Adventure Travel with Sally Guillaume - Undiscovered Mountains France

Guest Bio

Sally Guillaume is the founder of Undiscovered Mountains, a specialist adventure travel company based in the Southern French Alps. Originally from the UK, Sally’s path has included work as a science teacher, outdoor pursuits instructor, and BBC journalist before her love of mountain life led her to France in 2005.

Through Undiscovered Mountains, Sally helps travellers experience a quieter, more authentic side of the Alps through walking, cycling, climbing, canyoning, ski touring, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, wildlife tracking, and tailor-made mountain adventures. Her work is rooted in responsible tourism, local partnerships, and a deep respect for the landscapes and communities of the Southern French Alps.

Sally’s commitment to sustainable travel began long before she founded the company, including undergraduate research into tourism’s impact in Ladakh. Today, she continues that mission through Undiscovered Mountains France, which was among the first French travel companies to achieve Travelife certification.

Show Summary

In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Sally Guillaume, founder of Undiscovered Mountains, about building a life and business around the mountains of the Southern French Alps. Sally shares how her early love of snow, outdoor adventure, and wild landscapes eventually drew her away from city-based work in the UK and into a lesser-known region of France where she could raise her family close to nature.

The conversation explores what makes the Southern French Alps different from the more famous Alpine destinations. Sally describes a place shaped by authentic villages, locally run guesthouses, strong French and Italian cultural influences, a stable mountain climate, and a slower style of tourism that extends far beyond the traditional ski season. From ski touring and cross-country skiing to via ferrata, canyoning, hiking, biking, wolf tracking, and local food experiences, Undiscovered Mountains introduces travellers to a more personal and less crowded side of Alpine adventure.

Sally also reflects on the challenges of starting a tourism business in a new country without speaking the language, raising a young child while learning French, and slowly finding her way in the adventure travel industry. Her story is one of determination, resilience, and a deep belief that travel can support both visitors and the communities they come to experience.

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

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. So happy to have each and every one of you back here today and super excited to have my guest. Today we've got Sally Guillaume. She's the founder of Undiscovered Mountains. Sally, did I say your last name right?

SPEAKER_02 0:17

You did, yes. Thank you. Hi, Jason.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

It's it's so nice to have you here. And uh I introduced you as you know the founder of Undiscovered Mountains, but right before we pushed the button, it asked you about that because I know you're in France and and sometimes you use the France as part of the title of your company. Oh, it and I'm only saying that, so if someone sees Undiscovered Mountains France somewhere, they make the connection, probably the same person. Sally, just real quick, we I guess I already mentioned you're in France. Is that right? You're you're on the call from France right now, right, where you live?

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Yeah, yeah. So I'm in the southern French Alps in a town, well, near to a town called Gap, which is uh the southern edge of the Ecre National Park for people that know the French Mountains. And uh that's where our Undiscovered Mountains is based. So we're based in this in this southern part of the French Alps.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Very cool. We're gonna discuss a bit about kind of how you got from where you were to where you are now. And before we do that, let's give our listeners kind of a clear idea of what you do with Undiscovered Mountains. What is Undiscovered Mountains? Maybe the 30, 60 second elevator pitch, and then we're gonna dig into how it came about.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Okay, so we basically organize all different types of adventures in the mountains in the Southern French Alps. So in the summer, we don't do kind of the mass tourism type things like ski holidays. So we try to do everything that is not to that. So it's more things like in the winter, uh, ski touring, cross-country skiing, winter multi-activity holidays, uh snowshoeing holidays. And then in the summer we do, uh, well, not just the summer, from the spring right through to the autumn, because we are our our whole thing is about trying to be kind of four seasons. So we do walking, biking, cycling, via ferrata, climbing, mountaineering, canyoning, horse riding, multi-activity. So it basically anything that you can do in the Southern French Alps, we do.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

I was gonna ask you, I was like, well, other than ski well, you you mentioned skiing, but in on two different kinds of sides of that. One is the the typical ski holiday that you think of people go to the ski resorts and downhill skiing and all that stuff. You don't do that, but you do the cross-country skiing and probably and ski touring, yeah, backcountry skiing, you probably think of it as in the States, yeah. Is when you say I'm just curious because I had I grew up in the Rocky Mountains and I had a lot of friends that were into they would call it backcountry stuff, but they would like throw downhill skis on the their back and climb up to the top of a mountain and then ski down, but there's also cross-country skiing. So when you say backcountry skiing, what is that what is that how what's your definition of that?

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Yeah, so it's it's a bit of a semantic thing, and it depends where you come from. But basically, for me, and in kind of Europe, cross-country skiing is relatively flat on skinny skis. So in the in the winter Olympics, you can see people doing skating. So there's a skating sk style, and then a classic style where you do one in front of the other in like tracks. You've probably seen that. Yeah. So that's what I would call cross-country skiing, and then you've got ski touring, which is like what you probably know of as backcountry skiing, which is where you have skis that look like downhill skis, and you you stick skins on the back, and then you walk up the hill wearing the skis with your heel out, and then you take the skins off, stick your heel in, and you ski down when you get to the top. But it's all off, it's not, it's not in resorts. Yeah, okay. So you get really away from yeah. So yeah, our I suppose you know it's all the sort of alternative winter activities to the the sort of downhill. We do do downhill skiing, but it's just not our thing, it's not like our biggest uh, you know, we tried to focus on alternative stuff and and also more natural stuff as well. So we we also do um a wolf tracking trip, which is quite um a unique trip uh in the winter. We don't do it in the summer, we just do it in the winter. So yeah, that yeah, I suppose it's just slightly alternative winter activities in the winter, and in the summer it's more classic, what you'd think of in the mountains in the summer, all the different sort of activities that you can do.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Okay. And I s there's the activities that you mentioned, and I can kind of imagine that. And you you you mentioned most of them probably quite specifically. But I also imagine if I was going to the Alps, there's probably fun food type of stuff, culinary experiences, the villages, stuff like that. So is that incorporated into most of what you do as well?

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Yeah, it is, yeah, it is, and we need to we we should do more about pushing that forward. But yeah, I mean, where we are is a very, very authentic part of the Alps. So it's not it's not a mass tourism destination, it's not as well known as the Northern Alps. So, and we work with a lot of kind of more kind of boutique, locally run farmhouse type guest houses and locally run hotels who naturally have a passion for food and use local products because that's kind of what this area is about. So when people come on a trip with us, it's part of the trip, like that that kind of immersion in the local culture, but it but it's not something that we really promote, actually. We should promote it more, but we but we don't. But yeah, it is definitely very, very, very much you know, you come here and you're but you come here and you're you know, you're you're in someone's, you know, we just don't work with big chains, so uh anywhere you stay is going to be unique, you know, it's gonna be like a special place that's just on run by that family with their character and their way of doing things, and yeah, so it that's that's the kind of feel, I suppose. And that's why I liked this part of the Alps because when I first discovered it, that's what I felt about it. I felt this is a really authentic, real part of the Alps. That people, you know, when I first came here, which was 20 years ago, it was a real novelty to be English, like nobody, there were no other English people here, or very, very few other English people here. Whereas, for example, at that time in the Northern Alps, not that I'm dissing the Northern Alps because it's got its qualities, it you know, you'd walk down the street in Mauzine and you'd hear English being spoken. Well, that people here that did not, you know, there's no way. So I just felt like it was a lot more of a real, less of a tourist factory type place, and more kind of off-the-beaten track. It's a little bit more difficult to get to, which is great because it means that you know, you don't it's still off the beaten track, and it's still, you know, people who come here appreciate that. But yeah, it it definitely does have have that uh feel of being how the Alps, how people imagine the Alps before it became overrun with tourists. That was yeah, I get you.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

I was gonna ask you that direct directly, and then you pretty much just shared all that. So that's uh that's very cool. Do most where did most of your guests come from?

