View From Afar S1, E25: The Business Case for Purpose-Driven Travel: Lessons From Intrepid’s CEO

How do you build a travel company that prioritizes purpose over profit—and still succeed? For James Thornton, CEO of Intrepid Travel, it starts with transparency, ambition, and a commitment to local communities.

In this episode of View From Afar, he chats with Afar director of podcasts, Aislyn Greene, about how he’s steering one of the world’s most beloved adventure travel companies through challenges like overtourism, climate change, and the evolving expectations of modern travelers.

Transcript

Aislyn: I’m Aislyn Greene and this is View From Afar, where we spotlight the people and ideas shaping the future of travel here at Afar. Our mission is to make travel a force for good in the world. We lean into local experts; we highlight sustainable businesses and modes of travel. And in this era of overtourism, we’ve really worked to help travelers get off the tourist trail. And we love companies that share that mission.

Companies like Intrepid Travel, the Australia-based adventure travel company that for the past 30 years has been helping visitors explore new-to-them destinations, all the while digging beneath the surface of a place. Our guest today has spent two decades steeped in this way of thinking. James Thornton is the company’s first non‑founding CEO. He’s been with Intrepid since 2005 and was appointed CEO in 2017.

Since then, he has helped to ambitiously expand the B Corp–certified company, all without sacrificing its values. In our conversation, we dive into Intrepid’s 2025 Not Hot List, an annual roundup of emerging destinations. We also explore how the company identifies destinations that are ready for sustainable tourism growth, and we discuss what it really means to be and remain a purpose‑driven travel company in an industry that’s grappling with its impact on the planet. James also shares how Intrepid is expanding into and adapting to the American travel market, its increased focus on codesigning experiences with both women and Indigenous partners, and the high value he places on customer transparency.

Well, James, welcome to View From Afar. It’s so lovely to meet you.

James Thornton: Absolutely. Super nice to be with you today too.

Aislyn: Yeah. Well, I was reading a little bit about your career, and you had such an interesting career pivot. Can you tell us what brought you into the travel space?

James: My background was private client asset management coming out of university, and that’s a posh way of saying I was going to spend the next 40 years of my life making rich people richer. And I quickly realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do. And I had two passions in life at the time. One was travel, one was sport. Not good enough to play professional sport. So I was fortunate enough to stumble on a very small, privately owned Australian adventure travel company called Intrepid. They mainly, at the time, took Aussies to Southeast Asia. They were expanding into the U.K., looking for a sales rep. I didn’t have any of the qualifications. In fact, they didn’t actually give me the job. They gave the job to someone else. It was only because that person rejected the job that I got it. So I was lucky enough to join Intrepid 20 years ago as a sales rep and fortunate to have grown and worked my way through the business. Since that time, I’ve been the first non‑founding CEO of Intrepid for about the last eight years. I became CEO in 2017, so it’s been a real honor to kind of grow the business up until the point of the pandemic, navigate through that. And now, yeah, we’re on a really good growth period, and it’s fun to be there.

Aislyn: Well, congratulations. It seems like you really found your path in life. And we’re going to hear about all of those successes in a moment. But I wanted to start with the news, because in mid‑September, Intrepid released its 2025 Not Hot List. It’s an annual roundup of emerging destinations, so I’m curious to know, What are some of the really exciting and notable places on that list? And how is Intrepid supporting travel to them?

James: Like, it’s always—it’s one of the most exciting times of the year at Intrepid. We’ve had the Not Hot List going for quite a few years now. It’s our kind of counter to overtourism, which feels like 95 percent of people are going to 5 percent of the world’s places, and there’s so much beauty out there, and tourism can have so many benefits in terms of supporting local communities. So this year’s Not Hot List has some really exciting ones.

