We had the good fortune of connecting with Julie Singh and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Julie, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
My husband Reet and I spent 15 years in Corporate America and traveled in our free time. We love exploring the outdoors and are avid bikers, paddlers and snowboarders. We took vacations to spend time doing what we loved outside but yearned to be able to get outdoors more. While on an outdoor vacation, we saw an opportunity to make it easier for people to book outdoor adventures. Many people don’t know where to start to get outdoors, and it’s difficult to find information, compare adventures and book them online. We left our Corporate jobs in 2017 and moved into our RV with our cat Juke to travel the country and discover the best outdooor adventures to share on our new platform TripOutside.com. We spent 5 years meeting with outfitters and guides, finding the best outdoor destinations and adventures, and adding them to our platform. We have hand-curated all of the adventures on our platform, and have visited many of the destinations and taken a lot of the adventures. We are thrilled to be using our corporate experience to build our own outdoor company and at the same time focusing on our passion- outdoor adventures and helping to get more people outdoors.

What should our readers know about your business?
TripOutside makes it easy to plan and book verified badass outdoor adventures. We strive to get more people outside to connect with and love the outdoors, and as a result, work to protect it. We are driven by what we believe deeply in:

Human Powered: We feature only sustainable, human powered outdoor adventures. We believe in minimizing our impact on the environment through silent sports and non-motorized outdoor recreation. Let’s burn calories, not fossil fuels!

Conservation: Our vision is to bring more people outdoors so that we can work together to take action on protecting our natural places. We are a proud member of the Conservation Alliance, Leave No Trace and 1% for the Planet.

Leave No Trace: We wholeheartedly embrace, support and educate on Leave No Trace principles. We are passionate about leaving our natural places better than we found them – whether on a trail, at a trailhead, crag, campsite, river, lake or beach. Leave no trace principles are more than just litter, check out the 7 principles by the Leave No Trace organization.

Inclusion in the Outdoors: Nature does not discriminate on gender, race, age, physical ability, or the amount of experience outdoors. We welcome and encourage newcomers to the outdoors and work to ensure that there are activities offered for all activity levels. We strive to make outdoor recreation less intimidating for all, and make booking epic outdoor adventures EASY.

Be Kind: We encourage a deep respect for nature, wildlife, our environment, fellow adventurers on the trails, the citizens of the places that we visit, and for the people that work to help us all get outside.

Support Local: We cherish the local communities we feature, and we partner with local outdoor businesses in these communities to put money back into the community and support the people who call it home.

Lessons Learned:

Entrepreneurship isn’t easy, but it’s incredibly rewarding. There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not thinking about the business, strategizing, brainstorming, planning and executing. It’s hard to step away from it, it truly is my baby. We are working most of our waking hours, and I think most entrepreneurs can relate. The never-ending feeling that there is more work to be done can be hard to deal with, especially when we are in incredible outdoor destinations! The good part about our business (and the reason we started an outdoor adventure business) is that it also allows us to get out and experience the destinations we are featuring. We focus on curating the shops, guides and adventures we feature for our customers. To keep ourselves sane, relieve stress and get away from work for a bit, we try to get outside and explore every day – even if it’s just a short hike. Then we plan a bigger adventure like mountain biking a couple times a week. We are truly passionate about helping people get outdoors, and the conservation of our wild places – so that definitely helps. We also use nature and the outdoors to help us clear our heads, relieve stress, and get our creative juices flowing!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We are new residents of Colorado – after traveling in our RV and building our business from the road for 5 years we settled in our favorite place that we visited – in the heart of the San Juan mountains north of Durango near Purgatory ski resort. We have been exploring the best trails, adventures, and watering holes ever since. We take our visitors just outside our door to hike or mountain bike the Engineer trail and enjoy live music and a wonderful patio at The Nugget bar afterwards. On day 2, we head up to Silverton to hike the gorgeous Ice Lakes trail and grab some Italian food at Coal Bank Trattoria afterwards. To beat the heat, we head to the scenic Haviland lake to kayak and stand up paddleboard with the stunning Hermosa cliffs as a backdrop. The nearby Schoolhouse Cafe serves up the best pizza, calzones, Ska beer, and conversations with the friendly locals in north county. Finally, we head down to Durango for some fantastic local shopping along Main St. and plenty of delicious eats and drinks at one of our favorites: Steamworks Brewing, Switchback Tacos, or the food trucks at 11th Street Station.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
We are incredibly grateful to the SCAPE program (Southwest Colorado Accelerator Program for Entrepreneurs)! We are honored to be a member of their 2022 cohort and are so grateful for all of the mentorship, resources, support and encouragement they have provided to us in growing TripOutside. We are new Colorado residents, and are so appreciative of the incredible amount of resources for startups in this state, especially for outdoor businesses.

Website: https://tripoutside.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/trip.outside

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julieesingh/

Facebook: https://facebook.com/tripoutside

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