SPEAKER_02 6:46

So most guests come from the UK, Holland, kind of northern Europeans, and then we have a few guests that come from Canada and the states, some Australians, some South Africans. I mean, the website's in English and French, so obviously it attracts main language people. We don't do any marketing in France, we get the odd French person as well, but we our main marketing is in English, and so it's mainly yeah, Anglophones from from around the world, but I'd say a majority from from England, and actually, just going back to the what you said before, just a little uh anecdote, I suppose, talking about you know, why do people come here and the kind of quaintness of it? So we we have we run cross-country skiing holidays, and we had a couple or family who came from Canada, and um, and I and I was like, Why are they coming from Canada where you've got like hundreds of kilometres of cross-country ski piece to come and ski here in the you know in the southern French Alps? So I asked them the question, I was like, you know, why why did you come here when you've got like the best cross-country skiing in the world in in Canada? And she's like, Well, it's not at all the same, it's completely different, you know, because apparently I've never, well I have now, but when I've spoken to her, I'd never skied in in Canada. And she said that when you go skiing in Canada, it's just in the forest and you just go for miles and miles and miles. But you that there's not the kind of like when you come here where where we are in the Southern French Alps, you you start off in a village. So you're in a village and there's houses and there's a shop or a restaurant, and there's a ski shop, and you hire your skis and you go out and you've got mountains, you're not you're not in the forest in a monotone sort of environment. It's a much more you feel like you're much more in a kind of cozy, quaint village in the Alps and with the mountain scenery. So that was what they liked about it, and I'd never even thought about that. For me, that was just normal, you see. So that's you know, it's kind of goes back to what you were saying before.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah, I I get that because you know, if I'm from Canada and I grew up there, I spend my life there, I probably go skiing there. It's a totally different thing to go do that in France. You know, it's like everything it's like everything. If you're into bicycling, maybe you you live in Colorado and you like to ride your bike in the mountains, but the idea of going to, you know, the Alps and riding your bike and staying in these crane villages, it's it is a totally different experience, still centered around an activity. But there's so many other reasons to go besides just the the activity.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

It sounds like it gives you access to a whole new culture.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I I'm gonna I'm just gonna be straight. I really know nothing about the French Alps, and you know, as someone from the states, I travel a lot. I've been to France, I haven't been to the French Alps, but honestly, if somebody said you know, I don't know, if I met somebody and they said, Oh, I have always wanted to go to the French Alps, I would like what really like I'm not even sure. I would just assume the French Alps were the site of the Swiss Alps that were closest to France. I have no idea. This is just somebody from the States just sharing what I don't know about the French Alps. Um so I guess I guess I'm where I'm going with this. It looks like there it seems like maybe the marketing division of you know Visit France hasn't done a great job talking about the French Alps, I guess is what I'm trying to say. To the US to the US market. Because in the US we all know about the Swiss Alps. That's or you know, maybe the Italian Alps. But is that a challenge for you? Do you like if you speak to people from the States or if you go to a show somewhere or if you're traveling and you talk about the French Alps, do you get that kind of that weird look, like, oh, what's what's the difference between the French Alps and the Swiss Alps? Do you get that?

SPEAKER_02 10:25

No, not so no, I've not really come across that. But then I suppose the shows that I'm going to, it's people that are connoisseurs of of mountains rather than just but but it but what we do get is people, when you say we're in the French Alps, they immediately think of Mont Blanc, Femini, and Mausine, which is which are the most promoted um parts of the Alps, the French Alps, um, in the Aiguille de Midi and those kind of things, which might not mean anything to you, but if you're if you're into mountain tourism, they would. My job when I go, you know, when I'm hearing that is to is to share you know the difference between that part. I mean, we we do actually do trips in that part of the Alps, but it's not our bread and butter, if you like. We're much more focused in the Southern French Alps, as I was saying before, which is you know, from Mauzine, we're kind of like a four-hour drive away south. So that's the difference. It's not that far, but it is far enough for it to be, you know, um, a different area, and it and it has a very different culture because where our part of the Alps is right on the border also of Italy. So we are we share a border with Italy, um, and then further north is the border with Switzerland, if that makes sense. But we're not in that we're not in that so our part of the Alps has a really strong Italian influence as well as the French influence, and it's further south, so we get the kind of in the summer we get the Mediterranean climate, which but in a mountain if I'd like, so it's warm and sunny, we don't get loads of rain in the summer, it's quite dry, but we get the get the heat storms at the end of the day, so it still stays green.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

But it's a really stable climate compared to, for example, in the in the Northern Alps, I keep going back to the Northern Alps, where you can have like, you know, four or five days of rain consecutive in the summer, that just does not that doesn't happen in the southern French Alps. And we've still got high altitude, so in the winter we've still got plenty of snow. Because that's another kind of thing people think, oh, it's southern French Alps, so there won't be any snow. Well, no, actually, that's not true. And we have some of the best cross-country skiing areas because we've got high altitude cross-country ski areas um in the southern French Alps. So we're you know, in the Kerat at night, you know, 1800 and what, 2,000 metres. So yeah, I mean, we're we're very blessed with a fantastic climate in the Southern French Alps, and that is one of the biggest selling points, I think, of the area.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

You did a great job of telling me that I'm not your ideal client, which is a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

You're very welcome.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Because you're right, you're like, well, when I speak to people that are that are into mountain sports and mountain stuff, then they all kind of get it. So that that's that's good. I'm happy because I'm learning a lot. And I'm gonna ask you another question that probably shows that is even though I grew up in the the Rocky Mountains and I've spent a lot of time in the mountains, um, but is it obviously it's cold enough in the winter that it snows and the snow doesn't melt. But is it like super cold? Is it just cold enough to have good snow? Is it I mean?

