Episode 73 - Keri Pfeiffer, WeTravel

Travel

Apr. 20

Are you someone that desires to work in the digital world but also wants to travel? We often feel the urge to travel, to see and also experience different cultures and ways of living. But how sustainable is it really? Is it more ethical to visit a country or should you think of living there for a certain time?

You've heard the phrase "digital nomad", and you've wondered what it means. Today, Christine and her guest, Keri Pfeiffer, are talking about all aspects of traveling, from visiting places, living abroad and what we can do to make it easier and more sustainable.

Christine and Keri also take a look at life as a digital nomad and how people can transition to this way of life. Keri shares her own experiences living the digital nomad lifestyle, the pros, and some of the cons.

Keri Pfeiffer is the Head of Account Management for WeTravel & a RISE Travel Institute Pilot Program alumni. She has not only worked in the travel industry for the past five years but has also been traveling as a digital nomad since 2016.

As cliche as it sounds, she has a passion for yoga, great wine, and experiencing new cultures. With digital nomadism on the rise, it is her hope that more people take an interest in sustainable & ethical travel as they choose their next destinations to work from.

With digital nomadism on the rise, it is Keri’s hope that more people will take an interest in sustainable and ethical travel as they choose their next destinations to work from.

In today’s episode, Christine and Keri explore exactly how digital nomads might make more sustainable choices. And also bring in Keri’s expertise to explore the power of tech to bring in accessibility and sustainability to travel.

Christine and Keri cover quite a bit of territory in this conversation, all with passion, joy and enthusiasm.

Join us for this fun and soulful conversation with Keri Pfeiffer.

In this episode, Christine and Keri discuss:

Keri’s background and how she found travel in college
How Keri found herself working for WeTravel
RISE Travel Institute programs
What is a digital nomad?
How digital nomads can make more sustainable choices
Keri explores the power of technology, how valuable it is and how it has influenced our lives and how we travel

Resources & Links Mentioned in the Episode

To learn more about Keri Pfeiffer and WeTravel, head to https://www.wetravel.com/

Follow Keri on your favorite social platform: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn

Join me for my Get Wild in Glacier Women's Wilderness Retreat!!

This year we're headed to Glacier Park in Montana. You'll get to get wild and reconnect with your inner child as you hike, bike, ride horseback and whitewater raft.

This is a unique experience that adds so much depth to your journey.

Registration for this Women's Wilderness Retreat closes on May 20 and our virtual coaching begins on June 6.

Visit Lotus sojourns website for more information www.lotussojourns.com

To watch this interview on YouTube, click here.

Learn more about Lotus Sojourns

Looking for ways to be a part of the community, learn more here.

Find Lotus Sojourns on Facebook, or join the Lotus Sojourns Collective, our FB community for like-hearted women.

LOVE these conversations...support the production of this podcast by making a donation here!

Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=Y76XFGFWCMEV8)

WE'VE BEEN NOMINATED FOR A BESSIE AWARD! The Bessie Awards recognize the achievements of women and gender-diverse people making an impact in the travel industry. If you are a past attendee of Women in Travel Summit (WITS) please consider voting for Soul of Travel Podcast! Thank you!!!

Voting is now open and winners will be announced at the Bessie Awards ceremony on Saturday, 14 May 2022 at 7 p.m. CT at the Marriott Downtown in Kansas City, Missouri. To view the complete list of this year’s finalists, visit bessieawards.org.

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, you’ll 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.

Subscribe & Review on Apple Podcasts

Are you subscribed to the podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today so you don’t miss an episode.

Click here to subscribe to Apple Podcasts!

Credits. Christine Winebrenner Irick (Host, creator, editor.) Keri Pfeiffer (Guest). Original music by Clark Adams. Editing and production by Rayna Booth.

Transcript

KEYWORDS

travel, people, digital nomad, world, stay, book, support, community, online, sustainability, travelers

Christine Winebrenner Irick 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 no 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 I'm Christine Winebrenner Irick. And this is the Soul of Travel.

Keri Pfeiffer is the Head of Account Management for WeTravel and Arise Travel Institute Pilot Program Alumni. She has worked in the travel industry for the past five years, and has also been traveling as a digital nomad since 2016. She has a passion for yoga, great wine and experiencing new cultures. With digital nomadism on the rise, it is her hope that more people will take an interest in sustainable and ethical travel as they choose their next destinations to work from. In our conversation, we explore exactly how digital nomads might make more sustainable choices. And also bring in Keri's expertise to explore the power of tech to bring in accessibility and sustainability to travel. She and I cover quite a bit of territory in this discussion, all with much passion and enthusiasm.