My personal favorite is the island of Vis in Croatia. I’m actually married to a Croatian lady, so I had no influence in this, I must have to say. But, you know, you see in the news headlines Dubrovnik and Hvar being really consumed by the number of tourists in destination. But this is one of the more remote islands on the Adriatic coast. You couldn’t actually access it before the 1980s because it was a military zone. So, as a result, it’s got a lot of submarine tunnels that are hidden away. You can go swimming in those submarine tunnels if you’re brave enough. I’ve done stand‑up paddleboarding. Wouldn’t jump in the water there, but it also has a very limited number of accommodations on the island. So it’s a great opportunity to go and see the beauty of Croatia and the islands without all of the crowds.

And that’s kind of exactly what we look for when we try and create the list: Where is somewhere that’s accessible, that’s vibrant, that has the right infrastructure, but just hasn’t, for some reason, had the number of people visit? Another, a bit more out there: We’re excited that we’re going to be launching a trip in Sierra Leone. So it’s the Tiwai Island, which is a UNESCO Heritage site. Sierra Leone recently launched a landmark 10‑year tourism strategy, which is a bold plan to attract international travelers and recast the country as a leader in ecotourism. So we’re excited to be operating our first trips there. And the third one that I’m personally really excited about: Intrepid is about to open its first-ever office in Central Asia. We’ve seen lots of demand in Central Asia. Our office will be in Uzbekistan, but the place we’ve put on the list is the Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan. Ninety percent of the country is covered in mountains that have long been traversed by nomads but relatively untouched by adventure travelers. So, yeah, it’s really exciting to be promoting new destinations like that. An interesting fact for your listeners: Kyrgyzstan is one of only four countries in the world with one vowel in its name. So there you go—name the other three at some point.

Aislyn: I love that. Can you tell me a little bit more about how you create the Not Hot List? Because as I understand it, you draw in your personal data and you factor in things like low tourism, but it seems like you also look at, Is this place ready for tourism? Do they want this? Are they actively putting plans in place? So how does the list come together? And then how do you actually create trips around that?

James: Yeah, completely. Tourism readiness, or willingness and ability to host more travelers, is obviously a critical part of putting the list together. At some point, sending people to places that aren’t ready or sustainable for travelers to visit is irresponsible. This is something that our experienced team is thinking about year‑round, but it really comes together over about a four‑month period to launch, and we did it in partnership this year with Globetrender, which is a trend-forecasting agency in the U.K. So we use Globetrender alongside our internal team of more than 100 people who are building our experiences. We usually start with about 20 destinations.

And, critically, we’re assessing three key factors when we’re working through. One is tourism readiness, which we just talked about. The second one is low visitation, often compared to similar or nearby places. And I gave that example earlier that I think Vis only welcomed 24,000 people in 2024. Meanwhile, Hvar, one of the more famous islands, welcomed 120,000 visitors. So low visitation is going to be important. And the third one is, it’s got to be new for 2026; new initiatives making travel easier, more accessible, or more exciting.

So if you go back to our list in 2024, last year we put Greenland on the list because it was getting a new international airport, so the infrastructure was going to be there. Typically, when you went to Greenland, it was by cruise, whereas we were able to tell the story through local people on the land. So yeah, that’s how we try and narrow it down to those 10 destinations. It’s always an exciting job to do.

Aislyn: It does sound like that. I’m really curious to know how all of those trips perform and who those first Intrepid travelers are. And it’s a way that I feel like Afar and Intrepid are so aligned, because we are so focused on overtourism and supporting other travelers to destinations that want tourism, as well as helping people get off the tourist trail in the hypervisited places.

James: Well, we actually find this interesting: Those trips where we’ve got the more out‑there places like Sierra Leone or Kyrgyzstan are always destinations that really loyal Intrepid travelers jump on. They’re always just looking for the new places that they can visit with us. You know, they might have done 10, sometimes 15 or 20 trips. And so I remember, for example, when we launched Madagascar or Comoros Islands, the trips just filled up immediately with some very loyal Intrepid customers, so I’m sure it’ll be the same again this year.

