“We are not tourists. We are a family of travelers.” This is what our Vietnam guide said about us on a recent photo expedition. And it’s one of the things I like most about this Great Escape community.
Rachel, who I met this past week at our workshop in New Orleans, plays the cello. Noreen has been saving lives for the last 30 years as a nurse. Patti was in politics. And Kurt will go anywhere there’s good food — he was a chef before he was a travel writer.
As for me, I was raised with a family full of prison guards. My dad was the captain, and all my brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins worked at the local jail.
We all come from very different backgrounds, but we all have one thing in common…
We don’t like traveling as typical tourists on bus tours. We want the chance to learn and grow from new experiences. And we like travel that changes us.
And if you’ve ever joined us on an expedition, you understand this firsthand, of course.
Our trips are different, and I like that. They’re so much more than a packaged tour or a city tour you might find through a travel agent. We travel like family. We adjust our schedule on the go to make sure we have the best time possible… and we get the best photos and stories to share and sell when we get home.
I think that’s why we see so many attendees come back to us again… and again. Folks who have made friends here… who’ve found success taking photos on our trips and learning how to craft travel stories… folks who want to do something more fun and active than just sitting in a bus, looking at the world flash by.
Wherever you want to go, whatever you like to shoot, the good news is that there’s a market where you can sell your photos and stories. We don’t keep our insider knowledge locked in a vault for our own advantage. We share it with our attendees on every trip… because our whole mission is to see you succeed. That’s something that makes us different, too.
Tomorrow I’ll send you some pictures from some of my favorite trips.
[Editor’s Note: Learn more about how you can fund your travels and make an extra income with photography, travel writing, blogging, and more in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel. Sign up here today and we’ll send you a new report, Five Fun Ways To Get Paid To Travel: A Quick-Start Guide, completely FREE.]