Dave Skibinski ticks of the components of an adventure tour, “Transportation, lodging, meals, gear…”
Adventure is the backbone of everyone’s bucket list, but logistics keep many at home to live their adventures vicariously through television. The task of coordinating a trip becomes a barrier between would-be adventurers and time outdoors scaling mountains, shooting the rapids and exploring caves deep underground. Skibinski, through his business Live More Adventures, removes this barrier. “Just show up,” he tells his clients, “I’ll send you a packing list of clothes … everything is taken care of.”
Live More Adventures offers multi-experience tour packages and creates custom tours for groups. Each tour package combines outdoor adventures, such as backpacking, rock climbing and white water rafting, with what Skibinski calls “soft adventures,” tastings at a local craft brewery or homemade pasta cooking classes.
Before starting Live More Adventures, Skibinski held a job in finance and internal audit. “They treated me well,” he says, “but the job was not personally rewarding.” He enjoyed putting together ski and rafting trips for his friends and, in 2014, left corporate life to make organizing adventure tours his full-time work.
Live More Adventures launched in Hoboken, New Jersey, and recently opened a second location 20 miles Northwest of Lake George in Wevertown. The purchase of a saltbox-style lodge in the woods by Mill Creek represents an evolving business model for the business.
Based across the river from Midtown Manhattan, most of his business came from city-dwellers seeking an Upstate adventure. He arranged transportation from Hoboken, reserved lodging and booked activities in the Adirondacks and Ski Trips to Killington, Vermont. By creating packages and offering spots to the public, individuals could join a larger group, and as many as 30 adventurers would fill each tour.
A small Hudson River rafting trip — he brought only eight people — had him rethinking how he did his tours. “It was super intimate. You got to hear everyone’s stories.” Part of his mission at Live More is to connect people, and he found small groups make for a deeper, more fulfilling experience. However, he wasn’t sure he could make small groups work financially as he would lose the economy-of-scale advantage of larger groups. Then he bought Llama House.
He purchased the Wevertown house in 2017, named it Llama House (the company’s logo is a surfing llama) and outfitted it to serve as a base for his Adirondack adventure tours. Owning the lodging made small group tours viable. The bedrooms feature pegs for hanging gear and trail maps hang on the walls. Modern conveniences are not ignored. Cell phone chargers are located by each bed.
LIve More Adventures Llama House
Throughout the house, tree trunks, de-barked and varnished, serve as posts, giving the house a rustic feel. Skibinski doesn’t subscribe to a TV service, but the lower-level Adirondack Room has a projector, which is used for movie nights. Llama house can accommodate up to 11 guests and so far has been the base camp for bachelor parties, bachelorette parties and company retreats. Its Wevertown location puts it only minutes away from Hudson River rafting outfitters and Gore Mountain Ski Area.
While developing the Live More Adventures concept, Skibinski traveled to South America. “I joined tours to see what was down there, which operators worked well and which didn’t.” He tells the story of hiking the trail up to Manchu Picchu. Local porters carry the group’s food and equipment on their backs in large packs, and they prepare the meals. Skibinski says he was amazed by the artistry the porters brought to food preparation and presentation after a day of hiking up a mountain trail with a heavy load. He returned home realizing he wanted to offer similar cultural experiences along with outdoor adventure.
He also realized it doesn’t take an airplane to experience these types of adventures. Standing on the deck of Llama House, Skibinski surveys the surrounding woods. “Everyone goes to Guatemala and Costa Rica because they’re awesome, but that kind of trip can be had up here … We buy local, eat local, why not adventure local?”
Food is an important part of the experience. Skibinski shops local farmers markets for supplies and gets fresh eggs from his neighbor. He plans to add a garden to the Llama house yard and is working on plans to incorporate apple and berry picking into some of his tours to provide the ingredients for a pie-making activity, possibly as part of a yoga retreat.
Skibinski doesn’t do it alone. “I’ve built out a really talented team,” he says, which includes his dog Penny and 12 fellow adventurers who bring a range of skills to the organization. Skibinski divides his time between Hoboken and Llama House. He continues to offer downstate residents transportation to the Adirondacks as part of a weekend package, but he does anticipate drawing more business from Warren County. The location of Llama House makes it convenient for Lake George area residents and visitors to join a tour.
“Adventure isn’t just about adrenaline pumping activities, it can also be sensory like craft beverage tasting or going to a lavender farm.” — Amanda May Metzger, Lake George Regional Chamber of Commerce & CVB
Adventure travel is big business. The Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) reports that international adventure travel has shown a compound annual growth rate of 21 percent since 2012. The global “soft” adventure market — hiking, kayaking, backpacking, rafting, ecotourism and cultural tourism — is estimated to be worth $745 billion, and some of that is being spent in the Adirondacks.
ATTA’s annual Adventure ELEVATE conference is coming to Lake George June 10 – 12, 2019. “This conference will bring a mix of adventure travel tour operators, journalists, influencers to the area with an attendance estimated at about 350 people,” says Lake George Regional Chamber of Commerce Marketing Director Amanda May Metzger. “We plan to highlight the entire region with this event from culinary experiences to river rafting — offering attendees different degrees of adventure.”
When adventure-seekers look to the Lake George Region for new experiences, Dave Skibinski will have spot for them at Llama House. “You travel around the world,” says Skibinski, “not appreciating the good things at home.” By taking the hassle out of planning an adventure get-away, Skibinski makes it easier for people to, as the Live More Adventures tagline urges, “Get out here!”
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Thanks for the shout out for the ATTA Conference coming to the region next year! Keep up the great writing/coverage!