Aislyn: Yeah, well, I would love to know more about your customer base because I feel like with Intrepid in the name, I would assume that most of your customers and your clients are intrepid people. But who is the Intrepid traveler? How would you describe them?

James: Um, look, we don’t focus too much on demographic. It’s much more psychographic from our perspective. The reality is that the core customer is a university‑educated single female in her mid- to late 40s who has a professional job but limited free time to be able to get out and see the world, but wants to do so in the safety and security of a group. So women are predominantly the primary decision‑makers when it comes to travel. We’re seeing a really significant rise at Intrepid in female solo travel, and also just the importance of the safety and community that Intrepid provides for women to be able to access our trips. It’s a very important piece. The second major group is Baby Boomers, 50‑ to 60‑something. Kids have left home. They’ve paid off the mortgage. They’ve got the money. And to be honest, after working hard for 30 years, they want to get out and have some great adventures, and they don’t really want to do so wearing a lanyard with 50 other people; they want to do it in a more immersive local small‑group way. And the third group that we’re seeing lots of growth and interest in at the moment is the younger millennial or Gen Z clientele. Because while that might sound counter intuitive in the sense of the cost‑of‑living crisis, we’re finding their prioritization of experiences to be really significant. The ability to buy a house or save up for it is more and more challenging, and this generation is really prioritizing experiences. They want to get out; they want to do things that their peers might not have access to. And the beauty of an Intrepid trip is that you have a local leader taking you around, showing you all those hidden places. Of course, we take you to the iconic sites, but we take you to the places you probably wouldn’t be able to find yourself online. So that gives those customers the ability to share those experiences through their social channels and kind of boast about these next adventures. So that’s the typical Intrepid traveler.

Aislyn: Got it. That’s a great, really diverse, and fun mix.

James: Absolutely.

Aislyn: Well, you mentioned that you have a lot of women who book the trips and are on these trips, and I know that we have reported on this kind of staggering rise in women‑focused trips, and you have championed that as a company. And we covered one of your women‑only trips. So why do you think we’ve seen this growth in this market, and what’s next? And how have your consumers responded?

James: Yeah, I think one thing I’d say about this: This is a really good example of an initiative that doesn’t come from me, doesn’t come from our cofounders, hasn’t come from our leadership team. It actually came from one of our experiences managers. She identified an opportunity whereby we could create some specific women’s expeditions where women would get unique experiences in a destination they wouldn’t be able to get in a mixed environment. We started operating the trips just prior to the pandemic—I think it was about 2018—and we launched with three places. I think it was Jordan and Morocco, and it might have been Iran. Because they’re traditionally Muslim countries, there is some separation in terms of male and female experiences. And the wonderful thing about these trips was that we could take our customers onto experiences that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to if they were traveling on a traditional Intrepid trip. And it just really caught the imagination. It was at a time we were doing a lot of work around doubling the number of female tour leaders, and I think just that extra sense of safety, of security, of community, of traveling with other people with even more similar interests to yourself really took off. So the number of trips expanded significantly just prior to the pandemic. Obviously we had to navigate the few years afterwards. But we’ve had them back again recently, and they’re getting really good traction. And I think more specialization around people’s interests is often a real motivator for travel. And that’s what we’ve seen with these expeditions.

Aislyn: Yeah, absolutely. Is there a story that you’ve heard that stuck with you from someone who’s gone on one of your trips, maybe one of your trip leaders or an employee?

