighbors now, she said. But interesting times, I went back to her rice and beans. And I never in a million years would have got that from even the week that I'd spent with her. So I think I've gained as much from my travel experiences from just

Jason Elkins (1:04:56)
Wow.

Marc (1:05:14)
interacting with people who probably under any other circumstance I never would have met and just having the time to hear their stories which can complement and enrich I think the whole yeah the whole journey.

Jason Elkins (1:05:29)
And if you're the type that's all about, I'm here to share my information, my knowledge, guide, guide, guide, and not choke the curiosity and the people you're with, you miss so many opportunities. Like you were just saying, it's not about what can I show you. It's about what can we experience together? You mentioned that story. And I had a client that on a trip to the Bahamas, and she had been

I don't remember the term for it, but she was a Cuban woman who'd been sent as a young child, shipped off as a young child to go live with people she didn't know in the States while her parents stayed in Cuba. And so interesting experiences and just having these conversations. I mean, so many people that I've met, I know that you have met that are...

Marc (1:06:00)
Okay.

Jason Elkins (1:06:19)
quite frankly, honestly, the conversations, what I got out of them, I think was a lot more interesting than what I gave them to be honest with you. But that's OK. I'm selfish in that way. I'm not afraid to learn and I'm not afraid to ask dumb questions because I just want to absorb things and it makes for fun. And people, I think people join a group trip because they want to engage. They want to exchange. They want to share. And I think that anybody in a group that

Marc (1:06:27)
Yes.

Jason Elkins (1:06:49)
wants to share their knowledge of ornithology birds or something is probably happy to do it. And they're probably don't care if they know more than the guide. It's like, you know, they probably honestly probably feel kind of flattered and a little bit proud if the guide handles it right. So anyway, so many, so many great stories. Mark, is there anything that I forgot to ask you should have asked you or anything that you want to make sure our listeners here before we wrap up?

Marc (1:07:02)
Yep.

Not really. I think I just want to leave you with one thing that really sticks in my mind, which for me sums up, I suppose, just the power that travel can have and that it's not, as we've said, it's not restricted to you and the individual that you're interacting with. There's the other people in the group.

But for me, one of the things that I found, and I think it's probably one of my proudest moments, is how it can impact friends and family back home. And I think for that, I'll tell you just very briefly the story of when I was in Iran. And a couple of things really struck me with Iran. The first was arriving at Tehran Airport. And you know, you go to a lot of airports and it's all crazy and people are trying to grab your bags and everything. And there was a sign at Tehran Airport that said, if you want a trolley, it's going to cost you 20 reals.

Jason Elkins (1:07:44)
Hmm.

Marc (1:08:06)
However, if you're a foreigner and you've only just arrived in Iran and you haven't yet had time to change up your money into local currency, please take one for free. Welcome to Iran. That was a nice welcome. And then I was with, I think I was in Esfahan on that trip and I had two, two gay American New Yorkers.

Jason Elkins (1:08:17)
wow.

Marc (1:08:32)
and very thick accents and we were chatting to some locals and after a while they said, you know we're American, don't you? And the Iranian looked at him and said, yeah, I know you're American, you've got very thick accents. And he said, is that a problem? And the Iranian looked at him and said, why on earth would that be a problem? He said, don't get me wrong. He said, I'm no fan of American foreign policy. He said, but I'm no fan of my own government's foreign policy. He said, but.

Why on earth would I judge you according to the actions of your government? And then almost with a look of horror, he went, please don't tell me you're judging me according to the actions of my crazy government. That story stuck with me. I told my parents that story. And then one day I was at my parents' place and I heard my mom on the phone telling that story. She didn't know I was there. She was telling the story to one of her friends.

and going, no, and I was quite surprised by that. And I suddenly felt these things, they have a life outside of the experience. And I think if you have a good experience, share it with people that trust you. They will then share it with people that trust them. And you can give really a much more extended life to people who will never get there. But the stories and the experiences that you've had and the importance of reminding people of

the fact that, yeah, we share much more in common than we have as differences, I think is a message which especially in this day and age is one that cannot be repeated often enough.

Jason Elkins (1:10:08)
Wow. You just, that was the whole concept of this podcast is that right there. What you just said, you just summarize the whole big world made small is let's bring us out. Let's bring us together by having these conversations. And right now I feel incredibly proud for doing this because I got you to share that story. So if, if one person listens to that story, I mean, then that's, that's great. Cause you've had other people already listened to it. So thanks for sharing it here.

Marc (1:10:35)
No, thank you for inviting me. This is a great thing which you're doing and I wish you lots of success with it moving forward.

Jason Elkins (1:10:38)
Beautiful, Mark.

No, thank you so much. I look forward to collaborating on some projects with you in the future and enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks, Mark.

Marc (1:10:48)
Sounds good. You too.