Join me now for my soulful conversation with Keri Pfeiffer. Welcome to the Soul of Travel, I am so happy to be sitting down today with Keri Pfeiffer from we travel. And I'm also, as I just mentioned, super happy to be enjoying her view, which we'll get to talking about a little bit later in our conversation. But Keri, thank you so much for joining me today.

02:58

No, thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat and give you some pleasure with my background.

Christine Winebrenner Irick 03:04

Yeah, a little moment of travel in my day today. So that's great. For those of you joining us, Keri is the head account manager for we travel. And we are going to be talking today about living a life as a digital nomad and how we can do that more ethically and responsibly. And I'm just so excited to examine this from this lens. I think after the past two years, obviously there are so many more people who have been embracing this. And I think it's really important to start looking at what this means and how we can make better choices. So before we dive into all of that, I'd like to give you a moment to introduce yourself and let everyone know a little bit more about who you are in the space of travel and what you do.

03:53

Sure. Well, my name is Keri. As you mentioned, I'm originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And I've been I guess I can go into my whole background of how I got here. And then I can talk about where we travel and where I work now. So I lived there for a while, I guess I don't know when the moment of travel hit for me, let's say I guess maybe studying abroad in Paris when I was in college alone. Like as a female it was probably a big, okay moment. But then I moved to New York City after university and lived there and worked there for three, four years. And after four years, I was pretty burned out at my job and just kind of over it.

So I ended up moving to Thailand and got my 200 hour yoga teacher certification. And while I was there, I just kind of decided, Okay, I'm going to take all of my savings and just travel alone for the next I don't know, six to 10 months, which I did. And while I was doing that I met up with my now partner several times along the way and he was doing a program then called Remote year where he was traveling Dealing and working with, like 60 other individuals, and they all had their own remote jobs. So while I was seeing him do that and running into other people freelancing or working remotely, I was like, why am I not doing this to so after I kind of ran out of money, from my savings, I went back home, like lived with my mom for two months in just like Job entered for remote only jobs.

That's when I came across we travel, which is a payment and a booking system for tour operators. So we help travel companies with their online booking process and collecting online payments. I'm now the head of account management there, but I've been working for them since late to 2017. And ever since I started working for them, I initially got the job, I moved to Colombia, and I lived there for 10 months. And I've been traveling ever since. So I haven't actually really lived in the US since 2016. I've been working and traveling remotely for almost five years. So it's kind of crazy.

Christine Winebrenner Irick 06:00

Yeah, you're totally ahead of the nomadic curve. But I love that so much. Because I remember, like the first big trip that I ever took, which I think it's such a shift and an awareness, especially coming from the United States, when you kind of set off on one of these, you know, larger travel journeys, not just a quick vacation. But when you start connecting with people from other countries, and you realize that they're like, oh, yeah, I traveled for a month every year, or I travel for three weeks, every spring and every fall, or like I work six months here, and then six months there, and you start to hear these things that you're like, wait, this exists, we don't have to talk like this, where I'm from

06:43

100% I remember meeting so many people during their gap years and I was like why I'm such a fan of gap years. Like I remember meeting 18 year olds that were saying, No, why would I ever travel or excuse me to go to university and like to choose a career path. And I don't even know what I enjoy in life, like obviously I'm gonna take a year off traveling and figure that out first, before I spend all this money on University. And I was like, You're so wise. Like, why are we as Americans not embracing this and like so stigmatized looked down upon as a gap year, but I think it's such a, I didn't miss I agree with you.

Christine Winebrenner Irick 07:15

Yeah, no. And I, I just I also have remembered seeing, like, through my travels, seeing younger children traveling. And again, it's just this thing, it's like, it's not really modeled for us. And so when we say we want to take our kid and travel to Africa, or Croatia, or I don't know, anywhere, really, for a large amount of time, people say, Why would you do that? Why is that not responsible? You can't pull them out of school.

And my thought is just like, wouldn't we just like live school? Like, yeah, I remember seeing these kids having these experiences. And I just remember thinking, these humans are having the most valuable experience they're ever going to have in their lives. And they're like nine or 10 years old, and they're gonna carry that with them forever and not be like some of us who are fortunate enough to have it maybe in our right after high school or college or 20s, or maybe not even till your 40s or 50s, when you kind of get that sense of who we are as a global community by traveling.

And so I agree with you, I feel like I wish a gap year was mandatory because you really start to get a deeper sense of who you are, what you value, what you're curious about. And it really changes when your context for living and exploring changes by traveling. So I'm so excited that you are grateful that you have that awareness and that opportunity. And then you had the ambition to make that your path. So that's so cool to hear that part of your story.

08:53

Yeah, no complaints on my end.

Christine Winebrenner Irick 08:57

Yeah, I can't, I can't imagine. Well, so as we go a little bit more into this, I want to talking about living more ethically as a digital nomad, but I really want to first dive in to travel technology and its value outside of maybe the context that we would understand it in, which is just, you know, everyone is pretty familiar at this point. With booking platforms. This is what we know tech and travel is. But from an operator standpoint, we also know there's all these other systems that we use.

