We were lucky to catch up with Jami Savage recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jami thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

After a year of sharing my family adventures on Instagram, I was starting to get the same questions a LOT:

* How do you take kids hiking?
* Aren’t they too young to learn to snowboard?
* What is your favourite hike in Vancouver?

So after spending hours responding to requests, I decided I’d save myself time and start a blog. I NEVER dreamed it would turn into a full time business, nor that I would get paid to travel the world!

Jami, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I was five years old when my family went on a road trip from Alberta to British Columbia. We fell in love with Vancouver and never went back. (Literally: My parents faxed their bosses, sent movers with keys, and we bought a home here!)

This adventurous start to life set the foundation for years of camping, hiking, mountain biking, snowboarding, and exploring. Whether our adventures are based right here in our beautiful province, taking us across Canada, or even around the world, we love getting outside and connecting with the places we are visiting.

In 2014 I started Adventure Awaits, a Travel Blog that educates and inspires others on how to use their travel dollars as a catalyst for positive change. Through travel, we have the responsibility to leave places better than we find them, to transform ourselves and the people we connect with. I am passionate about eco-tourism through transformational travel and have brought our readers stories worldwide.

This November we will celebrate our ten-year anniversary. Over the past ten years, we have grown from a blog into a social media presence and a TV personality. We’ve won awards for photography as well as being named a finalist in the Travel Industry Association of Canada’s – Media Member Of The Year for 2023

We look forward to a future filled with sustainable and regenerative travel and are honoured to be champions for telling that story.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

9/10

That’s how many times I was turned down when I first started my business.

“You’re not big enough”
“You don’t have the right following”
“We don’t have the budget at this time”

I’ve heard it all. But when you’re first starting you have to embrace each and every no as a lesson and ask yourself:

“What did I learn from this transaction?”
“What can I do better?”
“Is there another way to work together”
“Is this something I can circle back to in the future”

I transformed each “no” into a learning opportunity, learning the lessons that were needed and building my network. And as I did grow my business I started to hear way more “yeses” than “nos” and a LOT of the people that I had reached out to when I was just starting out did circle back and hire me in the future!

The lesson, it’s okay if you don’t convert 90% of the time. Build out on the 10% and keep at it!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The power of boundaries.

I wish when I was younger I had learned how powerful boundaries can be. Not only do they protect you and your work, but they also set up your partners to succeed, ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Unfortunately, I had to learn this the hard way, letting people take advantage of the people pleaser in me, not knowing my value, and being taken advantage of, again and again.

Now I go by the mantra “Clear is kind” and ensure that all of my contracts with clients are concisely laid out, that clear boundaries and deliverables are set, and this process has saved me hundreds of hours in work and improved the overall quality of what I deliver.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://adventureawaits.ca/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adventureawaits.ca/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AdventureAwaits.ca/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/adventureawaits/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/famtravelwriter
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCViwMFv_gQQL_hjCMijRbcg

Image Credits
Amazing Day Photography https://www.amazingdayphotography.ca/