I’ve been leaning into Seamus Heaney’s Finders Keepers – Selected Prose 1971-2001 lately as part of my decades-long morning ritual spent reading essays, poems (Chinese Taoists at present), and journal writing, followed by a sit in my garden, accompanied by tea. In reference to a historic (and ill-fated) Irish-English truce, Heaney writes: “And even if we know that such a release is impossible, we still desire conditions where the longed-for and the actual might be allowed to coincide. A condition where borders are there be crossed rather than to be contested.”
He then references his poem, Terminus:
Running water never disappointed.
Crossing water always furthered something.
Stepping stones were stations of the soul.
For years, I’ve attempted to describe Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) participation to travel media colleagues who are curious about the organization. My default answer relies upon familiar (and admittedly pretentious) tropes portraying kindred spirits who prefer trails to towns, excursions to tours, and (sometimes fraught) discovery to the familiar. I explain how an ATTA media marketplace allows outdoor-focused media to forego sleuthing about whether promised trail time will inevitably contract due to multi-course luncheons and multi-hour museum visits.
AdventureELEVATE North America (AENA) 2025 conjured up another description, a feeling I couldn’t quite articulate until reading Heaney this morning. On the surface Denver was an indoor affair not unlike many other travel conferences we media attend, replete with speed dating, hall booths, scheduled and casual encounters. At AENA, however, soulful cross-border celebrations sow like breeze-tossed wildflower seeds within an alpine meadow.
The collective churn is unmistakable, a vibe longtime attendee Maria José Andrade likens to a fine queso fresco.
"As a cheesemaker's daughter, I know that to make great cheese, you need to have the right tools, the technique, knowledge, and the best materials," says the Tierra del Volcan co-founder. “But then something happens as the cheese ages, absorbing bacteria living on the walls and in the air. Whether you’re in Ecuador, Japan or North America, this is how the magic happens at ATTA events.”
Maria José and her partner, Jorge Perez, have attended ATTA events for twenty years, building decades-long collaborations and friendships. Current domestic roiling may have dissuaded some travelers from visiting the United States, but it emboldened the Quito-based couple.
“When people are nervous, they postpone the most important things, including the opportunity to connect, speak out, learn and listen through community and travel," she says. "I consider it a call to action. In times of uncertainty, we must choose our resilience. If faced with reducing our presence at shows, I will always choose ATTA for the learning, comradery and collective nature."
Evan McElligott, founder of Longer Vacations, a bespoke tour operator, also appreciates the collective nature of ATTA events. Like many of us, be we media, buyers, or suppliers, Evan says his excitement begins building from the moment he registers for a new conference, gains momentum as he embarks on his journey to the event, and amplifies when he sees old friends and makes new connections.
“Honestly, it’s a breath of fresh air,” he says. “What’s missing in so many industry events in current times is that sense of community, a sense of belonging. The adventure travel community seems to have it in droves. Even the simple interactions at ATTA events are fueled with more energy and enthusiasm and with more empathy and understanding. Even in quick interactions at a buffet line or a bar, everyone seems to be able to share a smile and a story. What a crew to call your own.”
Evan and I reconnected on our Day of Adventure, a lowkey excursion to Echo Lake Park. When we returned to the hotel at noon he suggested an afternoon visit to Denver Botanic Gardens, unaware of my gardening geekiness. Smitten, I continue to tout the gardens to anyone who will listen, blown away by the variety of plantings, the expansive bonsai collection, and, fetishistically, the integration of waterfalls in several of the “rooms.” I was still talking about the gorgeous Chihuly sculpture that framed a stand of deep purple salvia two nights later when we found ourselves eating tikka masala-Philly cheesesteaks at 3 AM with other Irish folks. What a crew, indeed.
Like Evan’s experience with registration, travel, and arrival, plotting what Day of Adventure to select fills me with adrenaline well before I take to the trail (Denver), hop on a bike (Sapporo), or get in a raft (Asheville). Selected during a ski research blitz involving fifteen alpine resorts, a mellow nature survey in Denver felt right at the time. I tried to coax Elyse Mailhot, founder of EM Adventure Marketing, to join me. I wasn't surprised that Elyse, though one of my closest friends, would have none of it, choosing the 48-mile bike ride instead. As always, her DOA yielded new connections.
“I met someone based in Thailand while cycling on the trail,” she recalls. “We were riding and talking quietly. I learned he ran cycling tours around the world. We talked about Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Mongolia, e-bikes, trail bikes, gravel bikes, and road bikes. These side conversations are meaningful. No matter who I talk to, I find I gain a global perspective with ATTA, a cross-cultural experience in one place with so many dynamic people.”
Whether riding a near half-century or traipsing across remnants of snow on a short lakeside trail, outdoor adventure produces an antidote to the incessant noise that infects us with a din loud as mating locusts in a Louisiana swamp. Remarkably, the conference center ambience provides additional salve, a soothing space where, Elyse observes, “ATTA provides the glue. We walk into the hall, where we share a passion and experience with everyone in the room. We are not delegates; we are friends."
We media share this optimism, the potential that each of us will discover a story to pursue and compose that may inspire a reader to abandon the beach chair for a jungle trek or displace a large cruise ship’s itinerary with a multiday cycling tour or whitewater rafting expedition.
“In this diverse and global community, I’m reminded [at ATTA events] of how the rest of the world can work, and sometimes does work,” says Norie Quintos, contributing writer to Nat Geo, independent communications consultant, and volunteer board member of the Adventure Travel Conservation Fund. “Everyone here has a business to attend to, yet each also sees the big picture and in various ways deploys their businesses to help protect places and the planet.”
My time at AdventureELEVATE North America continues to invigorate me. I’m currently assessing whether I can undertake Tierra del Volcan’s new multiday hike, horseback, and e-bike sojourn on a physically demanding segment of El Camino de Santiago. Though I can’t attend the Adventure Travel World Summit (ATWS) this year, I’m keen to visit Chile to photograph wildlife with BirdsChile Nature & Adventure. I’m equally determined to trace the new Wordsworth Trail in England’s Lake District with Wilderness Group UK & Ireland. I’m also trying to decide how much of October I spend in Québec. I don’t know, 1 October to Halloween in la belle province sounds about right.
Will I go to all these places? Certainly not. However, as Elyse stated, when you “share a passion and experiences with all the other people in the room,” the potential story ideas bounce about your brain like your mountain bike’s tires on a sylvan trail in Parc National de la Jacques-Cartier.
Every conversation at AENA sparked travel objectives that, as ATTA president Shannon Stowell referenced in his closing remarks, “light a fire inside.” Shannon also described growing up in nearby Salida, Colorado, “an either/or environment. Christian or not. White or Brown. Middle Class or Poor. Cowboys were generally good; Indians were generally not.”
At seventeen, Shannon, possessing an "outlook on life [that] was very sheltered, simple and, in many ways, just plain wrong," traveled to Fiji, an experience he says “revolutionized my understanding of other people and how we interact with nature.”
He’s never looked back.
Nor did Seamus Heaney, whose work evolved from beautifully crafted, pastoral imagery into equally sublime explorations of difficult societal questions, these latter themes intrinsic to his 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Like our time fermenting relationships within AENA Denver’s chessi, Heaney celebrates the journey where “the stepping stone invites you to change the terms and tearmann of your understanding; it does not ask you take your feet off the ground, but it refreshes your vision by keeping your head in the air and bringing you alive to the open sky of possibility that is within you.
“And that,” in closing his essay. “Seems something to write home about.”