And I think especially the last two years we have seen how technology from all different areas has influenced our lives, influenced travel and enabled people to live in the way that you're living. What do you see as a way travel has shown up as kind of a force for good or to create. One of the things I've noticed is it creates a lot more accessibility to travel. It's something you and I have talked about with You know, virtual travel, travel payments, travel, education, all of these things have gotten wrapped into travel technology, I just love for you to share anything that that you have seen that has really inspired you or that you think is important for listeners to be aware of.

10:17

Yeah, I mean, I think travel and sustainability and tech specifically when it comes to travel is such a topic that's not as talked about as often. But there's a lot of like points to it, and things to be like learned or unlearned, accessibility wise, you're 100%, right, like the form of online payments, and being able to vote to operate or offer payment plans to their clients is something that probably wasn't as common, you know, 10 years ago, but now giving someone the option to pay for, you know, a $2,000 trip, which is a lot of money, and, you know, probably a big thing for a lot of people, they can pay for it now, maybe over a 12 month span, whereas previously, it might have been kind of you know, deposit and then you pay in full. So finding a tech or an online booking system that offers payment plans makes things a lot more accessible to your clients and still appreciate you for it.

And we're also seeing especially as we travel like a lot, a lot more demand and ask for things like the Buy Now pay later, which is quite popular as well in, you know, buying clothes or products online. But I think it's going to become more popular in travel as well where these options kind of provide a somewhat of a loan to the travel company temporarily and buy now and pay later. Both parties get more bookings from the online tourist standpoint, of course, like not everyone has the privilege to travel. So if I can take an online tour and learn about the Afro Latino community in Brazil, for example, I can learn so much more about a country and even gain knowledge before traveling there if I want to.

So it helps you kind of research a destination, but also like, feel like you're traveling there. So online tours, I think we're super cool that obviously everyone pivoted and when COVID hit and everyone started doing them. And I've seen a lot of companies stop doing it themselves, but I kind of hope they still stay around to some extent, because it's really cool from an educational standpoint, but also for everyone that's not able to travel. And then of course around like climate change, which is a huge topic right now, too. You know, we can get into all of the carbon offsetting calculators that are more and more common or carbon neutral carbon removal calculators.

I mean, if almost all major airlines now I've been booking a lot of flights. Because I still travel, not only do they show you, you know, the carbon emissions that you're actually putting into the world based on the flight that you choose, you know, I know Skyscanner and even Google Flights, now they have a little greener option. So you can choose from the greener flight when you are buying, but then a lot of them are incorporating things like calculators and offsetting or removal options into the checkout process. So once you are booking and paying for the flight, you can check a little box and say like, yes, I would love to remove this or offset it for X amount of money. And here's the program that we're supporting. So I see most airlines are doing this. But more and more tour operators are starting to do it too. A lot of them build it into their pricing already.

A lot of the big players do like intrepid and others like big companies, but small operators historically just didn't know haven't know where to start. So it's about educating them, which we're trying to do by giving them options. Maybe we're thinking about building a calculator into our checkout process in the very near future. So people can tick a box and say they want to enable that for all of their tours. Yeah, things of that nature. That's like a whole nother level of travel tax that's becoming more and more popular. And I think those products will continue to grow. Those are not going to keep going because there's a lot of options. But

Christine Winebrenner Irick 13:43

no, I think it's so amazing. And I think the simplicity and the education and the ease of use, I think those are all things that are really important. I think that's, you know, that's a huge barrier if people don't understand, one, the impact that they're making, and then on how to do something about it, we're not going to move forward. And so I think it's really, I remember, I mean, I don't even know if it was like it was forever ago, but the first time someone talked about a carbon offsetting tool, and how cool it was to just be able to put something like your flight in or your hotel stay and have that awareness because it's just not something that we think about. It's almost like when they started putting the calories on your menus, right?

And you're like, oh my gosh, you just had no idea. And then you see that and you like, well, that is not okay, so here's, you know, I mean, obviously on a much more important and impactful scale, but like, we just don't know, it's not something we've ever had the space for understanding before and I think it's just amazing to see these the simplicity of some of these tools to be able to do that. It's almost like a fun thing to do. It's interactive, then you see it but then giving you this option to say, Hey, do you want to offset this now?

Do you want to at least contribute this much towards, you know, offsetting this flight. And I think that that is such a great way to just bring travelers into the conversation, because now they're already thinking about it. And maybe they're gonna think about other ways that they can extend that throughout their travel. And like you said, operators, hotels, you know, many other parts of the tourism industry are also starting to look at how they can create a similar process throughout their use of products. So I think it's a really interesting time to see how technology is aiding this ability to create change.

