Wanderlust Consulting

Backpacker magazine - March 2009

Globetrotter

The founder of adventure travel dishes on his favorite wild places, oddest encounters, and the world's next great trekking destinations.

by Michael Behar

In 1967, Leo Le Bon led a group of Northern California clients on the first commercial trek in Nepal, and it was wildly successful. So the Belgium-born travel agent created a company offering even more exotic journeys, and in so doing jumpstarted a new kind of tourism: adventure travel. Le Bon pioneered treks in Tibet and China, the Andes and Greenland, and introduced walking safaris in Kenya--firsts for all of these countries. Mountain Travel Sobek, the company he co-founded (and retired from in 1990), still guides trekkers to the unexplored fringe: 160 trips to 72 countries are planned for 2009. We caught up with Le Bon, now 72, just before he left for Everest Base Camp last October, with his wife and a cadre of friends, to celebrate the anniversary of his inaugural journey there 40 years ago.

How did your first trek to Nepal get off the Ground?

I put an ad in the Sierra Club Bulletin for a trek in Nepal--and got 100 replies in two weeks! Ultimately, 30 people signed up for what was the very first commercial trek in Nepal. It cost $400 per trekker, or $2,620 in 2008 dollars.

Where did you hike?

To go to Nepal in the mid-60s, you had to be on an expedition and a world-class mountaineer. There was no such thing as wandering off in the hills. So I tracked down Barry Bishop, the third American to summit Everest, and asked him to lead the trek with me. We went to Jomson in the Annapurna region. We went back in 1968 to lead the first trek to Everest Base Camp. Then, with Barry and Yosemite climber Allen Steck, I started Mountain Travel.

And it grew fast.

We immediately started expanding. In 1969, we went to the Bugaboos in Canada. We led treks across Corsica and ran climbs up the Matterhorn and Mt. Blanc. In 1980, I opened up China and Tibet, and within five years we were sending thousands of people over there. We did the first Omo River descents in Ethiopia for Richard Bangs, who started Sobek, another adventure travel company that Mountain Travel acquired in 1991.

Do you ever worry that the huge influx of Westerners you inspired has had a negative impact on indigenous cultures?

On the contrary: The adventure-travel industry has done tremendous things for all Third World mountain areas. We've improved education and health care, offered jobs, and engendered nonprofits such as the American Himalayan foundation, which conducts large-scale assistance programs in places like Tibet and Nepal.

Where will climate change hit trekking the hardest?

The locals. In Tibet, glacial retreat is impacting farming communities--they're running out of water and can't irrigate their fields. In Khumbu, it's quite dangerous. Retreating glaciers leave a natural basin behind them that fills up with water. Eventually, these glacial lakes burst, causing terrible down-valley flooding.

How has the typical adventure traveler changed since the 1960s?

Today's trekker wants an upscale experience with less risk.

What has that meant for the industry?

In the last five years, agencies selling deluxe tours have joined our bandwagon. The result is that "adventure travel" is losing its meaning. What's an adventure now? We just try to stay as grounded as possible.

What's your all-time favorite trek?

Everest Base Camp. It's the most culturally diverse, scenically spectacular trek I've ever done. You have an incredibly rich Buddhist and Sherpa culture with temples and monasteries, locals trading along the trail, and yaks with sacks of salt coming over the pass from Tibet.

Where's the next trekking boom?

Iran. Also, the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan, and the Karakoram and Baltoro regions of Pakistan. But first these places have to get a lot safer, of course.

What's your favorite place to hike in the States?

Death Valley. I love the Eureka Dunes, tucked away in a far corner of the park, and Marble and Cottonwood Canyons. Also Havasu, in the Grand Canyon. That's where I took Nadia, my wife, when we were first dating in 1983.

Any trips gone awry?

Oh, the press feeds on that sort of detail, don't they? In 1986, I led a climbing expedition to Kashmir-Ladakh in the Himalaya to climb Sia Kangri, a 25,000-footer on terrain claimed by both India and Pakistan. We had to abort our climb because the Pakistani army was lobbing shells over the peaks to our high camp at 17,500! It almost caused an international incident, but I had tremendous luck in that no one was even scratched.