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Oh, it can get really cold. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it can um, you know, be like minus 20 in January.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

I mean, that's more rare, that's rarer now than it used to be, but you know, with climate with climate change and everything. Um I mean the main difference, I don't know if you're gonna ask me this question about climate change, but the main signs that we've seen here with regards to to climate change is the we're getting more we're actually getting m lots of snow, but the snow line is higher. So the where where it changes from being snow to rain, if you like, is higher, that altitude is higher.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

So some of the lower altitude ski resorts struggle. That's the same everywhere in in Europe, and there have been closures all over all over Europe of lower altitude ski ski resorts. But that so far that hasn't actually affected us particularly because we're not really based in the ski resorts, if that makes sense. But um, it does affect tourism generally, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah, sure, absolutely. You know, there is something that I I'm I'm sure is in the southern French Alps. I don't know. If not, you're gonna tell me. But I I grew up around hot air ballooning. And I've you know got a lot of you know people in my social networks, and I think a lot they I think they do quite a bit of ballooning in the southern French Alps. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 14:39

Yeah, they do.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

That's really no one's ever asked me that before. But yeah, in fact, where we where I where I where I live, just I can see it from where I live. And like look uh I'm looking out the window, I can see it. There's um an aerodrome called Tallard, which is um a famous aerodrome for all air sports, like parachuting and all of that all of that kind of stuff. And there's a hot air, there's a hot air balloon company that start from there, and we often in the morning we see the hot air balloons out the window. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

I guess I do know one thing about those hundred prints. And I wasn't I wasn't even sure, honestly. There used to be a tour operator back a long time ago when I was much younger that would do like weeklong tours around the Alps and Europe, and it was called the Buddy Bombard Society, I think. I don't know if that rings a bell, but they used to uh, you know, take a group for a week or so and go to different places and fly balloons. And I just I don't know. Anyway, do your so if I'm the first person that's asked about that, I I take it it's not a popular activity with your clients.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

It's not on our it's not in our portfolio, no. But people could ask us and we could organize it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

But just we've never it can it can create a challenge because it's very weather dependent. I don't know, maybe you have you know ideal weather there, but that that can be the challenge too of building that into an itinerary is you know, okay, we're gonna do this Tuesday morning, and then the weather is not right, then it it can be a challenging issue. So I anyway, we're not here to talk about balloons, but very cool. But I suspect you also have like paragliding and some because you mentioned some of the other aerial sports as well. So all right, it's time to figure out how the heck you got there because you'd mentioned a couple things 20 years ago, and you were, you know, there weren't very many English people around. So let's go back and figure out how you got from wherever. Obviously, it was in France, so tell us where are you from originally?

SPEAKER_02 16:40

So I'm British, so from the UK. Um, not really from anywhere in the UK because I l I moved around a lot and actually also moved around into other countries as a child. So I lived in Norway and Denmark and America, actually, in Miami and the UK, and in the UK and Scotland and England, so like kind of all over the place. But I probably spent the longest of my time in Manchester in the north of England as an adult before I moved to France.

unknown 17:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

So that's where I'm from. What was because I I suspect the childhood and the moving around had a lot to do with the choices you've made in your life. So let's let's discuss that more. What was what was going on that had you move in so much?

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Well, in a very uh to be very so both my parents uh married and divorced probably four or five times each, and I kind of went around with different variations of them. And uh had worked in the oil industry at one point, that's where Norway came in. Anyway, I won't bore you with the whole personal thing, but yeah, so moved around a lot. And yes, so living in Norway was probably my inference where I realized where you have like like I can remember walking to school in the snow and having this whole kind of thing about the you arrive at school and you take your shoe, your wet, you know, snowy shoes off and you wear these woolly socks, and sliding down our schools on top of a hill, and everybody used to slide down the hill on a toboggan after school to get home and jump on each other's toboggans and stuff, and snowball fights, and this kind of and now I understand what it was. I think it was like a form of handball sport that I didn't really understand what it was at the time, that it was like rugby, but wasn't quite rugby in the snow. So, yeah, all of these kind of like memories, and that's where I first ever tasted skiing, like cross-country skiing, was in was in Norway. So I I just I discovered that I loved the snow and um snow sports, which I'd never experienced in the UK, obviously. That was probably where I first had that kind of taste of I want to live somewhere with a proper season, with proper winter and a proper summer, because they have really good summers as well in Norway.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Right. Around what age were you in Norway? Just trying to get an idea.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Yeah, 12. 12, 13, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Okay. And that can that can be a time, a very influential time for for most people. You know, whatever you're doing when you're around that age, that can be a big influence as well. Did you, when you first moved to Norway, did you like the winter or did it take a while for you to kind of get used to it and and enjoy it?

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Oh no, I think I loved it straight away. I think that's where I was supposed to. Yeah. And I still I still love the winter. I um, you know, and I love that feeling of the the f the coldness on your face, you know, where everything's cold and fresh, but you're still you're warm because you're dressed up. I I you know, like that, like that feeling.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

I can see the look for anybody that's listening and not watching the video. Yeah, I can see the look on your face. That's that's that's very cool. You obviously like it. If if we had a time machine and I could go back and met you when you're twelve and I said, What do you want to do when you grow up? What do you think the answer would have been?

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Oh my god, I don't know. Actually, I have no idea. Yeah, I de I definitely hadn't thought about running a to travel company. It probably would have been, I don't know, uh, what would I wanted to be? I don't actually don't know. Probably a doctor.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Well do you remember Yeah, do you remember at any point in in your childhood thinking you wanted to do something? I mean, what you know, what did you want to do when you grew up? Do you remember, do you have any specific memories of that? Not necessarily.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

Yeah, no, I don't I I I had a real problem trying to decide what I was gonna do when I grew up, as I was growing up. So so yeah, I started off, I I kind of got into the outdoors. So I went moved back to England after being in Norway and Denmark and kind of got into the outdoors at that point, even though I'd been in the outdoors a bit and done skiing and stuff. I hadn't when I went to the outdoors, I started going camping and hiking in the mountains and stuff in the UK. I'd never really done that before. And that's when I sort of discovered that when I was in my late teens, and I thought this is I love this. This is this is fabulous. This is me. And that's kind of when I started realising oh, I'd like to work in this field. So I ended I ended up doing a course which which was um it was a degree to be a teacher, a science teacher, and you did all of the outdoor qualifications at the same time. So you became a climbing instructor and a kayaking instructor and a mountain lead and all the kind of first entry-level instructor qualifications, and the whole purpose of that degree was to be able to go into a school and be a science teacher, because obviously that's where where your salary comes from, really, but then be able to do all the extracurricular activities like do the Duke of Edinburgh Award or run the climbing club or all of that kind of stuff. So that was what that was the that was the degree. So that was a four-year um degree. So I did that um and really enjoyed it. And then, of course, then I was a qualified teacher, so it was like, well, well, what do I do now? So then I became a teacher and and did that for a bit and sort of decided that I didn't really yeah, well, I quite like teaching. I I do I do like teaching, and I have had some recent teaching experience here too in the in France in COVID, but kind of rediscovered, oh actually I do like this, but at the time I didn't like it because I just it was all the paperwork and having to justify boring stuff about teaching. But anyway, didn't decided I didn't want to do teaching, so then I but I quite liked this sharing of information, this kind of so I ended up retraining to be a journalist, which I th which I thought at the time would would tick those boxes of. Being able to communicate, if you like, and share stories and stuff, but not have the pressure of having to do a lesson plan.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Let me Sally, let me let me ask you a couple questions around this because this is fascinating. If at the time when you started that program, four-year degree program to be a science teacher with all these other skills that you could use, kind of outdoor leadership skills, maybe you'd call them that, if you'd had the option of just doing four years outdoor leadership part without the training to be a teacher, but maybe maybe it was a four-year degree to be an outdoor leader to start your own tourism company somewhere, would you have chosen differently?