15:47

Yeah, definitely. And I think consumers are only going to demand more and more from their tour operators, hotels, airlines, whoever they choose. So if the company is not getting on board, they really shouldn't be thinking about it, if they want to even stay competitive, honestly, if so, yeah. Okay,

Christine Winebrenner Irick 16:05

so to go on, how it kind of, I think how you and I connected, and I'm trying to remember, but I think it was through the rise pilot program, you gave a presentation. And for our listeners, the Rise Travel Institute is an organization that I've definitely mentioned on the show before. But Keri received her certificate and sustainability and anti oppression travel, which, when I saw this program, my mind was just blown a little bit. I was like, Who are the brave souls that are creating and tackling this program, which I connected within seeing them right away to just be like, yes, like, I'm so excited, this is happening. And then I know you were in their pilot program, which is now their flagship program. And for anyone who gets excited after they hear what you have to say, they have their next cohort this fall, and they can sign up in June. But through this process, you really dove into responsible life as a nomad and like really started examining, what does this mean? What questions should I be asking myself? What is the impact and so I want to just open up our conversation to all of the things you discovered, the things that you want to share with people now who are curious about how they can bring these things into their own life and lifestyle.

17:30

Yeah, I'd love to and I'm also boiler alert doing I'm going to be a guest instructor for them. So I will be doing a short course with rise that's coming out in a few months specifically on this topic, just like an hour course on how to travel ethically as a digital nomad. And I'm not like an expert by any means. I just want it to be kind of a conversation where I think a lot of I mean, as we talked about before this, the rise of people working remotely and traveling is only continuing and it has been on the rise ever since COVID kind of you know, came into our lives two years ago.

So it's only going to keep growing. And I think about traveling. And the reason I chose this topic after doing the flagship program as my final project, let's say, is because most people that I run into when traveling at co working co living spaces, etc. Like it's not something on their minds, it's not something they're thinking about, they just think it's really cool, which is to be traveling and working remotely. So I would just like to love more people doing it to actually have the awareness and want to talk about it. And I would love for more. I kind of built my like capstone project or as like a presentation or conversation that potentially companies like Selena, for example, which is a co working co living space, they have locations all over the world or maybe like remote year, which we kind of touched on earlier, like these huge programs that are basically profiting off of this. I would love for them to almost create courses or to educate people that are coming through there if they want to sit in you know, maybe a happy hour with a chat or something like that.

I just think it'd be really cool if more companies that are profiting from this idea would also add this in but there's so many layers of how you could travel. I think one of the first things that was eye opening for me was just I actually spent time defining the difference between an expat versus a nomad versus a digital nomad versus an immigrant and kind of how privilege and race and all that kind of comes into play. So I think I have it here. So it's super interesting. I mean, if you don't know what a digital nomad is, and you're listening to this, it's a person who earns a living working online remotely in various locations of their choosing. Some people just call it like, location independent traveler. And then if you know what a nomad is, you know, someone who has in the past had no permanent home and they traveled from place to place like historically for livestock or farming.

And then I thought the interesting comparison was between x Find an immigrant. So according to Wikipedia, an expat is an expatriate, often shortened to expat. It's a person who temporarily or permanently resides in a country other than their upbringing. And the word comes from Latin terms. An immigrant is a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country. So they're almost the exact same definition. And I feel like the word immigrant has this really strong, like negativity around it like the stereotype around it. Usually people of color are called immigrants over people who are white. So I thought that was something to really just have people even think about it like let's sit with because a lot of digital nomads call themselves expats when they're traveling and meet so many expats that have moved to locations after you know, digital nomadic for some time, and just the comparison of those two words are so strong to me. So that was the first thing I did, which is super, like eye opening and crazy.

Christine Winebrenner Irick 20:55

That is brilliant. And one of my very favorite things is to use, like the contrast of definitions of words to understand the context of words like it's when you take two words like that, and you look at it, it creates all this awareness. And I love thinking about things like, Why does one have this negative connotation and one is almost like, glorified like a celebrated champion thing, but like you said, it's almost the same action. It's just this context. And, you know, obviously, the motivation of becoming an expat and becoming an immigrant are not the same, but the end result is fairly similar.

And the way we perceive those two sets of people is entirely different. So I think that is, I love that you started there. It is just like trying to understand who you are in this picture, who are the other people. I was just talking to someone else about the definition of travel, and like why people travel, and we always just think a lot about recreational travel. But there's so many reasons why people are traveling. And then that again, like when you talk about how travel is impacting, you know, the world or the environment you like, you have to spread your thoughts about why we travel and who travels. And I'm sure we could go down a rabbit hole. But I loved that you started there. So after you did that, where did you go?