National Geographic Adventure magazine - November 2008

And This Man Shall Lead Us

by Andrea Minarcek

The big idea of American adventure travel started with a small tour in the Himalaya. "Nobody had been to Nepal as a tourist," says Leo Le Bon, who led a group of doctors, engineers, physicists, and bankers--most of them Sierra Club members--there in 1967. "The country had just opened. I looked at my 35 hikers and said, 'You guys really are pioneers.'" Le Bon, a Belgian-born mountaineer, had invented a new breed of travel. "We had no idea it'd become as mainstream as it has," he says. "Like everything in life, sometimes things just happen." Here, Le Bon, who 40 years ago this year founded Mountain Travel (now Mountain Travel Sobek, one of our 50 Best Outfitters on Earth in 2007), shares his thoughts on adventure travel.

Adventures aren't for the passive. The trips should be difficult. They should test you. They connect us to the world in a way that other travel simply cannot.

It's easy to say we don't want the places we visit to change. We want to see people in their original state. But in the end, people everywhere want the same things. Now there are Sherpa doctors, dentists, airline pilots. There was no such thing 30 years ago. Adventure travel changes things.

It's not that the best spots are getting overrun by tourists... it's that the world is getting overrun by people. Forty years ago, I remember sitting in a Calcutta hotel and speaking with an Indian gentleman. I asked him what the population of India was, and he said it was around 300 million. Today, well, you can look it up, but it's over a billion.

Lucky for us, true adventure travel only appeals to a small segment of the population. We can explore new destinations. The rest of the world can go sit on a bench in Acapulco for two weeks.

Leo Le Bon Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from Adventure Travel Trade Association

http://www.adventuretravel.biz/release0106_leolebon.asp

(SEATTLE) - January, 2006 - The Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) today named Leo Le Bon the recipient of the industry's inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award. Le Bon, often referred to as the "father of adventure travel," is well-known as one of the most influential trailblazers in the industry.

"Leo's decades of dedication to the growth of adventure travel made him a natural choice for our first ever Lifetime Achievement Award," said Chris Doyle, Director of the ATTA. "Every aspect of the industry he has influenced, from partnership development to responsible tourism, has set a standard that has been adopted by adventure travel companies around the world."

Le Bon has spent the past 45 years circling the globe and shaping the adventure travel industry into one of the most desired travel options available. He began in the 1960s at Thomas Cook & Sons, where he was one of the first travel professionals to design outdoor, adventure-based travels for the Sierra Club and led groups on the club's first international outings to South America and Europe. In 1967, he led the first commercial trek to Nepal, in what would become one of the world's most desired adventure travel destinations. Le Bon went on to found Mountain Travel Inc. in 1969, today known as Mountain Travel Sobek.

There's a special kind of worldly awareness you learn when you step out on the road that is less traveled," said Le Bon. "Whether it's trekking in Nepal or dog-sledding across Greenland, adventure travel connects us to the world in a way that other travel simply cannot reach."

Since the early days of Mountain Travel Sobek, Le Bon has literally been around the world and back. Le Bon was instrumental in making adventurous expeditions accessible to recreational travelers, including foot safaris in Kenya and camel treks in Algeria. Over the years, Le Bon has trekked every major mountain range, crossed continents dozens of times and collected hundreds of stamps in his passport. On nearly every trip, he's taken other adventure travelers along for the ride.

"When Leo joined me to wander around Costa Rica in 1979, he saw the potential before anybody else," said Michael Kaye, president of Costa Rica Expeditions. "In national park guard stations and then later in his office in Albany, Leo helped devise a marketing strategy that has stood the test of time."

Though he is technically retired, Le Bon's unrelenting commitment to the growth of adventure travel carries on with his strategic and marketing adventure travel consulting firm, Wanderlust Consulting (www.wanderlustconsulting.com). Here he takes on a professional development role, helping ensure that even more adventure travel companies can realize growth and succeed.

Le Bon was recognized by NEWSWEEK in 1989 as one of the 25 prominent American innovators in the U.S. for transforming his vision of adventure travel into a possible option for travelers seeking original adventures. He is the author of three mountaineering and adventure travel books and has been the focus of several magazine and newspaper stories.

The ATTA's Lifetime Achievement Award will recognize one person annually within the adventure travel industry whose professional achievements have fueled growth for the industry as a whole. Beginning in the fall of 2006, leaders across all categories of adventure travel also will be recognized with an ATTA Pioneer of Adventure Travel Award.

