Zephyr Blog

Every two years (for the most part) we at Zephyr Adventures have a weekend Guide Training with all our US guides. The goals are equally to have fun, reinvigorate our spirits for guiding, and improve our skills. A few weeks ago, we conducted this year's Guide Training in the Tampa area of Florida. We chose Tampa in part for the good weather (it was much better than the forecasts predicted), in part because we run a tour there that uses some great paved trails, and in part because long-time Zephyr guide Mike Merriman is based there and could help with local logistics. Ten of us gathered from across the United States. We rented a nice house on the waters of the Gulf Coast, cooked meals together, had a few drinks, and sang a few songs. We skated on the bike paths, ate in local…

Last night as I was driving home from an indoor soccer game I heard on the radio that Nelson Mandela was in a hospital in South Africa with what the BBC announcer said might be a "collapsed lung". I, along with 50 million South Africans, got a pit in my stomach. The good news this morning is that Mr. Mandela was released from the hospital. As the headline read, the nation of South Africa breathed a collective sigh of relief that the 93-year old would still be among us. If I had to pick one hero, it would probably be Nelson Mandela. And if I had to pick one shining success story in our world, it might be South Africa. Think about this: Nelson Mandela spent 27 years of his life in prison and, when released, proceeded to take over power from the minority white government without…

The December 6th news article said "Tennis legend Martina Navratilova embarked Monday on her attempt to summit Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro in an effort to raise funds for the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation , a charity helping disadvantaged youth worldwide through sports-based projects." Sounded great, even though the publicity stunt of hitting tennis balls off the top was a bit much. Navratilova sounded aware of the issues, saying she was "petrified" of failing to reach the summit "because then the whole world will know.""I know I'm in good enough shape to get to the top, but will the altitude get me? That's something you can't predict until you get there." She's right and, unfortunately, the tennis star did not make it to the top. She had trouble breathing while on the…

This past weekend we at Zephyr Adventures ran the world's first Beer Bloggers Conference. It was, in my opinion, a rousing success and quite fun to boot. To take a step back and give you a little history, in the spring of 2008 I was trying to think of ways to market our new active wine tours. I knew blogging was big and there were at least hundreds of people who wrote about wine on a daily or weekly basis via blogs. Since there was no easy way to contact all these folks, I decided to create a Wine Bloggers Conference in conjunction with our partner Joel Vincent, who had come up with a similar idea at the same time. That first Wine Bloggers Conference sold out at 180 participants and was instantly a much bigger concept than any marketing idea we might have had. We knew we had…

Do you know what an Alexa rating is? The website Alexa.com ranks all websites on the internet in terms of popularity, starting with Google (#1) and working down. Ratings are determined based on the number of visitors per site and decrease to sites in the range of the 20 millionth most popular site on the Internet. Many other sites are simply not ranked. Why is this important? It gives you an idea of whether a site you are reading actually has many visitors. For example, let's say you search for something on Google (say "does eating corn starch make me overweight?") and you click on a site that addresses that exact question. If the Alexa rating of that site, however, is 12,458,943, you know they aren't getting very many hits at all and this might affect the site's credibility. After…

Yesterday I sent an email letter to all alumni who have traveled with us over the years. I wanted to provide an honest, personal account of how the recession has affected us, our recent diversion into blogger conferences, and our plans for the future of Zephyr Adventures. Wow. What a chord I apparently struck with our tour participants. I received many, many emails in reply (about ten times more than our normal emails to alumni) from people who appreciated the communication, empathized with the effects of the recession, and wished us well for the future. I personally think Zephyr Adventures is an example - an example of how the recession can really hammer small businesses, an example of how American entrepreneurship will always see our country through, and how the economy is most…

I received an email today from Eloise, who just returned from a hiking tour in Mt. Blanc with her husband and daughter. I met the three of them when I was helping guide a Fit Health Into Life trip in Tucson for the company run by my girlfriend Devon. I was in New York last week, unfortunately for a funeral, and met a very outgoing and enthusiastic gentleman, Mark, who was catering the post-funeral event for his company, Mark of Excellence. Mark mentioned he wanted to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and when I told him I had just been, asked my advice. Just a few days ago, we purchased the Inca Trail Pass for Liz Miller, one of our long-time US-based guides. Liz will be guiding our Peru Trek in October. How do these three events relate? They all have to do with you, if you are…

Over the years we frequently have been approached to create private tours for a group of friends, a social organization, or a business. When these work, they are super fun. 90 of the time they don't work because they the group never gets organized. caption id="attachment 168" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="American Women of Berkshire & Surrey" caption Earlier this month I ran two private group tours in Europe. The first was a Provence biking tour for the American Women of Berkshire and Surrey , a social group of American women living in the London area. This group has traveled with us for three years in a row and while the group members change each year, the trip is always fun. The Provence tour followed on the heals of an Umbria, Italy tour in 2008 and a Rioja, Spain…

I love Europe. I often think I probably should have been born a European rather than an American. It is not that I don't love the United States but just that I seem to fit better into the European style of living and thinking. I am in my hotel room in Ponte San Giovanni, Italy, on my final night of a one-month European trip before I fly home tomorrow. It has been an excellent trip, in which I ran three fun biking tours (two in Provence and one in Umbria) but it is time to go home. I miss sleeping in my own bed, having a beer with my friends, and watching a movie while snuggling with my girlfriend Devon. But missing home doesn't detract from the joy I have had in spending another month in Europe. Let me explain to you why I love Europe by describing my final evening here in Italy. I…

I am sitting in my hotel room in Avignon, listening to the sounds of an accordion player trying to make a living and watching locals and tourists alike stroll through the ancient streets of this stupendous town. Provence is wonderful and we are on our last night of a six-day bicycling tour. The days have been filled with fantastic riding; visits to wineries, a specialty cheese shop, and an olive oil mill; and wandering through fantastic small towns including Chateauneuf du Pape, Gordes, and Saint R my-de-Provence. At night we enjoy long, three-course French meals accompanied by Provencal wine of the local area. The only disappointment, for our three tour participants, my co-guide Giovanni, and me, was that out of our group of 11 planned participants, eight had to cancel at the…