James: Oh goodness. So many stories about all the different things. I mean, this isn’t directly related to our women’s expeditions per se, but I’m a big Intrepid traveler myself. I’ve been very lucky over the course of 20 years to get away and do lots of adventures, and I was able to take my mom on a trip to Morocco last year. It’s a really special time to be able to travel with your parent if you’ve got them, because you often don’t get that opportunity to share different experiences together. I remember being up in the High Atlas Mountains, which were still recovering a little bit from the earthquake that took place a couple of years ago, and we were able to have a tea‑making experience in a local person’s home and hear the narrative about how they live their life, how they go to work. The traditions around tea making were absolutely amazing. One of the beauties of Intrepid—that connection we get when we’re traveling together with different people—is we’re often staying connected post‑trip on our WhatsApp groups, and that WhatsApp group from our Morocco experience is still alive and well. And often we’d refer back to that beautiful tea experience in the morning, having trekked up the mountain to be part of that person’s home and community. So I think that’s the beauty of the Intrepid experience: taking you to unique places you might not otherwise find yourself.

Aislyn: Absolutely. And such an intimate moment that you would not, like you said, have access to as a typical traveler on your own. Well, I want to go back to destinations for a moment, but before we do, one of the things going back to your experience team is that you’ve worked with Indigenous communities in recent years to codesign trips. So I’m curious to know what led to that and how you’ve seen tourism impact some of those communities.

James: Yeah, we have our roots strongly in Australia. I have a rather strange hybrid accent now, growing up in the U.K. but living in Australia for 20 years, and one of the things that Australia maybe hasn’t been as proud of as some other nations is its relationship with its Indigenous communities. At Intrepid, we’ve seen a really powerful opportunity to tell stories and narratives in relation to history, culture, and belief systems. It’s indelibly marked across Australia, and being able to share those experiences with our travelers gives Intrepid a unique opportunity to show customers something they might not get on the traditional tour. In Australia, we have committed to something called a Reconciliation Action Plan, which outlines a series of steps that we as a company have committed to take. We’re now on our third stage of our Reconciliation Action Plan, which is a stretch plan—the most committed stage that any business can do. I think we are one of only three or four tourism businesses in Australia to have done that. Part of what we’ve done is the embedding of First Nations experiences into our trips. Across our portfolio and network of trips, we have around—I don’t know the exact number off the top of my head, but I’m going to say about 50 Indigenous experiences that are unique to Intrepid, where we’re able to tell the narrative of the history, the people, and the culture. It’s one of the key things that people take away as one of the best parts of traveling with Intrepid, and it’s something we also do in many other parts of the world in which we work—in New Zealand, Peru, Japan, or wherever it might be. It’s especially meaningful to us in Australia, particularly as a majority Australian‑owned and -headquartered business.

Aislyn: Congratulations on doing that. So two follow‑up questions. One, you mentioned that you’re on the third stage—where do you hope to take that? And two, have you seen more demand for those experiences from travelers in recent years?

James: Yeah, we’ve definitely seen demand because I think our Australian domestic business is up about 40 percent at the moment. Interestingly, in Australia—which is probably different to most other parts of the world—Australia is now in our top five destinations domestically. Half of the customers are domestic travelers. Typically, Intrepid has focused on outbound travel, taking Aussies, Kiwis, Brits, Europeans, Americans, and Canadians outbound from their home countries. But what we found with our focus in Australia is the building up of our domestic programs. That’s linked a little bit to the fact [that] we bought the Daintree Eco Lodge in far northern Queensland a couple of years ago. We’ve now bought Edge of the Bay Resort down in Tasmania, which is an iconic location in Coles Bay, where you can walk to Wineglass Bay, which often sits on top 10 lists. But yeah, 50 percent of travelers in Australia are domestic. So it’s a big focus and part of our business in Australia. And I think something we’re thinking about more and more when we think about American travelers is that, again, typically we’ve taken American travelers outbound. The opportunity to give Americans experiences here—particularly around the national parks, backcountry walking, getting to Yosemite and Yellowstone—is important to us.

Aislyn: Are you expanding at all in 2026? Because I know you have a significant number of trips, but what’s your vision for the American domestic market?