22:25

So from there, I really I say. So the caps are the excuse me, the flagship program from Rhys breaks it down into I want to say it's 10 different sessions. So I won't go into what every session is. But what I did is I took the foundation of each session, and I kind of worked it into a presentation and related it to traveling and working remotely. So one of the next things I kind of looked at was also like power dynamics and digital nomads. So I don't know if you're familiar with the wheel of power. If you saw that, if no one is familiar with it, if you Google it, it's it's a wheel that in the center is like the height of privilege.

And then the farther you are from the center, like the less power you have less privilege you have in it, it compares you on several things from like accessibility. So are you a able bodied person? Are you a disabled person, your race, your skin color, your your economic status, etc? And I kind of said like, okay, like, let's all take a moment to compare, like where we are on this wheel of power. And then, you know, let's compare that to if you fall farther off of this, we're like farther from the center. Can you even be a digital nomad? And, and like, Can digital nomadism even exist without like, inequalities in this world?

Which is a really deep topic too. And I mean, a lot of the times the answer is no, I mean, working and traveling remotely, I've see that most people are able bodied people like we could go down the whole conversation of even accessibility, if you're a wheelchair user, a person using a wheelchair, you might have a lot harder time to travel and work remotely like all around the world.

Or if you're someone who is like blind, for example, you would also have a lot of issues as well that you run into, I can't imagine I can't think of the last time I walked into a co working co working space and they offered you know, Braille or anything along those lines, at least physically or like actively. So I could go down the whole accessibility channel of things off of the wheel of power, but then there's also just your race, a color of your skin, a lot of people I mean, I've seen it changing a lot more and more but historically even in the marketing if you Google the word digital nomad comes up with like a white, like cisgendered male so that's what you see he's working on the beach and he's chilling.

Maybe you now get some female out like marketing as well. But the marketing I think needs to change a lot around like what is a digital nomad and what have we seen think of as one And in order for it to be more accessible to to everybody and more inclusive, so I go down that path as well into marketing, which is a huge topic

Christine Winebrenner Irick 25:14

Hi, it's Christine interrupting this episode for just a quick minute to invite you to join me for my get wild in Glacier women's wilderness retreat. I'm so excited to share because last year when I partnered with my friend Becky brought up from Trailblazer wellness, we brought women to the top of a fourteener in Colorado, and knew we had to do it again. This year, we're headed to Glacier Park in Montana. I grew up in northwest Montana and cannot wait to share this treasured corner of the world with you.

You'll get to get wild and reconnect with your inner child as you hike, bike, ride horseback and whitewater raft. Not only that, Becky and I spent three months with you preparing for this adventure and creating community, you'll be excited to meet in person and share this adventure with during these three months, you'll get one on one coaching with Becky to prepare for the adventure, as well as mindset and yoga sessions led by me and education from other inspiring women about nutrition on the trail and packing for adventure, as well as learning from local educators about nature and wildlife and indigenous communities. This is a unique experience that adds so much depth to your journey. Registration for this women's wilderness retreat closes on May 20th. And our virtual coaching begins on June 6, visit the Lotus sojourns website for more information.

I cannot wait to share my home with you. Now let's hop back over to our soulful conversation. Well, and I love that, you know you look at this through the context of being a digital nomad, but it definitely goes right across the board as well, right? Like if we look at marketing in general, and travel, and if we really want to, like start getting out of control, like marketing and everything in general, right? I mean, these are what I what I really loved about this program, what I loved about your presentation so much was that you took all of these things that have come to forefront in conversations that have been difficult conversations and this like tackle them right into being a digital nomad, which I just thought was, it just was something that, you know, we're just starting to have all these conversations I and I just love how you applied it and started to get us thinking. And I think this thinking process is really the important thing. Like if you've never sat and thought about this, like, that is okay. And I think most of us haven't. And that's really the point of this conversation is to create space for those questions. And for you to be like, Oh, I've never really thought about what it might be to be someone who isn't an able bodied traveler.

Like, I haven't had to face that. So what does that mean? I have never looked at marketing and not seen myself represented. And I and so I didn't have a reason to question but what would that look like for somebody else? And I just think across the board, these conversations are happening. It's so powerful, but I really loved how you apply this to the circumstance and especially as a digital nomad. I mean, you're moving through cultures, you have this opportunity that if you are creating awareness and creating conversations, to really learn so much more and to like to examine things in a different way because you're constantly moving. And so I think it's so powerful to open the door to this sort of reflection and awareness in this space.

28:43

Yeah, and I would even add that like I think another trend that I touch on too is I think it came out of COVID I think again it's also popularity and COVID even more than it had before was like spending local like right when COVID hit everyone was like okay, like can you just support all of our local restaurants everyone that's not like corporate Oh, and you want to support and so people were bringing that over into travel they're like I want to support like the mom and pop the boutique hotel I don't want to stay at the large Hilton or whatever it may be and I want to support all the local restaurants when I travel so I think as digital nomads we have to think about that too. Like who is Airbnb?