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Yeah, possibly. And I did and I and I did do a lot of outdoor instructing. I mean I did do that, but I think the level that I was at, I wasn't, you know, I was it was entry level. So to get to a kind of higher level would have required moving to somewhere like the Alps at the time and you know, living in the mountains and doing, you know, proper, you know, much more hardcore stuff than I was doing at the time. I didn't visualize that at the time. I that wasn't kind of something that was accessible to me or didn't think it was at the time. So that isn't the route that I went down. But yeah, maybe if different doors had been opened or different opportunities had been opened, then yeah, maybe potentially I would have gone down that route. But I didn't. So I went back, I went to be a journalist and actually did I did a I was it was a broadcast journalism, so it was great actually. And I loved that job, it was a fantastic job, but I still had this yearning to live in the mountains, and then I kind of went. I don't know if you know when I was working in you know, you're working in TV, I was working for the BBC, so you're stuck in a city, you can't work in the BBC and live in the mountains, it just doesn't come together. No, so there I'm like so. This structure I did really like the job, it was a dream job, you know, it was really exciting, lots of very lots of variety, you know, active, out and about, finding stories, that kind of stuff. I did enjoy that, but yeah, I it it was uh gnawing away at me that I couldn't be in the mountains. I mean, every weekend I was out going into the mountains, but you know, it wasn't my part of my daily life, and then you know, getting a bit older, starting to think about having a family, and I'm thinking, right, no, I want my family to be I want to bring my family up in the mountains. I that I definitely want to do that. I don't want to bring them up in a city. So that was kind of like the the turning point of like right, we you know, with my now my ex-husband, but at the time it was like right, we we need to think about how we're gonna do this, and that was when the decision was made that we would move to the mountains to bring up our family. At the point at that time we were looking at all options, it was like, you know, New Zealand, at the lake district in the UK, at the Alps, and the Alps won because it was the best mountains, but we didn't speak any French. Okay. So that was the big barrier, and it was the big sort of like, oh my god, are we gonna be able to do this? Not speaking French. So that but that's kind of we decided that that's what we were gonna do. So we we we spent, and this was not something that we did quickly, that we spent quite a few years m coming to the Alps, looking at different parts of the Alps, deciding where we were gonna be. Um and we knew the Southern French Alps because my ex-husband um is a big kayaker, whitewater kayaker, and it's a big area for whitewater kayaking. Um that's how we knew about the Southern French Alps, and we were you know, when we came here, we're like, yeah, actually, this is so much nicer than the other parts of the Alps, you know, all of the things I was saying at the beginning of the beginning of the podcast. And that's when we decided, you know, this is in fact, the actual day, the day of the decision, I can even remember the day of the decision. So we were we'd gone to go and look at a an old building that could have been a potential bed and breakfast, and because that's what we thought we were going to do originally. So we were there and it was in a little village called Endevil We, and um we've gone to go and look at it, and we were staying in a in a bed and breakfast, and um we we didn't speak any French, so we were trying to talk to this woman in the bed and breakfast who didn't speak any English about the area and stuff, and it wasn't going anywhere. And she said, Look, hang on, hang on. And she brought this uh person in called Marianna, who's now a really good friend. So Marianna was English and she lived in uh this village, and so we said to Marianne, Oh, you know, we're thinking of moving want to move to the Alps, want to set up a bed and breakfast, you know, what do you think? We're seeing this this thing, this property, and she said, and we said what we thought we wanted to do and everything. And she said, No, no, no, I I know where you need to go. You need to drive over the Cauldinoye, and you need to go to the Champsor Valley because you've got everything that you need there. You've got the white water, you've got the climbing, you've got uh the high, you know, all the things that we were interested in. So the next day we drove over the Col de Noye, which is a famous Tour de France cycling call, so it's quite dramatic. And uh it was pretty dramatic, so we were like, Wow, this is cool. And then uh arrived in uh Saint Bonnet, which is the village, the first sort of village you come to, and I can just remember like arriving in the village, and there was a minibus like in front of us in the car park, and all these people getting out of the minibus, and there were ropes hanging out of rucksacks and you know, walking boots dangling, and and I just thought, oh yeah, this is it. And and and the village itself was just so beautiful. It was really it's actually now I know a bit more about the village. It's an old um, you know, medieval uh Roman, you know, village, and it's still got remnants of of that in there, like stone places where they would uh weigh their their corn, you know, stone things anyway. But so yeah, so this village was really, really pretty, and I just thought, yeah, this is this is this is perfect. So that's that we decided that that was what that was it, that was the place.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

And then we because I think that your your story will inspire people. You know, I think there's a lot of people that are in a place doing a job that's just not right for them, and and maybe it's for family reasons or whatever reasons they want to kind of leave everything behind and and move to a new place. So my question, if you don't mind, is were you still working for BBC? What were you doing back home while you were looking for the place? And how did you and your ex, you know, do that? Honestly, just how did you do it?

SPEAKER_02 27:58

It's yeah, so well it coincides with getting pregnant. So, um, I mean, basically, we'd made the decision that we we wanted to make the make the move, and when we f when we made that decision and we defined where we wanted to be, it was a case of what we're gonna do. And originally our original plan was to set up a bed and breakfast because that was what everybody did. There was a programme on the telly at the time called No Going Back, and it was all about people doing that. So that was kind of our inspiration. Yeah, by the by, so we so I had my maternity leave, so that was the that was that was the cushion of being able to move and have a little bit of a salary before, you know, having nothing.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

So that was the sort of cushion, but obviously then, of course, you know, did did come time with actually also having to look after a baby, which you know was quite time consuming.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

So yes, they don't give you maternity leave so that you can leave the country.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

So No, but I get that.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

But good for you. You took advantage of it. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

So yeah, so we we we moved when when I was on maternity leave, and uh, we very quickly realized, because this is before Airbnb and booking and all the rest of it, when we started to think about because we'd found this place we were gonna invest in to do a bed and breakfast. But then when we started to look into it, we're thinking, well, where where are we gonna you know, nobody's heard of this place, nobody's heard of the Southern French Alps, so where are we gonna market this? No one's you know, and that's when we realized actually we don't want to do a bed and breakfast, we want to actually market this, you know, sell this place and create trips here, you know, have a tour operator. There were no tour operators basically. So that was how that was it all started. And so we ditched the bed and breakfast, and instead of having to invest all of our house sale into a new we it cost us two grand to build a website, and that's how it started.