James: Yes, I think as a business we’re always expanding and looking to operate new and innovative itineraries. But in the case of America, it’s more about hoping for a bit more of a stable year in terms of domestic travel, because unfortunately there has been some disruption from a climate perspective this year. We’ve had a couple of summers where it’s been difficult with the fires in and around the canyon, and that’s obviously pretty devastating. So we’re doing a big activism campaign at the moment with our national parks in America—wanting to encourage more Americans to get out and experience. It’s a big year for America next year with America250 and the World Cup coming to the country as well. So yeah, we’re expecting to hopefully get more Americans out into their own backyard, having great adventures.

Aislyn: Well, we’ve talked a lot about values, and that’s clearly a big part of what Intrepid does. Afar is actually just wrapping up its B Corp application. It’s taken a very long time, but you completed that in 2018 under your leadership. So how does that status guide your decision‑making, and what challenges have you run into over the years? What doors has it opened?

James: Yeah, I think Intrepid has always felt that we have been a very purpose‑ and impact‑led organization. The very nature of our trip experiences has us making sure as much money as possible stays with local communities. When we came back under the private ownership of our cofounders in 2015, we set out an ambitious plan: one, to grow the market for sustainable, experience‑rich travel; and two, to prove that we could operate a business that had a very strong purpose but also delivered commercial success.

There’s an old‑fashioned idea in business that you can’t be commercially successful if you’re purpose‑led and vice versa. It’s very easy to measure growth—customer engagement, people engagement, revenues, profits—but how do you prove you’re a purpose‑led business?

We wanted an independent, challenging, aspirational accreditation, and we settled on B Corp methodology. We’d always looked at purpose‑led businesses like Patagonia or Ben & Jerry’s as inspiration. We set out on that journey in 2015; I naively presumed we’d make it happen within three to six months. Having gone through the process, it is really challenging, and so it should be. It took us three years to get certified. At the time we had about 23 legal entities. Since then, we’ve gone through two further recertifications—recertified in 2021 during the pandemic with a 10‑point score improvement, and recertified again last year with another 10‑point improvement.

What we like about B Corp is that it provides a framework and road map to continue to be a better organization for our customers and people; to try and limit our impact on the local environment and hopefully have more positive impact on the communities we visit; and to give us a governance framework to build the business around. So yeah, it’s been pretty transformational for Intrepid. We’re really proud to be part of the community. We know it needs to continue to evolve and improve, but that’s why we did it and why we feel so strongly about it.

Aislyn: I love that, and I like that idea of—as you said—it’s aspirational. What is—there’s that idea that if a goal doesn’t give you butterflies, it’s not worth doing. It feels something like that: Maybe we’re not there, but we want to set these benchmarks for ourselves. So how would you say that Intrepid’s purpose or mission has evolved over the years, or has it remained true to that original idea?

James: I think ambition is one of our four core values, and we take our values pretty seriously. Intrepid did a review of them recently and reduced them down to four: ambitious, impactful, real, and together. We really try to live by those in the good times and the bad. When you think about our purpose, the core fundamentals of what we’ve done since we started Intrepid are about supporting local communities, using local accommodation, staying with local transport, and trying to make people aware that while we might have differences by race, religion, ethnicity, or gender, we ultimately have more similarities. We obsess about the importance of human connection.

So in that sense, our purpose hasn’t changed. What has changed and evolved over time are the initiatives we want to support and stand by—for example, animal welfare (we were among the first tour operators to ban elephant rides in 2014), the banning of visits to child orphanages, and the work we’ve done through our foundation, the Intrepid Foundation, which has just ticked over $20 million in donations raised and dispersed.

We’re always looking for ways to evolve and improve our purpose and impact outcomes. We’re quite open as a company: We share our good results and our bad results, and that extends to our purpose outcomes. We’ve shared our animal welfare guidelines and our 10 steps to decarbonize your travel company. We want to take the industry along the journey.

On decarbonization, there’s about a third of the industry actively engaged in trying to make improvements, a third that want to but don’t know how, and a third burying their head in the sand. We’re trying to influence those companies through advocacy, positive storytelling, and clear examples so people know how they can improve and come on the journey. So purpose and impact for us at Intrepid are always evolving, and we’ll continue to do so.

