How do you design group travel
for independent travelers?
Building Atlas Obscura's new travel department.
OVERVIEW
Opportunities like this don't happen twice
When I was 25 years old, I had the opportunity to build out a new product line for Atlas Obscura—a group travel offering. After initially kicking off with a standard white-label model, I worked to bring everything in-house. Instead of outsourcing to destination management companies, I began co-designing each of our travel experiences with individuals and small organizations across the globe. Within three years, our annual trip lineup grew from 12 to 165, and our NPS soared from under 10 to over 60.
About Atlas Obscura
Atlas Obscura is a travel and media startup with a mission to inspire wonder and curiosity about the incredible world we all share. Today, the brand encompasses an online magazine, best-selling books, brand partnerships, events, online courses, and group trips.
PROBLEM
Product, partnership, and cost structure
It all began when a small travel intermediary pitched a traditional, white-label group travel offering to Atlas Obscura’s then-CEO. However, while the first few trips filled up quickly, the reviews were painful to read. We had disappointed some of our most loyal followers, many of whom weren’t willing to give us a second chance.
These 40-person, cookie-cutter itineraries led by interchangeable tour guides were a terrible fit for our audience, a brand built upon a pursuit of the unusual, unexpected, and for lack of a better term, “off the beaten path.”
On top of that, the financial arrangement didn’t make sense for us. We were giving away half the profit margin for work we could do ourselves.
COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
An untapped demographic
Before permitting me to overhaul the current system, our CEO needed to be convinced beyond me saying “We can do it so much better!” So, over a three-month period, the two of us worked together with a team at Columbia Business School’s Small Business Consulting Program (SBCP) to conduct extensive landscape research and competitive analysis.
When the results came in, they provided a resounding YES in favor of bringing our product in-house. Travel was a booming category, and there were plenty of examples of similar brands successfully launching group trip offerings catered to their audiences. But more importantly, we’d identified an almost untapped opportunity: group travel for people who wouldn’t normally opt for (or submit to) group travel. Could we reach this demographic?
But more importantly, we’d identified an almost untapped opportunity: group travel for people who wouldn’t normally opt for (or submit to) group travel. Could we reach this demographic?
STRATEGY
Defining our brand
By this point, it was clear what wasn’t an Atlas Obscura trip. But now came the harder part: What was an Atlas Obscura trip?
After a year of what I’d now label prototypes, it was time to put a set of design principals down on paper. Together with my new colleague, a travel industry vet, I drafted what I considered our core values, plus a checklist for the key elements of an Atlas Obscura trip. After several rounds of workshopping, we shared these criteria with our partners, codifying clear requirements for every trip in our repertoire.
Over the next year, we developed a full set of brand guidelines, which included our purpose and brand pillars, traveler personas, and lots of operational nitty gritty. While the department has continued to evolve, these guidelines are still in place today.
PROCESS
Rebuilding from the ground up—with a focus on the individual
Our first three white-label trips took place in the final quarter of 2016. In January 2017, we ran our first Atlas-conceived trip, centered around the Surva Carnival of Masquerade Games in Pernik, Bulgaria. Everyone in the group felt like they’d experienced something they would never have known about, let alone known how to plan, on their own.
From there, I began overseeing both inbound and outbound prospects for new trip leaders and organizers. In my very first conversation I would always ask: What kind of trip would you design, if you could make it about anything?
As I built out new partnerships, I was also creating budgets, pricing the trips, drafting all marketing copy, running our dedicated newsletter, and overseeing our customer service (which I loved).
GUIDING PRINCIPALS
Write postcards, and lots of them
Ultimately, redesigning our group travel offering boiled down to a few critical components:
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Give people experiences they can’t access, find, or maybe even find out about on their own.
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Tap into Atlas Obscura’s vast existing network to find subject-matter experts, career-switchers, and unconventional trip leaders capable of and interested in designing and/or leading a trip.
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Approach every partnership with the goal of establishing genuine trust, interest, and appreciation, rather than as a transactional exchange.
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Build a culture of curiosity and adventure right at HQ. If we weren’t having fun creating these trips, why would our travelers have fun going on them?
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Celebrate our travelers and trip leaders at every opportunity—few things beat a handwritten card.
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We redistributed millions of dollars through the power of responsible travel, and we sent hundreds and hundreds of postcards to our travelers and trip leaders.
IMPACT
Connection, connection, connection
Over three years, our team grew from one to eight. I trained and onboarded two customer service staff, as well as two more trip designers. We entered a new partnership with Airbnb, which led a critical round of investment. We offered two co-branded offerings with NYT Journeys. We launched the Conservation Storytelling Fellowship, a one-week trip with professional mentorship for students pursuing science communication. We redistributed millions of dollars through the power of responsible travel, and we sent hundreds and hundreds of postcards to our travelers and trip leaders.
My favorite part of it all was connecting people around the world—librarians, lichenologists, and scholars of post-Communist architecture—with those curious to catch a glimpse into the unusual, inspiring, and unfamiliar. In an era when people report feeling increasingly lonely and isolated, our trips offered an extended moment of community and togetherness, often lasting well beyond the final farewells.
On a more personal level, each trip served as a reminder that there is, and never has been, one single way to live.