Episode 55 - Hilary Matson, Yugen Earthside
Are you an avid traveler? Are you conscious of the footprint you are leaving along the way?
Most people think the effects of travel are solely based on climate but covid has shown us that the world is dependent on tourism and the pandemic has affected many businesses around the world.
In this episode, Christine and Hilary Matson are talking about all things sustainable travel and how travelers can make a huge impact on the countries they are visiting by being more conscious of the footprint they are leaving along the way. Both Christine and Hilary are big fans of travel and the education and cultural values that it offers.
Hilary Matson is an at-home chef, lover of baths, and amateur photographer who is on a mission to shape the future of sustainable travel. Yugen Earthside is a one-stop shop for conscious travelers where they can find, explore and discover responsible trips and access free informational resources on being a sustainable traveler.
Hilary is the founder of YΕ«gen Earthside, a sustainable travel booking platform. An avid traveler, and passionate about sustainability, she has visited nearly 40 countries & territories across five continents. Her top travel bucket list destinations are Greece (for the food) and Bolivia (for the salt flats). Hilary is an American living in Paris.
Tune in to hear Christine and Hilary explore all things related to sustainability, travel, why Hilary created a social purpose corporation for climate impact, and why sustainable travel is so important, especially during the pandemic.
In this episode, Christine and Hilary discuss:
What inspired Hilary to travel and why she started Yugen Earthside
How covid has changed the way people travel and how it has affected the hospitality industry
Why it's important to have a business that focuses sustainable travel options
How Yugan Earthside curates sustainable trips
The importance of understanding that sustainable travel is more than just environmental issues
Conscious ways to pack sustainably for any trip
How to blend sustainable travel options with what travelers actually want
How to think more sustainably when it comes to picking travel activities, places to eat, and where to stay
Resources & Links Mentioned in the Episode
To learn more about Yugen Earthside, head over to YΕ«gen Earthside | Your one-stop shop for sustainable travel
Follow Yugen Earthside on your favorite social media platform: Instagram @yugenearthside, Facebook @yugenearthsiders, Twitter @YugenEarthside, and LinkedIn @yugenearthside
Yugen Earthsideβs biggest project is to better understand where people want to travel to next. You can help by filling out a 15 second, 2 question Typeform indicating your bucket list destinations, your email address, and Yugen Earthside will send you a personalized brochure of sustainable trips in the indicated countries! https://yugenearthside.typeform.com/yourbucketlist?utm_source=xxxxx
Hilaryβs favorite book, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
To watch this interview on YouTube, click here.
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About the Soul Of Travel Podcast
Soul of Travel honors the passion and dedication of the people making a positive impact in tourism. In each episode, youβll hear the story of women who are industry professionals and seasoned travelers and community leaders who know travel is more than a vacation. It is an opportunity for personal awareness and it is a vehicle for change. We are thought leaders, action takers, and heart-centered change makers.
The guests work in all sectors of the tourism industry. You'll hear from adventure-based community organizations, social impact businesses, travel photographers and videographers, tourism boards and destination marketing organizations, and transformational travel experts. They all honor the idea that travel is more than a vacation and focus on sustainable travel, eco-travel, community-based tourism, and intentional travel.
These conversations are meant to educate, inspire and create community. They are directed to new travelers and seasoned travelers, as well as industry professionals and those who are curious about a career in travel.
If you want to learn about new destinations, types of travel, or how to be more intentional or live life on purpose, join Christine Winebrenner Irick for soulful conversations with her community of fellow travelers exploring the heart, the mind, and the globe. These conversations highlight what tourism really means for the world.
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Credits. Christine Winebrenner Irick (Host, creator, editor.) Hilary Matson (Guest). Original music by Clark Adams. Editing and production by Rayna Booth.
Transcript
KEYWORDS
travel, people, sustainable, trips, business, tourism, destinations, travelers, tour operators, sustainability, world, countries, community
00:08
Thank you for joining me for soulful conversations with my community of fellow travelers, exploring the heart, the mind and the globe. These conversations highlight what travel really means for the world. Soul of Travel honors the passion and dedication of the people making a positive impact in tourism. Each week, I'll be speaking to women who are tourism professionals, world travelers and leaders in their communities will explore how travel has changed them and how that has rippled out and inspired them to change the world. These conversations are as much about travel as they are about passion, and living life with purpose, chasing dreams, building businesses, and having the desire to make the world a better place. This is a community of people who know travel is more than a vacation. It is an opportunity for personal awareness, and it is a vehicle for change. We are thought leaders, action takers, and heart-centered changemakers. I'm Christine Winebrenner Irick. And this is the Soul of Travel.
Hilary Matson is the founder of Yugen Earthside, a sustainable travel booking platform. She is an avid traveler and passionate about sustainability. She has visited nearly 40 countries and territories across five continents. And her top travel bucket list destinations are Greece for the food and Bolivia for the salt flats. Hilary is an American living in Paris. She is on a mission to shape the future of sustainable travel. You can earthside is the one stop shop for conscious travelers. The website is a place where you can find their booking platform to discover responsible trips and access free informational resources on being a sustainable traveler. There is even a shop for eco friendly travel products and you can check out her recent blog on sustainable gift giving.
