Greetings from Chile! Our global glamping quest hits its fourth continent, and we couldn’t think of a better place to start our 2.5-month South America journey than the Adventure Travel World Summit in Patagonia! Hosted by the @adventuretravelassociation. the largest global network of adventure travel leaders, this is much more than a conference; it’s a week-long event to learn, play, connect, and mobilize for a better travel industry.
This year, 700 adventure outfitters, eco-lodges, tourism boards, travel advisors, conservationists, and 30 hand-selected media were in attendance. It was not only an honor to be on the short-list of journalists, but also to be a speaker on the mainstage panel: “Content Creation & Storytelling: The Great Debate in Adventure Travel.”
The Summit tackles complex topics, such as the future of AI in travel, and tourism’s role in environmental advocacy. And it gets the right people, like the Editor in Chief of Travel Weekly and former Patagonia-CEO-turned-conservation-legend Kris Thompkins, to offer answers and inspire action.
The ATTA knows you can’t confine adventurers to a conference hall, so half of the event was spent in the fjords, glaciers, subpolar forests, high desert, and volcanic mountains. In the week leading up to the official Summit, Chile’s top travel outfitters ran 26 different multi-day trips, from the Chilean Antarctic to Easter Island (can’t wait to tell you about my Rapa Nui experience!), and mid-conference, all 700 of us embarked on a “Day of Adventure.” For Mike, this meant sailing to the southern end of the Patagonic Icefield to watch Grey Glacier calve canonballs of blue ice. While Anne plied a fjord to reach Bernardo O’Higgins National Park to explore two more awe-inspiring glaciers, followed by a farm-fresh feast at a third-generation estancia.
We came away from ATWS2025 with so many ideas for our South America stories, a hundred new friends, and a renewed confidence that adventure travel can change the world!
