Time for a Sabbatical

It's been 7 years now of running Adventurous Wench tours, and what a time it's been!  During those years, we've been honored to take hundreds and hundreds of women on tours to cool places.  I've made friends from all over, and shared wonderful experiences...

A facebook  friend just reminded me of her birthday in the Greek Islands, when the waiter at this little restaurant ran home to get her some cake from his house.  And who could forget Margarita calling the quetzals in Costa Rica, or our opera-singer driver Massimo in Italy, or getting filmed for HBO in Times Square?  And of course, so many more... so many fun times, with so many wonderful women!

But anyone who grew up in an academic family like I did, knows that 7 years is time for a sabbatical.  It's time to get away from the normal, and do something different to renew and rejuvenate.

For me, that means it's time to shake things up!  I've had a long list of projects I want to pursue, and there's simply been no time to do them.  So it's time for a sabbatical.
We won't be running any group tours during 2011.

We may not always like it, but we need change

Questions??

Are you closing the company?
No way!  In fact, I'm using this time to grow the company in new ways.  The mission of Adventurous Wench has always been about "inspiring and facilitating adventurous travel experiences". There's a lot more that falls into that category besides running tours.  And you don't think I'd give up all those fun times with new friends in cool places, do you? 

Why are you stopping the tours?
We're taking a sabbatical from tours during 2011 in order to make some big changes.  This means pursuing new business opportunities, as well as shaking things up with our trip line-up before we bring it back.  If I could do it all at the same time, I would, but based on the past few years, I know that's not working - trip operations take so much time and attention, that other projects get left behind.

But I was hoping to go on the _____ trip next year!
I'm sorry!  I know we have people who want to take trips with us in 2011, and that made this decision even more difficult. But I'm afraid we won't be running any trips at all during 2011.

When will you be doing trips again?
After we finish our remaining 2010 trips, I expect the next trips we do will be sometime in 2012.

Will you be doing the ____ trip again in 2012 then?
One of the things I want to do is make some significant changes to our trip offerings.  When we resume running trips, I want those tours to be better than ever, with exciting new additions. While we'll still occasionally run a couple of our current favorites, the majority of our line-up will be new and different choices.

So will you ever run the _______ trip again?
If it's one of our most popular trips, there's a chance we'll do it again at some point.  However, the repeats of trips we've been doing the past few years will be dropping significantly. This means some may happen every few years, others won't be repeated at all.
Note: San Juan Islands, Santa Fe, Napa Valley, and Sedona are still available for 2010. After that I can't say for sure if or when they'll be back.  If you want information on any of these, click here...

What about my discount certificate?
Repeat travelers may have earned a certificate for a discount on a future trip.  Wait - don't toss this in the shredder just yet!  You may find a future trip you can still use it on.  Due to the sabbatical break, we will waive any expiration date on certificates issued so far, so you can still use it for years to come.

What are the new trips you're planning?
Part of what I'll be doing on sabbatical is research on this, seeking out more of the coolest destinations and activities.  We'll also be surveying all of you via our facebook page, and getting ideas and feedback from the Adventurous Wench Inner Circle folks, too.

What's going to happen to your website, newsletter, blog, facebook page?
We'll still be active on all of these, and encourage you to keep your subscription.  These will be key ways we communicate with you, both to get feedback on new concepts we're developing, and to notify you of new products when available. And of course, there's always something useful, something funny, and something good in every newsletter!

Why is the _______ trip still on your website?
This change in direction means there's a lot of work to do on the website as a result. It's just going to take some time to wade through all the necessary changes.

Do you want to sell your website?
Definitely not! I've gotten a flurry of requests for this recently, and it's not for sale.

Is this all because of the recession?
Not entirely, though it is a factor.  If business was still booming like a few years ago, then perhaps we'd be in a position to expand staff, so that we had the resources to continue existing operations and expand in new directions at the same time. That's really not a great approach at the moment, given the uncertain state of the economy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do you have other questions we haven't covered here? If so, just e-mail me (deanna@adventurouswench.com) and I'll let you know. I'll also update this post with any common questions to share those answers with everyone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~