We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Carol McMahon . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Carol below.

Carol , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

The idea for this business actually started way back with my husband and I having met, married and moved to the beautiful, but tiny little town of Friendsville Maryland. We purchased a lovely old Victorian on the banks of the Youghiogheny River that had been empty for 40 years, and at first, opened the Windrush Gallery, a place for local, contemporary artists to showcase and sell their work. This was fun and fulfilling and dovetailed nicely with our photography business and still allowed us time to get outside and experience the thrill of whitewater rafting, hiking, camping, horseback riding and anything else we could think of. This area, Garrett County in Maryland, is an outdoor lover’s paradise.

My husband had been a photographer since his early twenties and his love of nature shone through his art and promotional photography. So, we hung his art on the walls, and we worked on promotional design pieces for other area businesses.

However, by the time we were expecting our daughter Caileigh, we knew it was time to leave the gallery behind and go back outside to where we belonged full time. We could not see telling our baby, no don’t touch over and over again in her own home and we both knew the value of being in nature. as both of our backgrounds involved working in the outdoors, leading trips, and working at camps, we thought we could use those skills to help others, especially families get outside, feel safe and learn to love the natural world as much as we did.

We believed there was definitely a niche here for a more gentle approach into nature, adventure and the great outdoors and we carved out a pretty nice one, taking people kayaking on a beautiful, pristine, mountain.lake, teaching them how to snowshoe and leading them into virgin hemlock forests, hosted weekend retreats that would include, learning some basic survival skills, climbing mountains, making art, doing yoga, kayaking, and talking and singing around a bonfire. On our talk about ways to avoid hypothermia, how to use a compass, the leave no trace principle, the local flora and fauna, what things we can all to help make the world a little better, how we can help save the natural world and why that is important, and so much more. We partnered with our friends at Backbone Food Farm and create an incredible experience at our Farm Day Camp – an organic day camp for kids. We have also partnered with other professionals to bring people Yoga to You, Our Birds of Prey Program and A fabulous Snake and Salamander hunt/hike. We felt that this was our calling, that getting people into nature was what we were here to do. That was many years ago now, and we have succeeded in getting many, many people out having fun and connecting with nature since then.

My husband, Crede Calhoun, passed away this past August, after a very brief illness. It was and still is a huge shock to us all and changed our business in a big way. He was our lead guide, truck driver, website designer and photographer. His images always made us look good. After some reflection, and a lot of tears, I made the decision to keep our dream alive but now it would be just me running things and that was incredibly scary. I formed All Earth Eco Tours as an LLC, opened new banks accounts, and got pointed in the right direction by some kind professionals. I have met with the Office for Economic development, the local small business development center and our Chamber of Commerce Representatives. I am now a business owner; this is now a woman owned business. It’s a little surreal. I know so much, but so very little too so I am using those resources to learn how to make a business plan, budget and make sure I have all my ducks in a row. It’s a lot. Sometimes I feel Like I’m drowning, but I am determined to succeed.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

So many of us our stressed out, depressed and worried about so many things. I believe that one of the most important things that we do for people is to help them reconnect with nature and experience the healing that can be found there. Studies now show what we’ve known all along, show that time spent in green spaces has a positive impact on our physical health and psychological well-being. We believe nature is a vital part of a happy and a healthy life.

We help people get outside and feel safe in natural environments so that they can truly benefit from their time spent there. Most of our tours are two hours; funnily enough the precise amount of time needed to get a dose of nature high enough for people to feel healthy and say they have a strong sense of well-being is 120 minutes; 2 hours. and our guests tell us over and over that this is how the feel when they’re done: happy, relaxed, at ease.

I think I am most proud of the fact that we carved out this niche here, taking people out to the more remote areas of our beautiful county and to experience the more unique things, the quieter things, the meaningful things, as in our connection to nature and each other.

We offer kayak tours on a peaceful, calm mountain lake, guides hikes and walks along rivers and streams, a farm day camp for kids, Yoga to You programs, Birds of Prey programs and a reptiles and amphibian fun learning program. Experiential learning, fun learning, fun, it’s all the same. Everything we do is in an absolutely beautiful place, and we pair that with providing professional guides who are competent, capable and good at helping people feel at ease. it is important that our guests are treated well. Many return year after year and have become part of our All Earth family.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

We live in a tourist destination area, so our best source of clients is of course, these wonderful tourists. Generally, people come to the Deep Creek Lake area for a week or so at a time, and our day trips and tours fit nicely into their schedules. This is an incredibly beautiful area and people love getting out and getting away from it all, whether they want to paddle in paradise or participate in any of our other nature experiences, we provide them with quality programs and excellent customer service. We try to handle all of the little details, so they can leave their troubles behind.
Because, people are travelling to this area, usually doing at least some planning prior to arrival, we try to make sure we have a strong web presence and that is our most reliable source for customers.
This is something I am now learning too. SEO and Readability, who knew? We do have a good number of followers on Instagram and Facebook, and I am pretty good at keeping up with a daily post, story or reel. We are lucky to be surrounded by so much beauty, which makes that part a little easier.
.
Being a member of the local Chamber of Commerce is an important aspect too as they can help not only with local distribution of print advertising like brochures, but also help with connection on the web.
We print a much smaller number of brochures than we once did and display those for pickup locally to the Visitors Centers, Rental Agencies, hotels, restaurants and area attractions when we can.

With hard work, we’ve grown our business by providing excellent customer service, providing fun and exciting activities, and excellent customer service and developing a reputation that people can feel good about recommending us. Word of mouth is always one of the most important aspects to advertising.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Meeting my husband, moving to the United States from Canada, starting our lives together, our businesses, our dreams, having my daughter; all of these were life changing events, causing me to pivot. Of course, the biggest challenge so far and one that I will never fully recover from is losing my husband, my partner, friend and sounding board so quickly and although he was very, very ill, his death at the time was quite unexpected. Going from we to me and wondering just how I’m going to keep going has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do; way harder than I could ever have imagined. I thought about just leaving it all behind me, but this business was not just his dream, it was ours and I have decided that yes, I want to continue. Changes will have to be made, small things that seemed easy before, now seem almost the hardest. This year I will have to hire guides and not just have one who is always available and always reliable built right in. I will need a not too new but not too old truck that is safe and easy for these new guides to drive and will have to retire our vintage 1970 F250 Ford pickup that requires a tall person doing a full body workout to drive. I’ll need to coordinate and oversee things I never had to before. I will need to learn how to navigate all kinds of new things at a stage in my life where I believed I had it pretty well mapped out.
Am I up to this challenege? I can say yes and be terrified that the answer is no all at the same time.

Contact Info:

• Website: allearthtours.com
• Instagram: allearthtours
• Facebook: All Earth Eco Tours
• Yelp: All Earth Eco Tours

Image Credits
Crede Calhoun Leon Dubanksy Carol McMahon Calhoun