In our conversation we talk about creating a social purpose corporation climate impact and why sustainable travel is so important as well as all the ways you can earthside is engaged in making sustainable travel possible for travelers.
Join me now for my soulful conversation with Hilary Mattson.
02:57
Welcome to Soul of Travel I am so happy today to be reconnecting and sitting down with Hilary Matson of Yugen Earthside. And we are going to explore all things related to sustainability and travel and creating access to sustainable travel for travelers. So Hilary, welcome to the conversation.
03:19
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
03:23
Thank you. So as I mentioned, Hilary is the founder of Yugen Earthside and she is kind of on a mission to shape the future of sustainable travel. So perfect to have you hear for this shaping our future conversation. And for people that don't know about your business yet. It's kind of this one stop shopping for conscious conscious travelers where they can find responsible trips they can find information about becoming more sustainable travelers and find also products that can support them in their sustainable travel journey. So hopefully I wrapped that up a little bit succinctly. But before we get started, Hilary, I'm just gonna invite you to go ahead and introduce yourself and share a little bit more about Yugen Earthside.
04:13
Wonderful. Well, you pretty much nailed the description. So great job. But yes, my name is Hilary Matson. I am an American, but I live in Paris, France. I'm originally from Seattle, Washington, and I launched Yugen Earthside almost a year ago. It's its birthday, the website launches December 17. So we're slowly coming up. We're actually quickly coming up on that. And this is my first time being an entrepreneur and it's also my first time in the travel and tourism space. So it's been a huge learning experience for me, but a very fulfilling journey this far and I'm very excited for 2022.
04:47
It seems crazy that it's only been one year because I feel like I have seen you everywhere for a lot longer than that. But I also feel like this has been the longest year in the history of years so probably be Probably be why it feels like that. So congratulations, because I know I mean, I'm kind of in the eternal startup phase myself that this has been quite the year to really dive into tourism. I mean, I've been in industry for a long time, but my business is new during this period of time. So it's been just, you know, very challenging, but also kind of really magical, because something has happened over the course of this year in terms of creating community and connection and opening the doors for collaboration. And this draw towards sustainable and more meaningful and impactful travel. You it's really you landed at just the right time. So I don't know if you want to speak to any of that, if that resonates or how you felt about this, this time.
05:50
It has been, it has been a crazy, crazy year. And you definitely saw my name and my face and the Yugen Earthside name before December because we are quite active on most social media platforms leading up to our website launch. But I started writing my business plan in January of 2020. And so ITV in Berlin in March, what that was going to be my first, like big tourism, you know, meeting where I was going to connect with, like industry professionals, ask questions work on vetting my business plan. And that was also my first trip that got completely canceled because of COVID. And I was so bummed. So my business plan was like, literally, it felt like the ground was shifting underneath my feet while I was writing it. But in terms of timing, I think I either look like a crazy person, or very clever. And I hope I hope it's clever, because in from my perspective, the idea for you and earthside was there before COVID. And I really have to hope and believe that the desire to travel more purposefully and more responsibly, has been increased during COVID, when you really the whole world has seen front and center, what happens when the tourism industry stops, and how many people and how many livelihoods are affected by that. And also how much the earth recovered in some areas by not having things like over tourism.
So a very fascinating time to be to be launching in this environment. And the other thing I find really unique about my situation is that a lot of travel companies had to lay people off, or they had to take losses, they had to disappoint customers, they had to do all these kind of big scary things that happened sometimes when you're running a business and unpredictable realities happen. But for me, our team, you know, because we are kind of like rising up from the ashes. We haven't disappointed anybody yet knock on wood. You know, we haven't lost a bunch of money. It's normal startup costs.
But in terms of getting our business up and running, I don't think we've been damaged in the same way that some of the larger companies have had to kind of deal with. So I kind of feel like we're starting with this fresh slate and that we can use this momentum of people wanting to travel more responsibly anyways. And you know, as the world opens up, we'll be here and we'll be ready for travelers.
08:06
Yeah, thank you for sharing that, I think from the entrepreneurial journey, or people that are listening from the business mindset. It's really helpful to kind of hear what happens when you have that moment. I mean, I kind of was in the same boat, I went to the Denver travel show in February, and then, you know, come March canceled my entire first year of what would have been my business of travel. And so then you're sitting there and you're like, I am either crazy, or Yeah, you know, you have that moment. And you're like, and at that moment in time, we didn't know you know, if this is like a two week blip, a two month blip. And we certainly didn't think a two year blip. So it's like you thought, well, I have to persevere at least through this moment in time. And then I think what we started seeing was this, like innovation and resiliency. And I think the smaller businesses really were able to take like their mission, and pivot with it, and still stay really aligned to their brand and serve communities without necessarily traveling. And I think that was something that I really loved. Being a part of, or witnessing others as well. And it seems like so many brands really reconnected to their mission aligned with sustainability and offering more purposeful and meaningful travel. And some of the conversations I've had around that are, you know, as a startup, if you hit the ground running, you, you know, you you might start with your mission and your purpose. And then you're like, well, here's this great client, I need to serve them because I need the income and then here's this thing, and it's a great opportunity. And I'm going to go ahead and do that to get started.