Seattle-based ATTA (www.adventuretravel.biz) is a strategic membership organization dedicated to raising the profile of adventure travel globally. The ATTA, established in 1990, provides valuable services, knowledge, and connections that help ATTA members succeed in their businesses, thereby helping the industry grow.

Mountain Travel Sobek - 40th Anniversary Celebration Essays

The First American Trek to Nepal & the Birth of Mountain Travel

by Leo Le Bon, Co-Founder of Mountain Travel

I led my first trek to Nepal in 1967. We were the first party organized by an American to trek into the Annapurna Himalaya, and our group of experienced hikers and backpackers included Barry Bishop, who had climbed Everest in 1963 with the American Mount Everest Expedition. On the way to Nepal we climbed Mount Fuji, visited Bangkok, and flew from Calcutta to Kathmandu in a World War II-era DC-3 aircraft.

In 1967, everything about Asia, the Himalayas, and the Sherpas was new to us, so Barry's previous experience in Nepal was highly valued and helped us overcome our culture shock. In addition to porters, we hired a team of Sherpa guides, who served as Sirdar, or head guide, camp assistants, and cook. These legendary inhabitants of the valleys below Everest had played key roles in most major Himalayan expeditions.

Those first days on the trek were magical: We wandered from village to village, walking among giant banana trees, groves of ferns and bamboo, and 20-foot-tall poinsettia shrubs. Way above our heads towered the giant peaks of the Annapurna Range. The locals stared at us, and we at them. I gave a Gurung girl a ballpoint pen, and she tried to write with it on a rock! We drank tea and the more potent chang, the local rice beer, at wayside inns. Wandering minstrels, accompanied by three-stringed violins, sang songs of love and legend for a rupee. We danced the famous shuffle dance with the Sherpas by the campfire. One popular song praised Tenzing Norgay, Edmund Hillary's teammate and one of the conquerors of Everest in 1953, who had become a national hero in India and Nepal.

Halfway up the Kali Gandaki River, we reached the town of Tukche, in the shadow of Dhaulagiri. Here the provincial governor, riding a white horse, was being fanned by bearers with parasols. He insisted that as leader of the group I join him on a makeshift wooden dias as he presided over a town meeting. After I was covered with garlands of marigolds and seated next to him, he wanted to know if we were members of the CIA.

In 1968, I teamed up with Barry Bishop and Allen Steck, whom I'd met climbing in Yosemite and who was a pioneer on the 1954 expedition to Makalu, the first 8,000-meter peak attempted by Californians. Later that year, we formed Mountain Travel, USA, and our first trek was to Everest base camp. I have returned to Nepal many times since and explored and climbed in remote areas such as Dolpo, Mustang, Khumbu, and far-west Kanjiroba Himal. Now, exactly 40 years after our first trek and the founding of Mountain Travel, while we are celebrating, I am planning one more visit to the mighty peak accompanied by family and a few friends.

A lot has changed in Nepal since the early days, but the country remains unequaled as a trekking destination for that magical blend of high mountains, shimmering landscapes, the cultural and the spiritual, and the friendliest locals you're likely to meet anywhere on this blue planet.

Outside Traveler magazine - Winter 2005

Forever Far-Flung

by Stephanie Pearson

Nadia Le Bon, the directory of special programs for adventure outfitter Mountain Travel Sobek, knows how to get around. As a kid growing up in Milan, Italy, she spent summers hiking in the Dolomites. Fast-forward to the eve of her 50th birthday and there's hardly a spot on the planet Le Bon hasn't set foot on. Looking to refuel your own wanderlust? Find fresh inspiration from Le Bon.

OUTSIDE:: You've devoted your professional life to travel. Why?

LE BON:: I was hanging out with Italian climbers who were going on Himalayan expeditions. Through them, I met a guy who ran trekking trips all over the world. I started guiding for him, then realized, I have to quit my desk job--this is what I want to do.

What is it about travelling that you love?

It's like a natural high. I love the fact that when you're out there, your mind and body open up, and you become so much more aware of things.

Best trip you've ever taken?

My most recent best trip was Namibia. The connection with the land was unbelievable. The rocks I found, the sunsets, the colors of the landscape, the full eclipse of the moon above the desert--I felt like I was on another planet. To me, a peak experience has to have a certain amount of remoteness, aesthetically as well as emotionally.

What do you read along the way?

