By Everett Potter

About 14 years ago, a guy named Shannon Stowell arranged to meet me in New York City. We talked for an hour or so about adventure travel and an organization that he was reviving called the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA), which is responsible for the yearly Adventure Travel World Summit (ATWS), a gathering of the adventure industry and its extended tribe in exotic locales all over the world (this year’s will be in Tuscany). On that day, he asked me to become one of the orginal board members of the ATTA and I accepted. It was a great decision, in large part because of the many amazing people I’ve met in the adventure travel space since that day in 2004.

Cut to 2018, and the ATTA has grown to encompass a wide and embracing definition of “adventure,” I did my five year stint on the board and Shannon, don’t you know, just did a TEDx talk in Bend, Oregon.

Anyone remotely interested in the future of adventure travel or indeed any kind of travel would be smart to take a few minutes of their day and watch it. Kudos, Shannon!