Aislyn: And the transparency part, I think, is really important. If I remember right, I read that you at some point wrote about having ridden an elephant and then used that experience as a way to talk to people, because in those moments, it becomes less about shaming and more about everyone evolving. Do you have any other examples of times where you feel like you’ve been transparent with something you’ve learned?

James: Yeah, I think any CEO that hasn’t learned anything along the way hasn’t done a very good job. Any CEO that hasn’t made mistakes hasn’t done a good job either. The elephant one was a good example—humanizing that.

Twenty‑five years ago I rode an elephant, and 10 years later, after research, we were very aware it wasn’t the right thing to do, and we wanted to change and evolve the industry. That was risky at the time, but placing big bets and relying on our community and customers to trust our decision‑making, given we’d done the research and told the story effectively, was a powerful thing. I think we changed the industry as a result.

Another area where I probably made mistakes was early in the pandemic. We were six weeks into the pandemic; cash was rushing out the door. We were getting requests to refund revenue from all the bookings we’d done in the six to nine months prior. We had no forward revenue coming to the business and a big overhead base in communities around the world that relied upon us. We were a bit frozen in those first six weeks as we tried to navigate. One decision I made was that we wouldn’t make refunds available to customers. I heard very loudly from our community and customers that that wasn’t the right call, and I wrote a very open letter toward the end of April 2020 to explain why we made that decision, to recognize it probably wasn’t the right call, but to appeal to customers that by retaining their money with us, it would allow Intrepid to continue to do the good work into the future.

One thing I’ve learned more and more as a CEO is the importance of open communication and being human about the things you do well and the things you don’t do well. I hear far too many CEOs at big conferences telling you about all the big, bold, wonderful things they’re doing; it often lacks empathy and humanity. At Intrepid we believe in being real, and we try to live by that every day. We don’t always get it right, but we try our best.

Aislyn: Well, and you clearly have so many repeat travelers, and I bet that trust and transparency is a big part of that. How did people in general respond once you wrote that open letter? I think it’s still on LinkedIn.

James: Yeah, you’ll be able to access it—we’ve kept it on the Intrepid blog so anyone can check it out. I think it’s a good lesson: Put yourself out there. Great companies are ones that stand for something; they design products for certain people in certain ways, and great companies shouldn’t appeal to everyone. If you try to appeal to everyone, you probably appeal to no one. How did people respond to my letter? I think people who liked Intrepid loved Intrepid even more, and people who didn’t resonate with Intrepid probably had their reasons reinforced. That’s OK with us. We continue to grow nicely and strongly and make impact. We want to continue to be brave, to be bold, and to push for a better world and a better business.

Aislyn: It’s very inspiring. How do you balance your mission and values with growth and the ever‑changing travel market? You seem good at pivoting to what’s coming next and seeing changes in the marketplace and responding to them. How do you do all that?

James: For Intrepid, everything always comes back to two things: values and mission. It might sound a bit cliché, but the first is values—the four I mentioned—and the second is our mission: to create positive change through the joy of travel. So it doesn’t matter what is going on in the world politically, environmentally, socially, or with climate—we always want to respond in a way consistent with our values and true to our mission. That’s how and why we do what we do.

Aislyn: And the people.

James: Definitely the people. One thing you learn as a CEO is the best thing you can do is get the best people around you. We’ve been fortunate to attract incredible talent. My CFO is from an ASX‑100 listed company. We’ve got an incredible general counsel. We’ve just hired a great new communications lead in North America who comes from one of the big OTAs. You get great people into your business, set a strategy, and then get out of the way and watch them do great things.

Aislyn: Yeah, I love that idea of getting great people and letting them work their magic. What is your advice for people who might want to one day lead a company? You’ve been with Intrepid for years, and in 2017 you were named the company’s first non‑founding CEO. Do you feel that deep company experience helped inform your leadership? Do people need that to steward a brand this way?