unknown 29:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Ah, very cool. Yeah. And and it makes it makes sense because if there are no tour operators and nobody knows the area, a bed and breakfast would be pretty hard. But if because it's hard to just now it's yeah, now it's different because people like yourselves came in and set up tour operations and helped get the word out there. And I'm sure the bed and breakfast owners in the valley really like that.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Yeah, and and I mean it's a complete different uh world now, with with you know, you now you just put it on booking and it'll be fine.

unknown 30:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

But you know, or or not just other um places that you can put your thing, but there's a it's a different world for sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's a different world. But yeah, so that was the that was kind of how it started. So there we are. We arrived when we were arrived in Saint Bornet, Annie was four months, that's my our our baby. She was four months old, and we literally arrived and um had not had nothing. We'd sold our house and everything in the UK, and we arrived with nothing, didn't speak a word of French. And um we we ended up staying with a couple who one of the very rare English-speaking people who actually still speaks to me in French, called a Scottish guy called Donald and Agnes, who ran a bed and breakfast. They've now they've now retired, but um, we stayed with them and I lived in one of their rooms for like six months at the bed and breakfast, and they really helped just like well learning French, uh speaking to us in French, and just helping me because uh because obviously you know I'd I had no idea about tourism, I'd absolutely no idea about anything to do with tourism or running a business or any of those things or speaking French. So it was all about all bringing up a baby. All right, you know, everything was you know, everything was everything was new.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

So um it was everybody that's everybody that's listening to this right now wants me to ask the question what was your ex-husband's background? What was he doing during this? Did he have any experience in any of this stuff? Was he enthusiastic about it? So tell us as much as you can about that to kind of help people understand what you guys were going through. So not everything, because I know he's your ex. We don't have to go into all the details.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

No, no, I won't go to all of it. I'll be very brief. So he came from a retail background, so he was in retail, like he worked for Aldi. You know, if you know Aldi, the supermarket. So supermarket retail, basically. So he had no idea either. I didn't speak a word of French either. And um, I mean, basically, very cutting a very, very long story short, uh, we got divorced after a few months, and uh he went back to England and I stayed.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Okay, all right. So it doesn't play that big of a role. I mean, it does.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

No, so he so so we we we it didn't work out. He went back to England, and then I was faced with this decision. I still had some maternity leave. I had three weeks of my maternity leave left, and I had this decision to make of okay, we're getting we're getting divorced, I'm in France, I still don't speak French with mountains with a baby, undiscovered mountains, you know, hadn't really done anything at that point. So what should I do? And I decided to stay, which was which was the right decision. Obviously, now I'm really happy I didn't make that decision, but it was a really hard decision at the time. And um and I just thought I I can't go back because if I go back, I'll just always be thinking, well, what would have happened if I'd have stayed?

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

So so I just couldn't go back.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

And did you I'm curious, did you have people in your life back home trying to persuade you to choose differently or encouraging you? Because I imagine probably had friends and family back home saying, Oh, you should come back and stay with us or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yeah, I suspect. Lots of being pulled in lots of different directions, you know, and and everything. But I just no, I just knew I've been thinking, I've been dreaming about this for years. You know, I was very, very, very sure that this is what I wanted, and um and I was determined that it was gonna happen, basically.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Oh, wow. That's powerful.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

So yeah, but it was it was really hard. I think now if you ask me if I would I do it again, I probab well I would, because obviously I know the outcome, but would I go through that again? No, I wouldn't. It was really, really hard. I think that if I think about the you know, what is the emotion that that I can remember feeling the most at that time, and I think actually it was loneliness. I was really, really lonely because I couldn't speak to anybody. Like the only person I could speak to was was was Donald, who insisted on speaking to me in French anyway, and he's a bloke, so it's not the same. And Marianna, who became a friend, is the mar the first Marianna that I met to. But other than that, I had nobody, and and okay, you can speak to your friends on the phone, you can speak to your family on the phone, but they don't understand where you're at.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Because changing, even yeah, it's France and England, it's not like it's like a huge different culture or anything, but it is different, you know, it is different, and there's a whole system to navigate, you know, uh everything's and the language, and just being able to express your emotions with with a friend. I there was no, you know, on a kind of daily basis, and having a baby and all of the things, you know, when you've got a new baby, that there's a whole load of new emotions and things that you want to talk to people about that I couldn't do that. I just couldn't, I just didn't have anyone to do that with. So I think the the hardest bit was being lonely and then you know, and also not knowing what I was doing and trying to, you know, work my work it all out by myself. Like, you know, because I I couldn't even go to a I couldn't go to anything like a course or lessons or uh or even at the time, you know, now you see there's loads of online stuff. It wasn't nothing like that at the time. You know, you're kind of like, well, researching, you know, how do you r run a tour? What is a tour operator? How do you run what insurance do I need? You know, what is package travel route regulations? What you know, what are all of these things?

SPEAKER_00 35:14

How do I learn French?

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Yeah, and also how do I learn French? And what are the rules in France? Are they different to the UK and and Europe? And it was so yeah, it was it was just very hard.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

I and Sally, honestly, the question I want to ask you is, and I don't even know how you would answer it, but the question I want to ask you is how did you do it? Do you know? Are you able to put your finger on how you managed to make it happen?

SPEAKER_02 35:38

I think just having the dream, having that dream and wanting to make it happen. I think, you know, I I you know, and also, you know, living here is just this, you know, you're d you're like you can go out in the in the mountain. I can walk out in the mountains like from my door. In the winter I go skiing from you know, literally not from my door, but almost, and seeing the the views and uh wanting my children to have that, you know, wanting them to be in this beautiful place and having clean air and being able to go skiing and you know there's like yeah, just being really wanting that, just wanting it, like wanting to to to that's powerful. Yeah, that's yeah, just wanting to my kids, you know, wanting Annie to be on skis when she's three and want, you know, to to go climbing, and and of course you can do that in the UK. You can go on skiing holidays and you can all of that, but it's just not the same as living in it.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Not the same, yeah. What's um what's the I guess the question is, what's the piece of advice that you wish somebody had given you, or what's the advice you would give to your past self that you know, now in hindsight, looking back and like what's the advice you wish that you could have given yourself or somebody would have given you when you were going through all this?

SPEAKER_02 36:50

I think it would have been very good advice to go and get a job, although it would have been very difficult because I didn't speak French, but to go and get a job in France so that I had the security of a salary to do that first bit of learning French and understanding the system. Yeah. Because that was that was probably well, that was the hardest bit. Do you know we try and having a conversation with an activity provider and you're saying, okay, so you know, they don't speak English really, and you're you don't really speak French, and there wasn't Google Translate, and you're sort of trying to say, you know, um, you know, I'm gonna sell your rafting, this is the price. I want a commission. What's a commission? So you're gonna charge them more. No, I'm gonna charge them the same, and you're gonna give me it less.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Negotiating all that stuff when you're not even it's kind of new to you and you're figuring it out, and I suspect, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Yeah, and also this is as I was saying before, it's a really like it's not a place now, it's it's evolved, but at the time that you know, people didn't really work with tour projects, so they haven't actually understood what they didn't actually know what commission was, for example.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

Like, so you know, that that, you know, yeah, I mean the whole thing has evolved so much, it's just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

So it's interesting to me that the advice you said was get a job. I'm gonna boil it down, I'm gonna summarize it a little bit, but the advice would have been get a job. Were there people in your life at that time telling you, Sally, go get a job?