Are you staying at? Is it owned by large property management companies that are owned by a local? What co-working spaces are you using? Are you going to like a lot of work every time you're in New country? Are you just going to a local one because there is usually a locally owned one? Are you going to the local cafes to work etc and then I also even brought it into where you stay locally can get caught like when you're in a new location as well can get interesting. I think a lot of digital nomads would say like okay, we're going to stay we want to like stay in the like up and coming area or we want to stay in the cool area or the area that's cheaper, which it's just cheaper to honest because we maybe make USD but we're living in a country that does not or we make euros or pounds or whatever it may be.

But then I like, kind of examine the whole idea of gentrification and like, are we actually just gentrifying all these neighborhoods and people? I mean, you could argue it both ways. People say, Oh, you're not really there long enough. And you are still spending locally. And but if everyone's traveling remotely, en masse and we aren't kind of there long enough, I think we've everyone's kept doing it. So I mean, I've talked to some other people about it. And I've always decided like, Okay, if we are going to travel, we should just stay in the already gentrified area. Because I don't know if I want to make it worse by looking for the cool up and coming areas. I mean, who knows what the exact right answer is, such as there's the top black and white, none of these conversations are, but that's also a super interesting thing to think about that I don't think people do often.

Christine Winebrenner Irick 30:47

Yeah. But so, like, I feel like, I feel like you and I both must do the same thing. It's when little something like lands on our plate, we're like, oh, let me pull this apart forever, and find all of the different threads within it. So I love that about the way you look at things. But I was just talking with someone about this in travel as well, as, you know, as travelers we are, you know, we're bringing ourselves somewhere.

So that means we're already creating a ripple in the continuum, right? Like, we're already shifting something and then are things rising up to meet our needs, is that process already creating something shifting? You know, culturally, like, it's, it's just so interesting when you think about it, and then you think about, you know, the privilege that you mentioned, and who is having these experiences and where we're inserting ourselves into places, and it just gets an I think I'm gonna just make this assumption of you.

But I think we're both really good at it, looking at it with a detached lens, and being able to think about it from all these different perspectives. And really, like evaluate it, I think some people would really, it would become too personal for them. And it would be really hard to detach and think about, like, what are all these different perspectives? And so, for anyone listening, if you're like, feeling a lot of resistance about any of these things, like, that's okay. Like, if this makes you uncomfortable, that's okay. Like, I think these are really hard conversations, and really important. And I think they have to get broken down a little bit before. Most people can, like, get in there. Like, I don't think everyone is ready to just be like, I want my mind blown. And I want to feel uncomfortable. And I want to figure this out. And I feel like we both are like, I'll take that. Oh, yeah,

32:37

I mean, I could I mean, listening to some amazing speakers and decolonizing travel, like workshops that are hard for me and like they shouldn't be and like the idea of like, should I even be traveling at all? Am I just continuing to colonize like the world record and dive into that? Because it's a really tough conversation. I don't think I'm not also an expert on that topic. But there's some amazing people that are so that's that's a whole nother that's a whole nother ball game, but 100%.

And on the note of even choosing a location, I think I went into that in my presentation as well. It's like, a lot of digital nomads choose like, where are we going next? They talk to other people they like, look at what's trendy on Instagram, and they look at all like the whole idea of responsible photography, and maybe like, should you be geo tagging all your like locations when you travel? And like, are you contributing to overtourism? If you are and like, also, who are you photography? Like photographing, excuse me, you know? Are you taking photos of people without their permission? Are you just like, Oh, these kids look really cool. I'm gonna take a photo of them. And then like, how are you even positioning that if you did post it? Like, what is your caption? Say? Like, what perception does that, like, whatever you've written, how does that give? Even if you don't have a lot of followers, someone's still read it and someone's still like, influenced by you.

So yeah, I feel like I wished Yeah, digital nomads are people traveling to work remotely, would just like to do a little bit more time for deciding where they're gonna go and why I think people just kind of get in this like, oh, go go, go, go go. That's the whole thing. And then we can even talk after that on reflection, because I think but I don't want to Yeah, if you want to say anything on that you can but then also, on the go, go go like, I've been traveling for five years.

And like, I go from one country to another and it's like, do I have time to reflect on the last two months that I just spent in Costa Rica, which is where I am now by the way I didn't mention that if anyone so I think so like the importance of reflection and like journaling and like taking the time to actually sit with your feelings and like think about it is also super important and and also overlooked. Whether you're doing a week long trip and just going home like are you gonna reflect on it? Or if you're traveling, especially consistently over and over, you probably don't think about which is also important.