And then I'm going to go ahead and do this and instead of like sometimes you might wander from your original money In order to make sure you survive, and I think this just allowed anybody who had, like, not completely strayed, because I think if you have sustainability in your kind of DNA of your company, you're always adhering to that. But like there's a little wiggle room, right or you. This just brought everybody really firmly back to that starting point. And then I think the other thing that's been amazing to see is more consumer driven interest in sustainability and mindful travel. And so I think that's, I mean, I think that's where are you going to our site? And where you do look like you were brilliant in this, like, oh, like, how did that happen so quickly? You're like, no, actually, I've been working on this for a really long time. It just happened to land in this moment. So I think what I'd love to do is, before we get into exactly how your site operates, and what it offers to consumers, I'd like to share a little bit of your journey of your personal journey in tourism and kind of get a better understanding of how you engage with travel, and then how that shaped your direction towards sustainability and why you wanted to bring this to life in the first place.
11:16
Perfect. Those are such great questions. Can we take those one at a time?
11:20
Yeah, sure. No, I love to take all of them at the same time, but we can do one at a time.
11:26
So starting with how that how the kind of concept works?
11:29
Sure. Well, let's go to that. Let's go to will, we'll put a peg in that one, let's start with how travel found you. And then how that led you to this sustainability mission and bringing that into tourism.
11:44
Okay, wonderful. So how travel found me? That's about as a good question, I would say I first got the travel bug during my university years, so college years in the US. And I did a big study abroad program, where we visited a number of countries over over a term. And that really opened my eyes up to just how much of the world there is to see. And I was in my, I think I was 21 on that trip. So very young and impressionable. And I'll maybe come back to this later. But part of it a huge part of the inspiration for you in our side actually came from one of those experiences, because I wrote an elephant when I was in Thailand on on that school trip. And I didn't really think anything of it at the time. So I mean to put a little pin on that, but I'll come back to how that kind of inspired you can aside. But after that I started traveling a lot, I did kind of like one big international trip a year and and then from because I'm from Seattle, or maybe not, because but I am from Seattle, and many people in Seattle are hyper focused on things like composting and recycling, and being green and biking to work and like living this sustainable lifestyle.
So that has kind of been in my blood forever. And so then I started working after after college, I was working for a huge multinational company that has nothing to do with travel or sustainability. And that job brought me over to Paris. And it was always simply a personal dream of mine to live here in Paris. So I did that. And after a couple of years in the Paris office, I realized that I really wasn't very fulfilled. And that I you know, I knew for a long time that I wanted to do something outside of corporate America. And I knew that that was going to require financial planning and savings and an appetite for risk. So I had a lot of this stuff in my mind for a while. And so I made a decision to leave the company, but still stay in Paris. And then I really had time to reflect and think about what is it that I want to do. And in the process of this, I pursued an MBA. So I did that. And I graduated in June of 2020. But the MBA program I chose had a special focus both for entrepreneurship as well as social and inclusive business. And so I have an idea for you aside, and so I got this MBA degree, but it also allowed me to write my business plan in the context of the academic program and learn about different structures of business, which is how I came to learn about social enterprises for profit social enterprises, where you can have an altruistic mission as well as making money that like, it's not a bad thing to make money, especially if you're making money so that you can try to help more people and causes. So yeah, it really was, it was a huge pivot and life shift of getting out of like the office grind nine to five and thinking about what do I want to reflect back on my life and be very proud of like, what do I want to contribute? Like, it's so easy to feel so small.
The news is so depressing. And I feel like with Yugen Earthside, I get to work on things that are very aligned with my personal values, but they're also aligned with my interests and hobbies. And it also lets me feel like every day I'm actually helping people do something better, whether that's thinking about carbon offsetting their flights or learning about the difference. Between sustainable travel and mass tourism or what overtourism is where how to pack more Zero Waste travel products, whatever it is, like feel like it's just a little tiny piece of like chipping away at this massive, massive problem. But at least I feel like I'm doing something about it. And that was kind of like, a very, very important driver for me was like, you just spend so much of your time and your mental capacity during work hours. So like what you do during work hours, matters, like you might not have the energy to do all these save the world things in your in your free time. So this was sort of the perfect the stars aligning is like, Okay, this is what I want to do. Now, this is what I want to try.
