The Adventure Factory: Manufacturing Epic Group Trips

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Mike from The Adventure Factory, a group travel company that connects adventure-seekers and amazing trips. There’s no place for “vacations” or "holidays” in their world, instead, they’re all about epic experiences and challenging what is possible in travel, while also giving back through a charitable element in all their trips.

Read on to learn more about The Adventure Factory, how they got started, and what mind-blowing adventures they have coming up next!

Hi Mike! Can you tell us a little about you and Max, the founders of The Adventure Factory?

Max and I met in 2012 while sailing in Croatia as the MC’s of a floating yacht festival. We hit it off right away and after a 7 day/7 country trek through the Balkan counties together, we have been going on non-stop adventures ever since. Our travels have taken us to a combined 120 countries and when we are not working in adventure travel, you can find us either hosting a stage somewhere in the world or working on tour with artists like Katy Perry, Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Bon Jovi, or even Oprah.

How did The Adventure Factory begin?

Max and I originally had the idea to start the company in 2013, while dangling from a zip line high above the Sacred Valley of the Incas during a trek to Machu Picchu. We both had a massive passion for adventure travel and this trip was enough to convince us that we would do this for a living or die trying (literally)!

So what's unique about The Adventure Factory?

We are strong believers that the places you visit are only as great as the people you experience those places with. We work tirelessly to ensure the people on our trips are positive, enthusiastic, and just down to earth bad-ass people who you would want to be lifelong friends with. In addition to the community, we build itineraries that have literally never been done before and cannot be experienced without our company. None of our trips are run of the mill and you cannot find another company offering the types of experiences that we try to create.

If I went on one of your trips, what could I expect?

This is a very simple answer - the most incredible week of your life, with equally incredible people, in the world's most incredible destinations!

We take our guests to some of the most remote places on planet earth and enable them to form special bonds with the locals and their fellow travelers. We push them to the edge of the comfort zone and encourage them to take one step outside of their ’box’. We find that people who put themselves in this space voluntarily, eventually find out what they’re made of and come back from our trips more confident, fulfilled, and with more pride.

From a quality perspective, we aim to deliver a 10 out of 10 service. One of our mottos is “All of the adventure, none of the hassle.” Meaning, we provide all of the amenities and activities that we feel our customers would want if they had unlimited time and energy to create their fantasy trip. All they have to do is show up and be ready for adventure - we do all the rest!

So what kind of people book trips with The Adventure Factory?

Generally speaking, our guests are between the ages of 25-45 and have a very positive approach towards life. Of course, they have an undying thirst for adventure, but they also tend to be the kind of person who cares about the cultures we’re visiting and the environment we’re stepping into. They are the type of people want to test the boundaries of what is possible in life and who value a real journey that pushes their limits. They are looking to grow, learn, and experience things in a very intimate and unique way.

Most of our guests would have extensive travel experience and feel comfortable in what others may consider uncomfortable environments. If they are looking for a typical holiday, they are not booking with us… we try to find those people who want to spend their time doing things others only dream about!

What do you see as the most unique thing about your group trips?

Our ability to envision trips that have never been done before. We push the boundaries of what is possible and aim to create a program that is truly one of a kind. If you ever find yourselves on one of our trips thinking, "I would have been able to do this myself" or "I wish I had done this by myself" then we are doing something wrong!

We also build a charitable or humanitarian element into each of our trips, because we want to be able to give back as well as take from the earth.

What does the future look like for The Adventure Factory?

Being a start-up, our current focus is to deliver quality trips with quality people for the foreseeable future. Of course, Max and I have a list of our lifelong ‘dream trips’ like chartering a tall sailing ship to Antartica or leading an expedition into the Congo to search for Gorillas, but many of these grandiose trips are cost-prohibitive so we will have to wait a few years until we can bite the bullet and make them a reality!

How has WeTravel helped your company?

The last piece of the puzzle for us before launching our company was securing a payment gateway. A friend of ours who uses your site for his ski trips recommend we check it out and within 5 minutes, we were sold! Not only did it offer everything we wanted as a payment platform but it also did so much more! Truth be told, your site nearly could have replaced our entire webpage.

WeTravel site has all of the bells and whistles you could ever want as a small tour company or as an individual who wants to lead a trip. The site is stable, responsive, and getting our money out is super simple! The only thing better than the site is the customer service. When we needed help, the CEO himself took an hour out to listen to our concerns and treated us with the utmost respect.

Can you tell us about what Adventure Factory trips you have coming up?

Based on the success of our trips in 2017, we have launched four adventures in 2018! On our first trip in July, we will take a small group of heroes across Peru for what we’re christening as ‘Machu Picchu Mash-Up.’ A 9 day shred through Peru from Sea to Sand to Summit using 9 different exhilarating modes of transportation.

The following week (and for those who have not gotten their fill in Peru just yet), we will be heading up to Iquitos for our second Amazon Armada adventure where we will be rafting 100km down the jungle and sleeping in award-winning Amazonian lodges!

Two months later, we will roll out our legendary Morocco Mirage adventure and take people through a whirlwind of emotions and terrains as we travel through the Atlas Mountains, the Sahara Desert, and the Beaches of Morocco.

To wrap up the year, we will be launching our inaugural trip to Nepal under the banner ‘Himalaya Hiatus.’ On this trip, we will be journeying through the Annapurna range in a way never done before while also getting a cosmic dose of spirituality and serenity.

In the end, it's all about the having the adventure of a lifetime!