SPEAKER_02 38:17

No, no, not really. No.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Okay. Your parents are much more understanding than mine.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

I don't think anybody said that. But I'm trying to get a job anyway. But there wasn't a job available to me without speaking French, apart from cleaning or you know, that kind of job.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They didn't have remote jobs, so you couldn't didn't have remote jobs.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

No. So yeah, but yeah, now if somebody wanted to do that, I would say get a job with another tour operator. You know, learn the ropes. You know, learn the ropes and learn learn learn how this how the how the industry works. Obviously learn the language and have do that with the security of having, you know, a salary, so you haven't got that pressure. I mean, I didn't earn anything, like zero, for five years.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Ooh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

Because it was just so hard, you know, like you know, I didn't know what I was doing. And um, I had a baby, and yeah, it was just so it was a very long, it was a very long slog.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

I spoke with someone recently that kind of handed it the same thing when she started her business, and she said, I just look back at it as an internship. I wasn't making money, but I learned a lot, and it's kind of like an internship. A five-year-long internship is it is difficult when you've got a child and in a country you don't speak the language.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Yeah, and also on your own, like now. The other advice I would say is like join, there's loads of networks now, which of which I I'm in, you know. So no, go join these networks and go to these discussions. You can now go to like webinars with people in the same tourism industry as you from all over the world and listen to their problems and their hurdles and what solutions they have. I mean, that's so valuable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

It's it's kind of like yeah, it's kind of what we're doing right now. You and I are having a conversation that other tour operators and other people that aspire to do what you've done are listening to, and they can benefit from your story and and hear the advice. And it is good advice because honestly, yeah, if someone came to me right now and said, Jason, I know you work with a lot of tour operations, you got a lot of experience in this, I want to start my own tourism business. I I would probably say, Well, have you worked in tourism? Have you worked for anybody before? And if the answer is no, even with all these amazing resources, I would say, You should go get a job with a tour operator, even if an like you could even if it's an internship, you know? Yeah. Do two years instead of you know the five years that Sally had to do, go do two years not making any money, but learning it properly. Spending someone else's money, yeah, the mistakes you make, or you know, whatever, it and learn it properly, and you just get get ahead that much quicker. So um how did you end up learning French? Other than just necessity, just being there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

Just kind of like, yeah, just having to, you know, my first the first language is the first words were, you know, you know, I won't do it in French because you don't speak French, but when I had baby, nappies, feeding time, bottle, you know, those kind of conversations. And then yeah, just gradually, I mean, I you know, I I think it probably took me three years before I remember, I remember going to someone's 50th, a friend's fiftieth, and being in a it was like, you know, it's horror. Oh my god, I've got to go to a group thing and like speak to lots of people. There's gonna be lots of people talking, I'm not gonna be able to understand anything. And I remember standing in like a group, you know, it was outside and there were three people convers having conversation. I was in this group of three people having a conversation. I understood the whole conversation. I was like, yes. And not only did I understand the whole conversation, I was able to contribute to the conversation at the end. And I was like, yes, I've made it. I can speak French.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

That that's a big accomplishment because you know, in my situation, I'm spending a lot of time in the the Spanish world and I'm learning span I'm learning Spanish basically the same way. I have some I have some advantages. Obviously, I've got Google Translate when I need it, and I've you know got some apps on my phone, but I agree, like a one-on-one conversation I can get through because they know that I don't speak it very well. If they speak slowly, do pretty well one-on-one. But as soon as one or two other people join the conversation, especially if they're all native Spanish speakers, it changes drastically. All of a sudden, all three of them are trying to speak to me. Just an example is you know, if I'm looking for a bus stop or something, I stop someone on the street, and I think I'm doing just fine having the conversation with them. But as soon as they turn to somebody else and say, Hey, this guy's looking for this, and then that person starts talking, and then someone else is walking by, and all of a sudden I've got three people trying to give me instructions, and I have no idea. It went from 90% understanding of what was going on to zero really fast. So I'm just I'm acknowledging you. I I I would feel the same way if I had that moment of three other people. I'm like, oh my gosh, I understand what they're talking about. So that's very, very cool.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

So yeah, no, yeah. Yeah. And the other, the other big moment in terms of how I came to be here where I am now from there is when I met my now husband. So I'm now married to Bernard, Guillaume, obviously. That's my very Franco-English, you know, Sally's like a really English name, and uh Guillaume is a really French name, so I really love that. I love the fact that I'm Sally Guillaume. Um anyway, so Bernard was a I met him after um about yeah, after that kind of three-year kind of uh period, and um he he was a guide, he's a guide, he's a mountain guide. So um we met because yeah, he he we I had a group. So I now I had clients, you know, last. And I had a group, I had a group of four people um who were supposed to do a mountain called Les Rui, which is like a mountaineering summit, and there's a limit to how many people you can have with each guide. And so I had my guide Philippe, who'd been booked for ages. But then the the the the the group was two adult parents with adults adult parents two parents with adult children and the adult the adult children wanted to bring their partners so the group became six but quite last minute so I needed a second guide but there weren't any there was no one around it was peak season there was nobody available so I said we must find someone I said well the only person I could find is this guy called Bernard but he doesn't speak a word of English So I said well that's okay I'll translate you know I'll come along and translate because I can speak French now so that's how we met so we we met there and it was a real love at first sight we we spent the whole mountain ignoring the clients and talking to each other and I felt very guilty about it afterwards but yeah we we got together pretty much it was um you know there um and just to reassure the clients they came back and I did speak to Gareth the dad and said said oh you know you know apologize for you know ignoring your oh no it's fine in fact it was such a special time for us because actually our son one of the sons got married and named one of the tables after the mountain so it's now the love mountain.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

That's yeah that's very cool. What a great story. Um all right so his name's better than I is that right better than that yeah am I saying it right okay is he was he did he get involved with your business right away? I don't even know if he's involved with it now. So tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_02 45:27

So he he's um an a guy he's a high mountain guy so he's independent if you like um but he is the guide for all of our well not that we we other guys as well but he's the main I I say he's like the head guide for all of our trips. Yeah so he he he uh his passion he he's a high mountain guide so high mountain guide if you don't know what a high mountain guide is the sort of highest qualification in mountains you can have it's um in in in in well in in Europe I think so they can do everything from climbing, vefrata, canyoning, mountaineering, ice climbing, ski touring, ski mountaineering, anything basically involves ropes and mountains and ice axes and crampons, those kind of things. So you can do all of those kind of things and climbing and his passion is nature. So he's a real passionate nature watcher and um so that's how that's how element has come into our holidays. So basically it was a sort of I got to know more about the mountains through Bernard and yeah it's it's a very complimentary relationship. You know I I do all of the office work now and all the organising and everything else and he's the sort of mountain so it's sort of grown you know I I don't know if I hadn't met met met Bernard where it would have gone. You know he's he's a big key to it because his his local knowledge and his passion and you know all of that combined with my skills which are basically organizational well not that great at marketing but I try to be you know all all the all the all the office stuff if you like they they've kind of those two skill sets have come together and that's what really is undiscovered mountains.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