James: Maybe all of those things. It was never my grand plan to become a CEO of a company. I wanted to join a company aligned with my values and mission and that sold a product I believed in. I’ve been very fortunate over the course of time to make some better decisions than bad ones and to learn from mistakes.

A couple of tips: getting diversity of experience is important—try different areas of the business. I grew up in the south side, spent time in product and commercial marketing—broader exposure helps you be a more valuable team member. As you become CEO you need to be a specialist of everything and an expert of nothing. Also, geographic experience helps: we have 30 offices around the world, and having worked across different cultures has been advantageous.

I started my career in the U.K., moved to Australia, went back to the U.K., then returned to Australia and worked across the world. The way we do business in the U.S. is different to Australia or the U.K. and very different to working with people and partners in Asia, Latin America, or Africa.

I’d encourage aspiring leaders to get as many different experiences as they can. The other thing: I grew up watching a lot of sport and learned by watching others—the traits I liked, the traits I didn’t—and adapted them into my own style. Then be prepared to make decisions and mistakes.

Aislyn: Absolutely. I like modeling yourself after players on the field.

James: Trying to.

Aislyn: I would love to close with looking ahead. I know no one has a crystal ball, but what are your predictions for 2026, both for Intrepid news and the broader travel market?

James: For Intrepid, some core trends we see will continue. We’re seeing a real shift in travel in Europe: July and August are showing weakening demand because of heat, crowds, and cost. We’re seeing significant demand building in the shoulder seasons and the shoulder season extending. Typically Intrepid would open European programs in April and close in September; we’re now seeing them open as early as February and close in November, and we’re running some programs year‑round. Another trend is growth in people looking to cooler climates—Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland—as climate change progresses and people seek destinations not reliant on air conditioning.

Wellness continues to be important: demand for walking, trekking, and cycling programs is strong as people prioritize physical and mental well-being. We expect a rise in alternative destinations as a response to overtourism. Broader‑wise in 2026, I expect travel for community and connection to be central—countering loneliness by enabling human connection. Intrepid wants to get people off their mobile devices and meeting people in real life. Short trips that are big on adventure will be prominent—we’re about to launch a range of 30 short‑break adventures, particularly aimed at American clients with limited paid time off. Time‑strapped travelers will seek those big adventures.

Aislyn: I love it. And the big question: What is your vision for the future of Intrepid?

James: Looking to 2030 and beyond to 2035, I want to make small groups the next big thing in travel. Our style of sustainable, experience‑rich travel is still under‑understood; people are familiar with coach touring, cruising, independent travel, or resort stays, but not always with immersive small groups over 7 to 10 days. Debunking myths around that will be important. I want to build Intrepid to become the largest adventure travel company in the world, continue to rely on our 90 percent locally owned supply chain, and open more offices around the world.

As I mentioned, we opened Copenhagen earlier this year, we’re opening an Uzbekistan office next year, and you’ll see us open an office in Patagonia soon. We want to make sure our trips continue to create wealth for local communities, ensuring hundreds of millions of dollars stay within those local economies. We want to show that purpose and profit can truly work in concert—a model that is commercially successful while making a real difference in the world. That will keep us busy over the next few years.

Aislyn: Thanks so much for joining me today for this conversation with James Thornton of Intrepid Travel. In our show notes, you’ll find links to Intrepid’s 2025 Not Hot List, as well as to their open‑source B Corp guide, which is designed for people who want to see how purpose‑led practices can help their businesses. We’ve also linked to James’s pandemic‑era open letter that he mentioned, which remains a compelling read for anyone interested in crisis leadership.

Ready for more Views From Afar? You can find us at afar.com and follow along on Instagram and TikTok—we’re at @AfarMedia.

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Rating and reviewing the show also helps other travel professionals discover these conversations. This has been View From Afar, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by myself and Nikki Galteland. We’ll see you next time.