15:40
I love that, because it seems like in this industry, there are so many passion driven people, which is what I think makes it really unique is that many of us have kind of had that moment where we were like, there's just something else. And I know I need to do it. And I don't know what this else is, but I'm really committed to it. And then because of that there's so many people in the travel industry that also have these really diverse backgrounds. So they're pulling in all these other perspectives and geniuses into tourism. And then the innovation, I think that we're seeing is it's just, I think, a really cool time for kind of reimagining what tourism even means and what tourism can do. And so I I'm really excited about that. And I love that you mentioned the ability to both do good and make money. Because I think this is a place that so many of us who come into tourism, with this mindset of I want to do something more meaningful, I want to be more personally fulfilled. The next thing that comes with that seems to be this, I need to also be selfless and serve and not worry about making money. So I don't I would love if you wanted. If that brings up anything for you. I know that part of your identity is a social purpose corporation. And so how do we How did you bridge that gap? Or how did you have that conversation with yourself? I guess perhaps,
17:15
Yeah, this resonates so much with me, it makes, you know, makes me kind of want to like explode, I have so many things to say. But I would say first of all, going through the social and inclusive business certificate program after my MBA. They I there's this diagram that really stood out to me, where on one end, you have nonprofits, and on the other end you have for profit businesses. And I have kind of only thought about businesses in those two senses before, but this diagram shows that there's actually a scale, and there is there's so many different shades in between those two, those two kind of extremes that you can that you can do. And it ties in very heavily to like countless conversations that I had, and that I listened to, during the MBA program about what is the business's responsibility in terms of taking care of the people and the planet and not just profit. And I feel like it used to be kind of this, you know, hippie, granola thing to talk about the triple bottom line to talk about anything other than financial gains for shareholders. And through like, really, really through the MBA program I did, I was exposed to just how big of a topic this is. And then like my personal beliefs of it, and that obviously, maybe not obviously, but that was also it was kind of a reckoning that I had to do with where I had been working, because that was as corporate as it gets. And but it was also part of what ultimately, you know, led me to leave and to pursue something else.
So it's like I have seen the other side and being on that other side. You are very privileged, but I do think there should be a big responsibility. And I hope, I mean, it's my like biggest wish that companies do take it more seriously that they're not just siloed part of an ecosystem or have an economy but like, everything has to work together. And if it doesn't, like we're hurting ourselves, the worst in the end, like ourselves in the planet, like it's just not sustainable. So I feel like there is a huge responsibility for businesses to do more. And so I was really happy when I learned that there's this phrase of for profit, social enterprise. And as soon as I heard it, I was like, oh, that's what I want to do. And when I very, very first started thinking about sustainable travel, it really genuinely came from this place of like, I want to help people. And then I was like, Oh, I can't just help people like I also need to make a living. So I help people in like a financially viable way. So I knew that that's what type of company I wanted. And then when it came time to register my business, although I am based in France, I registered in my home state of Washington, and I was just so excited because I was planning on registering it as a corporation, or an LLC or something. And then I saw I saw in the drop down menu, a social purpose corporation. And I was like, What the heck is this? So I looked it up in Washington, it's not a common like legal company type, even in the US, you know, it's different state by state. So Washington is one of very few states that actually has this ability to register as a social purpose corporation.
And basically what that does is it legally allows us to pursue social and environmental objectives in addition to financial objectives. So when we are talking to shareholders, or board members, or whoever, we don't have to make decisions that are only based on a shareholder price, because if you make decisions just on that, they're probably not going to be sustainable, sustainable things, especially right now, they are more expensive, because they're not as widespread. So I didn't ever want to have to feel that tension, I wanted it to be very, very clear from the outset, that the way that we have legally structured our company is aligned with our values. And naturally, that comes with another layer of like checks and balances, where accountability, where we will have to prove each year what we're doing for social and environmental actions. So I really like that it's not it's not just words, it's not just a legal structure, there's like real stuff behind it of like, in order to maintain the status, we have to be, we have to be doing what we say we're doing.
21:22
I love that, because I remember when, when I was working on it was probably 15 or 20 years ago, and it was the first business that I was engaged in that had a corporate social responsibility platform. And I was like, what businesses have to be socially responsible? Like, this is amazing. I'm like, Are they being this? And so that was kind of I that was my really like, an introduction into this similar mindset, right, and started to see that within a couple other businesses that I had worked with, and I was like, okay, this is possible.
But then you also see, and, you know, we see this a lot in various industries, but like you said, people that are using the words but not implementing the actions. And, and maybe even sometimes, again, like, maybe setting out with the intention of having actions aligned with the words, but diverting, or, you know, straying from that, and then no one's holding them accountable. So it's like, they're kind of getting off with, you know, being able to say they're doing this and not doing this. And, yeah, so I think that transparency is amazing. And I know that this idea is another one that is really being brought to the table right now is, is how transparent is your business operating? And then what does that allow for, in this instance, travelers to really know what they're getting and what they're asking for. And then it also creates a space for education, because then I think often, travelers are still many travelers are still really new to all of these terms, or all of these decisions.
And so they need help understanding what they even want, they need to know what boundaries they want to place around their travel experiences, what is really important to them, what they really want to ask for. And so I think these things kind of all just, like unfold as you start moving through this process. So I think that's a great segue into you get our side and how does that serve travelers in discovering what they want, and giving them access to these types of experiences?
23:42
Yeah, so our main business model is as a booking platform for sustainable trips. So if you think of booking.com, or kayak, or you know anything, where you can see multiple options and choose something to book, that's what we want to be, but for curated sustainable travel trips. So what we do is we find tour operators around the world who adhere to best practices for what it means to be a sustainable tour operator, as it is, as it specifically relates to where they are in the world and what types of activities they're doing. And this can look so different.