On my trip to Namibia, I read a book that seemed irrelevant to that country, Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion, which takes place in Canada in the thirties. There's a quote in it--"Those days really belong to the moon." And we had two weeks of huge moons at every camp. You always find references that define your trip.

Planning or spontaneity--which is better?

It's nice to have a plan; if there's a great astrologer in Yangon, why not schedule it? On the other hand, if you sit in a cafe instead of visiting your fourth museum, maybe you'll meet the greatest friend of your life.

The American Way Magazine

Life's Trip

by Ken McAlpine

No one has an insider's knowledge of adventure travel like global wanderer and sage Leo Le Bon. Read this interview only if you dare to rekindle your own wanderlust.

Travel, done right, allows a degree of enlightenment. Travel bestows demands and glories, and the traveler is changed by both, usually for the better. To weather dust storms and dysentery, to watch a Thai child smile or lightning fork Andean peaks, to know the customs of the Niger Hill people and hobnob with headhunting Pygmies is to have supped of life.

Few have dined as extensively or as enthusiastically as Leo Le Bon. In 1969 Le Bon co-founded Mountain Travel mostly to indulge two simple whims, to live and to learn. Inadvertently, Le Bon jump-started what is now known as adventure travel, a redundant phrase if there ever was one.

Le Bon's company, now Mountain Travel Sobek and the largest adventure- travel company in the world, recently celebrated its 33rd year. Le Bon is retired, but he is still regarded as adventure travel's greatest visionary, a distinction that would likely pain him more if he weren't preoccupied with continuing to indulge his own wanderlust. Because while Le Bon's own world has changed dramatically -- from dirtball climber to Adventure Travel Eminence -- the aim has not.

"It is wonderful," says Le Bon, "to leave the road on which you are accustomed to traveling."

Much can be learned from a man who has spent half a century ferreting out some of the most remote spots on the globe.

American Way: When did you first start traveling?
Leo Le Bon: I was born in Belgium, which is a tiny little country in Europe without much of anything in terms of the great outdoors. I came to New York when I was 25. I wanted to see the country, so a friend and I did one of those drive delivery car deals. We drove from New York to San Francisco. It was 1960, and gas was 25 cents a gallon and a cup of coffee at the roadside inn was a nickel. We hiked down into the Grand Canyon. That really was an eye-opener for a little guy from Belgium.

American Way: How did you end up sitting in such a sweet spot?
Le Bon: You know life is a sequence of luckies, and you have to take advantage of them. I'm the kind of person, if I see something I like, I jump. Most people think, Well, I don't know. Should I do this or shouldn't I? And the opportunity has passed. I've had all kinds of luckies. Sometimes I wonder, Wow, how come they pick on me?

American Way: Why did you found Mountain Travel?
Le Bon: We [co-founders Allen Steck and Barry Bishop] were a bunch of climbers with a bunch of dreams. Basically it was an excuse for us to have fun. If you look at our early catalogs, the trips that were in there were whatever we wanted to do. Somebody would say, "I was just in Africa climbing Kilimanjaro," and we would say, "Hey, let's do that." The idea was, hey we want to do all this stuff and go all over the world and climb mountains and explore. But we didn't have any money so we just said, "Well, let the clients pay for it."

American Way: What should the traveler pack to ensure his travels are memorable?
Le Bon: Preparation. I believe it's important to do your homework. Most people say, "Let's go to Turkey and rent a car and drive around." How can you expect to find what it is you want to do and see? Some people just want to let it happen. With me, it's the total opposite. If I go to Turkey, I'm going to spend maybe two or three months poring over maps and reading books about the place -- both novels and guidebooks. Before I get on the plane, I'm going to have a complete idea of what it is I want to do when I get there. Because if you don't, that can cause problems, especially in remote places where they don't have access to information like we do. You might come to a village and ask someone, "Where is the next village?" and the guy might not even know.

American Way: What are some of the most awe-inspiring places you've visited?
Le Bon: People always ask me that. They expect me to recount this awesome scene in the Himalayas or some fantastic South American waterfall. That's not the way I look at it. I remember emotions. What inspires me internally, at that particular moment. It may be a very ordinary place, but if you have a great feeling about it, that changes it instantly.