I think you're I'm just gonna mention this maybe you've heard this before but I think your skill set is your determination. The organization stuff yeah okay there's a lot of organized people there's a lot of people that are good at office stuff but that if if somebody asks me what's Sally's superpower it's not gonna be oh she's organized and you know obviously from this conversation it's just sheer determination and that's obvious to anybody that's listening to this. And I want to ask you really the reason you went on this climb with the clients and Bernard was because he didn't speak English. So has that changed? Yeah he now speaks English yeah I figured that was the case but I wanted to bring that up in case anybody heard you say he does he he's the lead guide and if they're still I don't think he speaks English but yeah okay so and we have you know and and and we have a son together so I we've now the family unit is four so with my my daughter and our son so but they're kind of you know I'm Annie's 20 now and um Tommy's 16 and he's 17.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

So yeah and they're they're both bilingual and they both you know that like my dream has come true like they they they're bilingual they are both great skiers they both climb they both love the mountains you know so yeah I've achieved what I set out to do.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

That is so cool. What's what language is um is I don't even know how to say this in a bilingual relationship or whatever like what's the language of the house?

SPEAKER_02 48:30

So it's probably well not probably it is French. We speak French and I speak English to the kids okay is it when we're all together we speak French. And then sometimes I'll lap to do English if I want to say something quickly.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

All right all right very cool is that I'm just curious is that intentional that you speak English to the kids? Yeah tell me about that.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

So yeah I I think any bilingual family will tell you that so when the kids are learning another language if you want your children to learn another language then when they're little they need to have someone that they associate with that language. So you should always speak in the same language to your children when they're when they're growing up so that because then they separate the two languages they associate English with mummy and French with with daddy or papa and that helps them to to create the two language centers apparently in their in their brains.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

That's cool it makes absolute sense it's something I never thought of but it makes uh makes absolute sense so tell me if you don't mind tell me a little bit more about the kids they sound like a little older than kids but um you said they're both into the outdoors doing that stuff do I can you I know you don't want to speak for them if you're like me I like somebody asked me what what does your son want to do? I don't know like I mean I know but I don't want to put that pressure on him to answer that question directly myself but what are your thoughts on your kids uh do you see them potentially working in the tourism business or are they going different directions?

SPEAKER_02 50:02

Do you have it or do you have any idea or do you even want to discuss it yeah that they're they're they're not gonna work in the tourism industry.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

Okay it sounds like you know that they've already they they already made their choices so Annie's already she's on on uh learning well she's training to be a doctor so she's doing medicine studies yeah and my son wants to be an engineer okay very but they but they would they but they definitely do mountains in their spare time it's uh that's that's that's pretty neat um what I think I have asked you like kind of what advice you would have given yourself I think we gave a lot of good advice for people but I'm just really inspired by your just tenacity and just like this is my dream this is my vision were there tricks or is there something you can put your finger on that helped you stick through it other than just saying well it's what I wanted. It's what I always wanted were there tips or tricks or something that you were doing that kept you focused like that?

SPEAKER_02 50:54

No I think it is literally just the dream but it's also um having support as well so I had good friends here. I made really good friends um despite the language problem so yeah so yeah I made good friends and you know they really helped me to to get there and then obviously meeting Bernard and you know when that all came together that that was really when it really started to sort of blossom I would say so I don't know how long I would have carried on in that kind of state of you know that kind of loneliness bit before I cracked. You know I I think there's a limit to how long you can do that for and three years is was long enough.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

I'm not gonna compare my my struggles to yours but I've been traveling for four and a half years basically a solo traveler and I get the loneliness part but I don't have a baby to take care of and I'm not and I've and I'm able to work remotely so I can't even imagine what you were going through at that time. So that's I think that's why I'm so impressed. Very very cool. What's what's next? Do you have anything exciting coming up here in the next couple years? Any business changes or any anything that's got you excited and focused?

SPEAKER_02 52:06

Just yeah I mean so up until kind of reasonably recently you know the whole purpose of Undiscovered mountains was really just to have a lifestyle to bring my kids up as as I think you've probably got got that got the message. And now that they're starting to leave home and I can see you know like it's a different you know it's a different stage of life and I've kind of realized that actually I do now know quite a lot about tourism and I can build really good trips and people come back and I've got some amazing clients like you know really lovely clients and some great stories from from you know you know clients that kind of keep coming back and you're like well what we're gonna do now and I've done everything. So so yeah so just yeah it's so now my kind of goal is to build up it build up the business I suppose so it's more than just a lifestyle business so that it it you know so that we that we have a little team and that you know that we can um it can run also without me you know so that I can take a step back and just yeah keep I mean the the thing that keeps me going doing the business is the clients you know is is being able to you know we've got a recent story like because the one of the activities that I my first sort of passion activity was ski touring that was one of the things I really loved before I'm before I moved to the Alps and wanted to carry on when I now I now I'm into ski a cross country skiing but anyway and we had a client um called Andrew who I think it was probably about five years ago now he he joined us for a ski touring trip and he was you know limit just about able to cope with the ski touring trip you know he was like the his ability was quite was was kind of in the at the bottom end of the group he won't mind me saying this and anyway he struggled through and he got through the end of the you know he did it and he was very proud of himself for you know doing the whole tour and then he came back and but this time he came back prepared you know he'd gone and had like done loads of downhill skiing and loads of off piste and he came back and he was really prepared and yeah and and it showed and he was like loads better and you know had a much better tour. And then then he came back again there's other people as well coming back but this just he's sort of the key the kind of key key thing and he did the Hawk route which is kind of like the I suppose it's one of the more it's quite technical it's quite hardcore ski touring ski imagine and we did that the the more alpine version of it with you know carrying your skis on your back and walking up in crampons and you know glaciers and quite quite quite technical and quite committing um and he was like you know he's he wrote this review at the end saying something like this is the pinnacle of my ski touring experience it's the best thing I've ever done in my life you know really kind of gushing sort of like you know he let his his emotions out um I can't remember the exact after but but you know this like really amazing review. It wasn't actually even in a review it was written in an email you know in a thank you email and I'm now sitting in my bed with a couple of earls grey tea having a hero's welcome you know he just it was just like this amazing sort of like experience that he'd had and I felt really you know proud of that because I felt that we were sort of you know we were responsible for that you know we introduced him his first ski tour he then got better he got the bug he c he did this big challenge and then the best bit of it all was that he then decided to bring his daughter on a ski touring trip and introduce his daughter and her boyfriend to ski touring whilst they were young enough young enough because he started it when he was in his 60s he he discovered ski touring as a retired person. Wow okay so he was in his well actually don't know how old he was but he was retired.