This is what something I'm very, very fascinated by. But it doesn't mean that they all do the same thing. They're all doing different things and they're all doing great things and I love to see the diversity of how you can be a more responsible actor in this space. So we find those tour operators and listed trips are for the anybody super business minded our revenue, our business model is that we are based out of commission. So when we help sell a trip for these tour operators, we will earn a commission. So that's really like the bread and butter of our actual business. But then, as I mentioned, this really genuinely came from a place of like wanting to help people. So he put a lot of effort into the education aspect that's through blog posts or through social media posts or through spreading important articles or recapping important sustainable travel, news, tidbits, just whatever we can to get people thinking about it more. And obviously all the real resources and the education aspect. None of that is monetized in any way. That's just to help people. And along those same veins, we have a huge focus on the climate impact. I feel like that's the natural like elephant in the room, when it comes to sustainable travel. It's like, oh, well, just don't fly. It's not an option, like you cannot just have everybody not fly like it's not it's not realistic.
So I would like to work within realistic frameworks. And if you are flying, there's, there's so many things that you can do, you can take less trips, you can stay in your destination longer, you can do carbon offsets or renewables, you can do carbon friendly activities. Once you get there, there's so many things that you can do, that might be helping local communities or helping you appreciate the different environments around the earth that come from traveling. So we focus a lot on encouraging people, our model is to rep the planet, and R stands for reduce your emissions, the E is to estimate your carbon impact, and then P is to purchase carbon offsets or renewables. And so that's like really what we advocate for our travelers. So we have the booking platform, we have the resources, and then we try to make it kind of like a full, like a full 360 degree view of what it means to travel sustainably. So we also have an E commerce shop with affiliate partners. So also commission based if we help sell anything, but for zero waste, sustainable travel products. And these are things that you can just use in your home too.
But especially for traveling, there's so many benefits, like a lot of them are liquid free and plastic free, which makes it easier to get through airports lighter to pack your luggage. So we try to encourage even if travelers are not booking through us, they can still use our climate impact resources, they can still use our blog posts for information about how to travel sustainably on a budget, or what are the travel mistakes that you should avoid? Or what is sustainable travel in general. And then they can also use our resources of how do you pack to be the most sustainable traveler that you can. So we really are trying to get people to think about about everything.
27:12
Yeah, I love the kind of end to end experience as well. And it really made me think about, I was traveling in Bali, and I went to go down to the beach one day. And like I've had this dream of Bali for like, I don't know, 25 years of going there. And probably over the course of those 25 years. Clearly, it's changed a lot. So my initial, like envisioning and what it actually was, by the time I got there was a disconnect. But I remember sitting on this beach, and like all of this garbage was washing up next to me and all of these toothbrushes and toothpaste and that I remember that evening like brushing my teeth. And I was like almost out of toothpaste and I was like, Oh my gosh, why and the problem, right? Like I'm here with my stuff that I'm gonna throw in this garbage and who knows where it's gonna go. And not that I hadn't really ever thought of that before. But like that chain of events really triggered a deeper awareness of what it means to have an impact on a destination with you when you travel with something as simple as brushing your teeth. Yeah, and I'd already thought about in the context of like water usage, and clean water and all of those things that had become a part of my awareness.
But there was just something different about having that moment of having this dream kind of dashed because of our responsible behavior with our planet. So it was very impressionable for me, but I love that you really offer those solutions for people or create that conversation for them to just question and, like, for me, I think the most important thing we can do in this industry is just get people to a place where they ask questions, like we don't even have to have all of the answers. But we definitely have to have all the questions so that we can get to the answers. And so I would encourage anybody listening to like 1,000%, go to the blog, go to social media, it is like one of my very favorite things is to see Hilary pop up on Instagram, like makes me so happy. And I even being in this space. There's constantly things I'm like, Oh, I hadn't really thought about that that way. Or I forgot about that. And it's so good to revisit that idea.
And it's just really valuable to have it front of mind because even with it being something that I truly believe in, we get caught up in all the things that happen in our day and our lives. And so it's just good to keep it present. And it's not something that just applies to travel. It's something that applies to our lives. So when we start asking These questions in the context of travel, I feel like we bring them back to the constant context of our daily lives. And so that's where that how travel shapes us becomes this thing that really shapes how we engage with the world. And I know I just talked for forever. But is there anything in that pile that resonates with you that you'd like to expand upon?
30:21
Well, first of all, are you onboard with the toothpaste tablets yet?
30:25
Yeah, I do have that Mike got them pretty much immediately after returning from that trip.