Christine Winebrenner Irick 34:50

Yeah, and it gives so much value and adds more value to the experience, right? Like if we just have this moment that only exists in this brief amount of time. Like if you're looking at From a larger scale again, like, what was the overall value of this experience, versus maybe the cultural environmental impact that I made, if it was this quick getaway that you never internalized anything from?

Well, you know, it was great in that moment, but what about afterward, and if you are traveling somewhere for, you know, a longer period of time or short period of time, and you sit with it, and you bring it into your life, and that influences how you move forward, then I would say that is creating such a larger impact. And I think that's where travel becomes really important. And then that's where the balance, I think, becomes more even, because when we're really invested in our travel experiences, when we're really pulling from them to grow to, you know, see how we can create change to look at all these topics that we're talking about, and see how they're impacting us and others, then it seems like it's worth, you know, whatever other impact that we might be having simply through the act of traveling.

And so I think it's really valuable. When I started in the industry, I always thought the reflection was more about myself. But now as I have been in it, and have been thinking about being more mindful and traveling, I really realized that that reflection, while it's valuable for me, is what creates that external force. And it's, it's the catalyst for people that end up starting, you know, nonprofits or even begin, like saying, I'm only going to travel within the responsible travel values, or, you know, it's you have to take that time, in order for that shift to happen. Otherwise use, like you said, you just keep going from the next to the next to the next.

36:47

Yeah, 100%. And luckily, there's a lot more tools out there and like workshops, and online, again, another thing that, like, I guess, one of the silver linings of the pandemic is like things have just shifted a lot more online, and they're probably going to continue. So hopefully a lot more of these like programs or abilities to learn or like on Learn, become more accessible and keep growing like similar to the RISE program, whether Yeah, you and they even have like the amazing scholarship programs, which they offer to so financially, it's like, it doesn't seem like I can pay for another online course, like a lot of these programs are offering like sliding scale payments or scholarship programs so that it's accessible to everyone to learn to be able to hopefully shift the mindsets of travelers all over the world. So yeah, totally.

Christine Winebrenner Irick 37:34

It's amazing. I feel like that would be such a good spot to just introduce a little bit more about the work that you do when we travel. I know one of the things that I loved about what I saw from the business there was that shift during the pandemic, and the education and the content that you started creating. And we were kind of, I don't know, casually joking before we hopped on here about like, what do you do when you're a travel booking platform and a global pandemic happens? I mean, I have the same feeling. I launched my business and then like, had my one year anniversary and then went into lockdown and canceled everything. And you're like, well, like, what do we do? Are we going to try to keep this business going? What does that look like? And I loved seeing the people that started showing up in the space of education and community, which I think you did really well. I loved the content that you started creating. Can you talk a little bit about what that experience was like? And how other people, other travelers and professionals who are listening can find out about that and look at it afterward here too.

38:44

Yeah, so like you mentioned, a pandemic began. And we were like, What are we going to do? I was in sales and with the other two people also in sales or company, we can't sell anything, like there's nothing to sell, like, no one's doing it, no one's paying for travel. So I mean, we hit the ground running first and foremost was just like supporting our clients, that our existing clients in any way because just like having really tough conversations about them with excuse me with them about anything that was going on, and like all the cancellations and chargebacks that they were dealing with and trying to support their we were also supporting them right off the bat.

Like trying to support them with tools to get small business loans. And we partnered with a few companies. So the first thing we did was really just help support our existing clients. And then our sales team just kind of went into Okay, let's just start like doing webinars and or online chats like in any way we can, whether it's interviews, in short form, etc. Just to like help and keep our audience engaged because we do have a good amount of Yeah, a large amount of travel companies that use us and follow our content, what we're doing so we were like let's start creating webinars to get people engaged and it really started mainly as a tool to just keep the conversation going with our clients and it and it didn't really start around the sustainability topic. And first and foremost, we started helping a lot with things like, how am I going to get through COVID conversations like maybe online marketing conversations, how to shift your, your voice during this time, every small travel company wants to know how to get more bookings and more money. So like marketing is a huge thing, or online advertising was a huge topic. So we did a lot of those conversations. And then we joined tourism cares as a company, just a great organization that you guys can look up if you're not familiar with them. And I started diving deeper also into my own, like sustainability journey and responsible travel journey a few months prior.

And so I said, okay, if I'm going to host these webinars, or moderate these webinars for our company, like I want to do them on these topics. So we started doing them, I realized that a lot of our audience really wasn't educated on anything related to responsible travel. And there were a lot of conversations geared towards the traveler on how to be more responsible and ethical, but not towards the tour operator or like, the tour provider on how to do it. So I was like, we could like totally, this is a good way to not only promote this topic, but also like, get our clients engaged, and hopefully get them to be more aware and onboard with this idea.