SPEAKER_00 55:33

So he's like I'm I need to get you know my kids into this before they get too old and so they came this year and um we had a lovely ski tour with them and um and they've now got the book too so yeah those are the sort of stories that keep you going and you s you know and and yeah make make it all worth worthwhile yeah I agree and as I heard you saying that I was thinking you know if it was if it was just the job like okay we're gonna put together this trip we're gonna take them up the mountain we're gonna drop them back off at their hot whatever and they're never gonna write a good review they're never gonna say thank you they're never gonna bring back their other family members it's just the routine of we pick them up we go do this we bring them back we never hear from them again I think a lot of people would not want to do tourism anymore. It's a lot of work yeah you know I I know I had a I had I did the I had the hot air balloon ride business and it was a lot of work to manage everything get people out there go do the thing and if at the end of the day they just shook my hand and said okay thanks bye so it wasn't worth the work. It was the reviews and I think a lot of people in this business resonated like I would just sit there and I would just wanted to see the reviews and read the reviews and they would say so you know how this was an amazing experience I had people get engaged or married in the balloon or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 56:57

And yeah yeah without the reviews and that those kudos sometimes it wouldn't be worth the work is that that's kind of what I hear you saying is you you really appreciate hearing that stuff right yeah yeah yeah that's the that's the payment you know that's that's what that that's where the the job satisfaction comes from like yeah you know you get you get you put all this effort in and you you you always go out of your way you know you're always doing you know and and you're right it it's a lot of work it's a lot of work to put together a trip and when somebody re appreciates that and and when you've when you've made it like their life experience or they've proposed on like you know these sort of big things or someone's big birthday and they've had they you know it's the best like we recently had um a client who got in touch with us and said to us oh we came on holiday about 10 years ago as a couple it was the best holiday we've ever had and we want to come back with our children.

SPEAKER_00 57:52

Yeah that's so cool. Yeah I love it.

SPEAKER_02 57:53

You know and that is like you know 10 years has passed and they still think it's the best holiday they've ever had. Now how many holidays have they had in that 10 years and now they want to bring their kids you know this is like a a young couple bringing their younger family it's not the same as the um Andrew with his adult child but but you know that kind of thing it's like yeah you know it's it's hard to walk away from that isn't it what I hear you saying is you'd like to not have to do everything yourself maybe grow the team you mentioned so you don't have to be involved in everything but it's a really really hard thing to I don't know if it's hard it it it would it would be hard to just think you know what I'm done I'm just gonna close the business and and go travel.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

For me that would be hard.

SPEAKER_02 58:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Right? So what I hear you saying is grow the team so you can continue to have those experiences and make those those moments for people.

SPEAKER_02 58:43

Is that am I hearing that right yeah exactly yeah exactly and and and just cherry pick you know what I do. So I can I'll go out with clients when they're doing something that I want to do and with clients that I like because they've I like them because they've been before and you know and let the team do all of the you know ringing up and booking and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 58:59

So what's the if you were to not if but when you expand the team what's the first role or position that you would look to fill?

SPEAKER_02 59:08

So I've got somebody who's just started in operations so basically I'm selling and then once they once the once the the trip is sold I then hand it over to them to do all of the booking the the accommodations organizing the the the guides and negotiating with the guides creating you know putting it all together and giving the creating the the we have an app that we give to our clients so creating that for the for the client so all of the kind of admin stuff if you like I'd love someone to do the marketing for me. Yeah find marketing is just like a kind of thing that just is just like an em a bottomless pit of of you know just never yeah it's like it's not a science although it probably is a science but it's it feels like it's um yeah there's no kind of right or wrong way of doing it and um yeah lots of trial and error.

SPEAKER_00 59:58

I find that really hard I I think that is the challenge with marketing is there's so many things you could do should do would do people tell you you should do this, you should do that. And there's so many sometimes just like figuring out which one am I gonna do and then actually stick to it is is a challenge for me. I don't know if you have the same experience.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

Exactly it's a it is a challenge and and the world the the world of tourism not just the world of tourism but the world in general has changed so much and is changing so radically still like you know with AI and everything else that's coming on board you know the way people people make decisions has changed radically over the last few years and it's going to change even more radically over the next few years. So keeping pace with that and knowing that you know in tourism when you're in tourism you're in a global market. So you're in global you've you're competing globally with companies that have got billions of dollars of marketing budget have like you know teams of you know hundred people just doing social media for example you know and when you're a small business you just don't you can't compete with that so you know you you can't there's no point even trying so it's finding your way you know around this this this this world where it seems like you know only the the big companies have any power and the the little companies like ours you've got to you've you've got to well you've got to have a a good client base I think I mean that I think that that's where it all comes from a good client base and and and word of mouth but then you know when you're just one destination yeah there's a limit to how many times people can come back. I mean you know I have had people come back like you know for like sort of 10 or 11 holidays but you know I'm I'm not surprised if they don't want to come back again. You know you know you've done everything there is to do here now you know you might want to go somewhere else yeah yeah so you know there's a the it it is um it is a challenge and um I haven't got the answer to the challenge it's just it's just a case of yeah we're we're lucky in a sense that we've got access to so much information.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:05

We've got endless information at our fingertips but at the same time that means endless options and choices and decisions and it just can get so overwhelming so fast. And even if you just go into chat GPT or or whatever, you know I can go there on Tuesday and say hey come up with the marketing help me come up with a marketing strategy and then I go on Wednesday and I say hey help me come up with a marketing strategy for totally different things. Because there's so many options and it's just like it's so hard to just say you know what I got to ignore the noise and just figure out something that I can do consistently and uh because it's tough. Anyway so I hear you saying you'd like to get somebody to maybe do some of that marketing headache stuff for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:47

I get yeah so any market people out there that want to come and work for me for free.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:52

We discussed the internship and what the great value of being an intern for a couple of years could do for somebody. So if you were listening earlier this is your this is your your sign time to take advantage of that Sally so much fun. We did we discussed a bunch bunch of things um and just I just love your your just passion for creating the life that you created that's I hope more than one but I hope somebody is listening to this and somebody will make a difficult decision and go follow their vision and their dream and make it happen like you did. That that's just super cool. But I want to ask you before we wrap up is there anything that you wish I would have asked you anything I forgot to ask you or anything else you want to share with our listeners either about you, philosophy of life, undiscovered mountains, France, Southern Alps anything at all that you want to share before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:40

No, I think we've talked about everything. Covered all that didn't we yeah I think I think yeah I'll probably get off the phone and think off the call and think oh yeah I should have said this or should have said that or whatever but I will just have to come back and do it again.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:52

No problem. Sally thank you so much this was a lot of fun I learned a lot about a different part of the world that I'm not that familiar with but more importantly about you and your story and it's uh super inspiring. I'm really really happy we had this conversation so thanks for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:06

Well thank you thank you for giving me the opportunity and it was great. Yeah and we enjoyed it was fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:11

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:11

I'll talk to you soon bye Sally thank you bye