30:30
This is like one of the most random, but like coolest discoveries that I've come across in the last year. So for anybody who doesn't know that's listening to this toothpaste, tablets are these tiny, they're kind of like the size of an Altoid of like a small mint. And you just put them in your mouth, and you start chewing and you get your toothbrush wet. And then you just brush your teeth, like normal, and there's no liquid, and there's no plastic. And so if you're going on a trip for three days, you can just bring six little tablets with you. Or however frequently you brush your teeth. And it's amazing. And so I feel like that is just so so cool. And most people I talked to I feel like do not know that those even exist yet. There are so many little changes that you can do. And I think like images of the beach, that is such a common thing in terms of over tourism, or how tourism can create a strain on local communities and environments. And, you know, you can do all the beach cleanups in the world.
But if you're not solving the problem, then you're never gonna, it's never going to get all the way clean. And I know some countries like Thailand, they will shut down beaches for tourism until it kind of is cleaned and recovered. And I personally I wish more places kind of were protective over their landscapes and said, Nope, you know what, we're not doing this anymore because tourists aren't bathing. Yeah, but it's it's a fine line. And I guess like one other thing to point out, at least about the trips on yoga nearside is that we are not a voluntourism company. So voluntourism is a completely separate topic, it can be good, there's also a lot of ways for it to go sideways. So it's not something that's not what our trips are. So you won't be doing like volunteer work on our trips. But for us sustainable travel is really about respecting and appreciating the local cultures and communities that you're visiting, having those authentic connections, having a lot of nature based trips, so walking, cycling, things that get you outside that are low carbon impact, and also things that are helping the local economies, supporting local businesses, supporting artisans supporting women.
So a lot of things that tie back to the SDGs. But I think when people when sustainable travel comes to mind. So often, I feel like the environmental part gets all the focus. And it's so much more than that. So not to discredit the environmental piece, because it's massive, and it is critical. But there are other pieces in terms of the actual people and the economies of these destinations. And that's something that I really want people to, you know, just be aware of, because I think that part is lacking right now, the awareness.
33:10
Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. I know that I've had some conversations for people if they've listened in the past or haven't you could definitely go back if you want a deeper dive into the pillars of sustainable travel. And much like Keller was saying, like, a huge part of creating a sustainable travel experience is looking at engagement with local communities and having involvement with from local communities and not just thinking about carbon offsetting, and then you're traveling sustainably like there's all these other pieces that come into place. And so like Well, definitely would encourage that being an actionable step that is fairly easy to take at this point. Like thinking about, what else could you do? And really, with every decision when you travel, you can say, Okay, I'm going out to eat. How can I make this more sustainable? Can I go to a local restaurant?
Yes. And I bring my water bottle that's already filtered and not have to get a water bottle from the restaurant check. Like is it a local street vendor and they have plastic utensils? Do I have my you know, bamboo utensils with me? Like? There's just like these little things and little questions that you can ask that are going to create more sustainability in your travel. I love that you mentioned like once you get somewhere I think especially from the western world, when we have shorter amounts of time to travel. We're always thinking like, how can I get somewhere the fastest? Well, that's usually our travel right? But what if you took the time to take a train? Or what if you took the time to hire a local driver, then you have the benefit of like moving slowly interacting with community supporting hugely, a local Family and and then how that ripples out. So like those, I think are the kinds of questions and then it also is really enhancing the quality of your travel experience overall. And then I think then we just you take travel to the next place.
35:14
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because you've touched on a really important point for me, which is, how do you blend sustainable travel offerings with what travelers actually want? Especially because I would say there's a very big, big and growing bucket of what I call mindful travelers who are our target market of people who want to travel better, but don't necessarily know how you have the hardcore people that are like insisting, you know, Greta tune bird, like they won't fly ever. They won't ever, you know, they just won't touch an airplane with a 10 foot pole. That group exists. And they're, they're wonderful. But that's not most of the people that are traveling. And then, you know, I'm an American, the company is based in the US. So like we are, we are marketing to American clients and English Anglophones in Western Europe. But there is limited time, especially for the Americans not so much for everybody living in Europe, we haven't good over here.
So if they don't want to, you know, take a train ride, that's going to be eight hours, because they only have you know, five days for a trip. How do you blend like your company values, your mission, the trips? With what people actually want? And is, you know, I think about this a lot? I don't have I don't have the answer. It's just something I'm super mindful of. Because I think even when you say something like, Oh, we're not going to have any trips that have in destination flights. Sounds like a good thing. But what if, what if the trip is two weeks long, and you're taking a short flight for an hour from one country to another country, and instead of doing to long haul trips, round trip, you're doing to a one round trip, long haul and one tiny flight? That's better than taking too long trips? You know? So I think there's so many gray areas. And we are I mean, we go hard on the transparency stuff, and it is a complex area. And I think there's just a lot of props to be given to anybody who is trying to figure it out and is trying to get better and better. But also being aware of like, what is the actual travel environment? And how do you run a business that people are going to want to come by from you?