So we started doing the kind of a short series of, of, you know, sustainability or one on one, like, what does it mean to even be a sustainable tour operator, and like how to get started and just like four or five quick, like ideas of where, where you can go, what you can do now. And that was a really great panel with the CEO of tourism cares. But we also had some other big names on there, like the Tribal Corporation, and I forget who else is on it now. Colette was on it as well. But yeah, we have all those, we have all of the recordings on our YouTube channel, we do. We travels YouTube channel, if you're interested in looking him up there. And then we went into more specific topics. So we did one on, you know, animals responsible, like animal tourism, I guess you could say or how to how to kind of be aware with that and your products and what you're selling to your clients, we did a conversation around how to responsible tourism in like rural and indigenous communities, we did want around accessible and inclusive travel.

42:21

We just recently did one around, like best practices for pricing your tours, but also how pricing and payments can tie into sustainability. We did that with a really cool chat around that as well. bipoc travel, and race travel, etc. So yeah, we like to start doing all these great conversations. And they will pick up momentum, we got tons of none of your existing clients to listen to. But we were getting tons of new people listening as well. And, and so eventually, you know, and it's in a small way turned into a small lead generation tool for our sales team as well, because they can reach out to these people that are joining.

And they might want to know more about us thereafter. And we've continued to have these conversations and create webinars, we're doing another one later this month, all about empowering your travel community, specifically women in travel. And it's going to be a great roundtable on how female entrepreneurs can create a community around women based travel. And so we also created the travel Academy a few months ago. So if you look that up, I think it's just wetravel.com/academy. Yeah. And from there, you can find all of these awesome, like blog posts and articles that we've written on so many different topics and how to support you as a travel entrepreneur. But also, we have all of the past recorded webinars we've done. And then we also have new newly launched courses there as well. So the first one we launched back in November was on awareness of disputes and chargebacks, and how to prevent them and just understand them better.

Because unfortunately, that's a whole other topic we could talk about. But that was a huge deal. Right at the beginning of COVID. With a lot of our clients, all of their customers were calling their credit card companies and trying to get their money back when they weren't getting a full refund. And, sadly, I think most clients don't realize that the tour operator didn't have the money. They were the middleman. They had already put the deposit down at the hotel, they had already given it to the airline, etc. So when you're disputing the charge, you're almost taking the money away from them twice. Which is a bummer. Yeah. So So and a lot of companies have ever dealt with that in mass before on this scale. So we just did like a huge course on, let's get people educated on what they are, how to potentially protect yourself from them in the future. And so that came out and then we launched. We're launching three more courses. We have a few with few other courses on there now one specifically for retreat organizers as well.

And then we have another one on how to target Gen, Gen Y and Gen Z travelers as well. And then we're coming out with three more in the next month. I want to say it's content marketing and how to better use V travel. And then also, like pricing and payments. Again, I think we're turning that into a full course like how to better price and organize your payments, but might also do one on cyber security, because that's a cool topic. We just did a webinar on how to better protect your travel company from online. So that's a long winded answer to your question. But

Christine Winebrenner Irick 45:22

We've been continuing. I love it. I think it's amazing. Because it's, I mean, you it wasn't just like this one off or two things, it just evolved into this whole other part of the business, which I think it's so valuable. Like, obviously, if we didn't have the downtime of the pandemic, you probably wouldn't have the time to have created that focus. But I think the sense of community and value that you're able to add now through this process better understanding your clients better understanding their travelers, like, so many things happened out of that, that make it now such a more valuable tool, which now it seems like why would you turn back like, this is an amazing thing that you created, I feel that way a little bit about this podcast, I would have never done it, if I had all these travels, trips running, and I was out guiding trips, which you know, don't get me wrong, I'd love to be doing that.

But I also feel like these conversations have been endlessly valuable. And the community that has come from it is also really important. And so it's just so interesting to see, it will be really interesting to look back and reflect on this period of time, you know, five years from now or 10 years from now and see what all of this connection and value and content and conversations created. Because we've done it at such a mass scale, like it would have taken a long time probably for us to start talking about one or two or three of these topics, especially around anti oppression and travel like it would have taken us some time to get there. But all of a sudden, you know, with all of the political climate and all of the things that started happening as a result of the pandemic, and the way travel started looking at themselves in the space of these conversations, it just seems like it exploded very quickly.

And so I'm just so proud of the people in this industry, who decided that they weren't going to jump in and tackle these things. And also just continued to, like, support one another and support their clients. I just, it's been amazing. And again, I like to pull back and look at this as a bigger thing as if I were not a piece of it. Like I just loved witnessing it. And so I'm grateful for companies like yours that have done that during this time. And for the sessions that you were hosting. And it's just been great. So that's just me, like telling you that I think that you're awesome. Basically what's happening. There's anything or anybody else, but