American Way: An example?
Le Bon: One time we were in the Algerian Sahara doing a camel expedition. We came to a small oasis and there was an old ruined fort where a big battle had been waged a hundred years earlier. I climbed up there by myself early in the morning and I just sat there for half a day meditating. In the middle of the Sahara, with these awe-inspiring vistas of nothing really -- sand and rocks and a few palm trees here and there. I'm thinking, Here I am in the middle of the Sahara, by myself in a place from another world, with nothing around me for hundreds and hundreds of miles. You have a tremendous feeling of just being, and being so elated you feel almost like you rise above the Earth. It's hard to explain. But those emotional highs stick with you.

American Way: What have your travels taught you about humankind?
Le Bon: There are two kinds of people: Those who live in a modern society, the travelers, and those who live in the primitive societies where we like to go -- the Bedouins in Arabia, or the Tuareg nomads of the Sahara, or the Bushmen in South Africa. But basically we're all the same. Excepting cultural differences, we really are all alike.

American Way: What does a lifetime of exotic travel bring to a man?
Le Bon: Well, like the Dalai Lama says, we are transient beings, here only for a short time. Things come to pass, and then things pass by, and then they come to an end. The Indians have an interesting philosophy of life. They say the first 25 years of your life, you learn. The next 25 years, you accumulate. And the last 25 years, you try to get rid of everything. The first thing you give back must be your brain. I'm 68, and because I've done so much, people say my life must seem long. But it's just the opposite. It's like a flash, and it's gone. I am left with fading memories. That, and about 100,000 slides.

American Way: What is your first rule of travel
Le Bon: Get away from windows. The window of an airplane, the window of a bus, the window of a car. Get right in there with the people. Once we were in India, heading for a trek to the source of the Ganges. We were driving in a bus and we came to a village. There was a wedding with street dancers and music and dust and women singing from the rooftops. And I jumped right out of the bus and joined right in with the dancers. We ended up meeting the bride and the groom, and the father of the bride invited us to stay for tea and cookies. Of course, some people are shy and that just won't work.

Not long ago my wife went to Angkor Wat [Cambodia], seeing the temples. I saw them 30 years ago. A friend and I rode bicycles through all these old temples, and it was really awesome because we were like the only people there and we almost got lost when it got dark. I asked my wife how she'd seen the temples and she said, "Oh, I had a private car with air-conditioning and a driver and a guide." I said, "Oh my God." I told her she should have just rented a bicycle. But she said that was impossible now -- too many people, and she was a woman by herself. But see, that's the difference.

American Way: Has adventure travel killed that very thing?
Le Bon: No, I don't think so. Overall, adventure travel has had an incredibly beneficial effect. It's changed tourism and the way a great many people view the world. There are still a lot of buses with tour guides with the little flags, and that's OK. But I've had many clients tell me that adventure travel has changed their lives.

American Way: Do you have other concerns?
Le Bon: There are people out there who would like to see all the mom-and-pop adventure businesses consolidate, and I think that's a mistake. This is not a business that should be run by large corporations concerned only with the bottom line. I think it should stay at the mom-and-pop level, where there is still idealism. That's the beautiful aspect of adventure travel, and I hope it can stay that way.

American Way: What about impacts on once-remote areas?
Le Bon: There are instances where areas are being overused and overrun. The Galápagos comes to mind. Far too many people are going out to the Galápagos. A lot of people are concerned that too many people are visiting Antarctica, too. In Nepal, too many trekkers have had the Sherpas cut too many trees for fires. Now all the trekking groups that go into these areas, they need to take their own fuel. I think overall adventure travel is far less guilty of destroying the Earth than regular tourism. We don't build big hotels, we don't ask for roads to be built. But we're not perfect.

American Way: What's on the horizon?
Le Bon: Adventure travel has become something quite fantastic. Now there are literally thousands of adventure-travel operators all over the world focusing on their little neck of the woods. It's a worldwide revolution. There are so many specialty companies now -- skiing, ballooning sea kayaking, whitewater rafting, spelunking. But vision is lacking. Many companies are all doing the same kind of trips. But I will tell you, there is plenty more. I believe the possibilities are just as endless now as they were 30 years ago. Adventure is in the mind of the beholder, inside of all of us, what we decide to create. I don't want to go into details, but I'm working on a project.

American Way: A last word?
Le Bon: Think of a place you want to visit, study it, pull out the charts and the maps, and pack your rucksack and a sleeping bag and put on your boots and off you go and see the world.