37:24
Yeah, and from that perspective, I mean, I, I put that hat on all the time, and trying to think about, like, you know, here's how I would love to travel. Here's the impact I want to create, here's where I'm willing to like give up comforts, or amenities, or access or whatever it is, for myself, but then how do I extend that out to a broader market where everyone else maybe isn't ready to make those same sacrifices, then what decisions can I make? And I think it's just really helpful just to like, just really go through every component of your travel and just ask a question. And like, can you just shift a thing? And I think the other thing is that a lot of people get halted with the I don't know what to do. So I'm just not going to do anything. Or I just I'm not going to do it. Right. So why should I try? Or I've already messed it up before, what does it matter now, and maybe just encouraging people to give themselves grace. And just like this is a learning process that we need to do as a global community. And none of us are doing it right yet. And none of us are doing it perfect yet. And we can just keep asking questions and keep trying to push ourselves forward.
38:37
Yeah, I totally agree. And I want to point out that asking questions is not going to be a comfortable experience. So I'm sure that's why a lot of people don't do it. But it is awkward, or it can be awkward. And I think it gets easier as you get used to it. And that's of course, easier said than done. But I remember before I launched you can earthside my boyfriend and I were taking a trip and I I emailed several, I don't know I think hotels or some some establishments being like, Hey, do you know of like, what are you a sustainable Hotel? Are you a Green Hotel?
Like, what's the best way to see this country, there's destinations sustainably, because I couldn't find any resources on it. And this hotel owner, he wrote back to me and he goes, Well, if you really want to be responsible, then just don't come here. And I was like, oh, like, that's so aggressive. And I was like, I see your point. Like, I do have to take a long haul flight to be there. But, you know, I don't I don't think that level of like black and white is very constructive. But also it felt like, you know, I asked a question that got like a slap on the wrist and I was like, oh, but I'm really I'm trying. I'm coming. I want to do it as responsibly as possible, but I am going to your country. So you know, it's, it's an awkward space.
And one thing that I would like to do more of and that might already be out there. But I don't know, is I would like to have little, you know, cheat sheets of like, here's an email that you can copy and paste to send to a hotel to send to the tour operator to send that anybody to be like, Hey, what are you? What are you doing? So I really want to make it easier for people. Because especially when not many people are doing it, it does feel awkward to be that one person who's like, oh, excuse me? Can you be more transparent? Can you give me more information? So,
40:26
yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Because it is hard. And again, that's why I feel like some people, they don't do it, because it can be an uncomfortable conversation. And on the other side of that, I would say that I remember working with an inbound operator in Peru, and I said, you know, I don't want any single use plastics on the on this trip, like, that's my minimum commitment to sustainability for this trip. And we were just starting to work together.
And so like, let's, you know, I want to if we can find local sustainable hotels, and restaurants and all of that, like, great, but this is the, like, bare minimum. And they're like, Well, we, you know, we've always thought about how important it is to provide clean drinking water to our guests, right? Like, that's the conditioning that was previously created. And they're like, Okay, like, now I have this problem to solve. And when I arrived, they were so excited that they had solved the problem, right, they had found a way where they could get water that we could easily refill the travelers water bottles with from a larger source that could also be refilled. And it was sustained, more sustainable. And then they were so excited that, you know, they found this restaurant that they knew operated in this way.
It actually created something for them that now they have to offer moving forward. And so like, I would just think that this is a opportunity for growth all around like us asking the question might allow for something to happen, that wouldn't have happened without the question being asked. And so I think it's just it takes everyone.
42:01
Yeah, that's a great success story. And some some of our tour operators, I've heard the same thing. It's like, well, there's the drinking water is not safe here. And we're not gonna have people in this small shuttle bus without providing them water. But I am starting to see changes as well, where one tour operator is now getting, like a big jug of water, I guess that sir, at certain, you know, destinations where it is filtered and keeping that in the car, and then giving the travelers a reusable water bottle on the trip so that they're accomplishing the goal, they are getting clean water, if the job runs out, they have to wait until they get to the next place where they can fill it up with filtered water. But But that's an option.
And then one of the things in our in our little eco shop of reusable, you know, zero waste travel stuff are water bottles that have built in filters. And you can actually, there's many companies that do these. So yeah, they're quite easy to find. And I think there may be more associated with, you know, like outdoorsy, like hardcore hiking, or backpacking or something like that. But you know, for the amount of space that takes up and the amount of plastic water bottles that it would save in countries that don't have easy, clean drinking water, that's a great solution. So, and there, there's also tablets that you can put in the water to make it taste better. So if people are worried about the tastes of drinking, you know, just filtered water. You know, there's options. But I think, again, we're kind of circling back to, like, people need to know that there are options, they need to be aware that there are different ways of doing things. Otherwise, you know, they're just gonna do whatever is easiest, whatever is more normal, or most natural.
43:41
Yeah, I agree. I mean, and I think what we're really looking towards is tipping it so that the easiest, and the most available option is sustainable options. Like that's the biggest dream. That's what we're all working towards. And in the meantime, just creating as much education like you have, yeah, and as many resources as we can put out there. And again, like, I really just want to speak highly of what you have, what you do have available on your website and on your blog and on social media. I know I've already said it, but it's something that it's I feel is really important, and you deliver it in a way that doesn't feel intimidating or off putting like it's engaging, it's valuable, and I think it's relevant.
44:31
So I just encourage people to go ahead and know if they're curious. Thank you so much. We actually we work very, very hard at being approachable because I think the second you start being you know, condescending or too academic or too, you know, in the weeds like we're gonna we're gonna lose people. And so we really try to cultivate a very welcoming environment that says, hey, no matter where you're at on your personal journey to sustainable travel, we can help you get to the next step. But there's no there's no critical There's no judgment, it's just trying to help people do a little bit better than what they're already doing.
45:05
Yeah, well, this has been such an awesome conversation, I feel like we probably could like step into five or six more, more side steps of conversation from here. But before we end, I want to give you the opportunity if there's anything else you wanted to share about your in our side that people should know, before we wrap up, and then how they can reach you where they can find you on social since I've obviously told them to do that. And then we have a few rapid fire questions in the conversation.
45:35
Okay, let's see, I think we've we've covered most of the basics, there's some some metrics that maybe people care about, maybe not. But we have 30 partners right now 30 Different tour operators, we're in, I think, 35 different countries around the world. So you can find our trips in Central and South America, in Africa, Europe, Middle East, and South Asia, more destinations will be coming soon. But in total, we have more than 600 itineraries that are available, and only a handful of them are actually on the website.
We have a lot of full itineraries listed under the Destinations tab, we also have new pages that we just added a few weeks ago called explore more. And that will give you kind of like teasers of trips that we have, but we don't have the full itinerary listed yet. And we have a lot more that we haven't even had time to put on the Explore more pages. So I would just encourage anybody coming to the website to tell us where you want to go. And it's very possible we have it and if not, we can find the, you know, sustainable tour operators in that region. So yeah, when you go to the website, right now, there will be a little pop up that asks you where you want to go. And it'll take you to a type form literally two questions. It's just as clicking pretty pictures of countries that you want to visit and entering in your email address.
When you do that will actually send you a curated personalized brochure of our responsible trips in those destinations, even if they're not listed on the website yet. So So yes, we are actively helping, you know, several clients for 2022. And very much looking forward to helping more people soon.
47:12
Yeah, thank you. And I really encourage people to do that too. Because it gives you a gauge on where people are really interested in as you said, you have like so many people that want to participate and get their tours on to your website that helps you to know kind of like where to prioritize and or who to reach out to if you don't already have something in an area that seems to be of demand. And I love that you're also willing to do that. And so I think that is really amazing. Let's move into my rapid ish fire questions. I'm nervous. And I love that everybody's always nervous. And they're totally easy, but it's okay. Um, what is your favorite book or movie that offers you a travel escape or inspires you to adventure?
47:57
Travel escape? Well, I read All the Light We Cannot See. And I don't know how much of an escape that was. But that's the first book that I read where I traveled to the destination because of that book, a lot of it takes place in St. Malo, which is on the coast of France. And I like went to the address that the house is kind of the focal point in that book. And it was really, really fun to visit somewhere because the book talked a lot about the city and the church steeple and, and the Citadel so Anyways, that was that was a fun book that actually like made me travel and it was a cool experience.
48:32
Yeah, I love when when a book that's not about travel allows you to go somewhere and I think maybe I'm really aware of that, because that's, you know, I love to travel so that I'm like, oh look, I'm having this moment where I get to be wherever you know this character is and like kind of live through their story. Yeah. What is always in your suitcase?
48:53
Always in my suitcase, honestly, like a wine corkscrew opener. The appropriate answer,
49:00
it's appropriate. I was sure you're gonna say toothpaste tablets, but also those as well.
49:05
Yeah. A lot of really cool Zero Waste travel products, but also like wine is critical. Um,
49:13
what has been your favorite destination
49:16
So far itβs Japan.
49:18
And where do you still want to visit? Greece
What do you eat that immediately connects you to a place you've been
49:28
Ramen for that connects me to Japan eating at those little private individual stalls? Yeah,
49:35
I've never had them in Japan. And so when you said that I'm like ramen takes me immediately back to my dorm room. School while not the same thing.
49:46
It's not but I've never seen I mean, Japan was so cool for so many reasons. But I've never seen a restaurant like that where like they just have booths after booth after booth after booth for just individual people to just eat ramen alone on their lunch break and just Nothing matters except for this incredible bowl of soup in front of you. And you know, there's just a little window in front and they'll slide little things through the window. It's an experience it's eating, but it's also an experience in Japan. So I love that.
50:14
That sounds amazing. Um, let's see, what is the person? Or who was the person that inspired or encouraged you to set out and explore the world?
50:22
My parents, both of them.
50:26
And if you could take an adventure with one person fictional or real, alive or past, who would it be?
50:33
Probably my boyfriend. Yeah. Okay. I feel like that's like such a generic answer. But I would have to think more. I don't know. I don't know what other alive or dead person I would want to turn. That's okay.
50:43
That is a very suitable answer. Um, well, that is all I have. So um, I again, just encourage people to check out the earth cider blog on our side and reach out to Hillary if you are looking for a sustainable experience that you don't see on the website. And thank you so much for this conversation. I think it was such a great dive into sustainable travel.
51:10
Thank you. It's always so nice to chat with you.
51:13
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