ROW Adventures nets magazine's top spot : North Idaho Business ...

By ALECIA WARREN/Staff writer

June Cavette secures her life jacket before heading out on a sunset kayak tour of Fernan Lake with Dave Colston.

At a glance, ROW Adventures? website certainly suggests an expansive operation.

Click into it more, and it starts to get overwhelming.

The guide company?s destinations are categorized according to continent. A photo slideshow shows folks splashing in turquoise waves on a Jamaican bay, and kayakers coasting across icy Alaskan waters.

Activities are listed as land based, water based, or, curiously, ?other,? including items like an ?Epicurean voyage by yacht and on foot? in Croatia, and a ?beer trip on the Rogue River? in Oregon.

Yeah, it?s a little intriguing.

And according to the Coeur d?Alene-based company?s clients, of which there are roughly 4,000 each year, ROW Adventures is world class.

A recent reader survey by Travel and Leisure Magazine identified ROW Adventures as the No. 1 tour operator in the world, based on criteria like quality of guides, itineraries, activities, food.

The title is one that founder Peter Grubb hopes will boost the company to even farther reaching renown.

?It?s nice to be in business for 33 years and see some recognition,? said Grubb, a Coeur d?Alene resident. ?It puts us into a league of very high quality travel companies.?

The 55-year-old outdoorsman lauds the multi-networked machine into which the company has evolved. Tour guides are hired around the world, with activities and locations based on requests from restless vacationers, pitches from guides and ideas that Grubb has conceived in his travels across roughly 35 countries.

?You have to have to keep being creative,? he said of maintaining a global guide business. ?One of the keys, especially to stay in front of the press and media, is you have to keep coming up with new things.?

He seems to be doing well with that.

The company offers itineraries in 17 countries across five continents, as well in as the four-state block of Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon.

Adventures include culinary-whitewater rafting tours, Kosher rafting trips that follow Jewish customs and diet, a journey by camel and 4-by-4 across the Sahara, and a River Soul trip that combines rafting with yoga and journaling.

Multisport trips allow clients to kayak, snorkel, hike and mountain bike in locations around the world.

?There?s a story behind every trip that we do,? said Grubb, a California native. ?Somewhere we went and fell in love, and we want to share that with other people.?

Exotic locations are all well and good, but it?s the company?s attention to detail that has kept Chuck Anderson returning to ROW for more than 25 rafting trips here in the U.S., he said.

?Once you?ve done it once, then you?ll be hooked,? said Anderson, a Coeur d?Alene resident.

He described multi-day trips where he would climb out of the raft to find tents and gear already set up, hors d?oeuvres waiting.

Staff ensured children were entertained while the adults relaxed, Anderson added. In the mornings, guests were greeted with coffee at their tents.

?It?s definitely done with style,? he said. ?I think they?re the best company I?ve had the opportunity to go on trips with.?

ROW?s outdoor diversions have been valuable to the area?s development into a tourist destination, said Steve Wilson, CEO of the Coeur d?Alene Chamber of Commerce.

?Outdoor adventure, particularly soft adventure, is extremely important for the development of a destination, particularly a destination that has a lot of family activity oriented things to see and do,? Wilson said.

Such a sprawling operation can be a headache, admitted Grubb, especially managing 10 year-round staff, 70 seasonal and still more freelance guides oceans away.

There have also been snags like tsunamis or volcanoes disrupting travel plans.

The key, Grubb said, is to ?take a deep breath? and listen to all perspectives.

?Sometimes it?s great,? he said. ?People most of the time are in a good mood, talking about their vacations, not talking about insurance or other more mundane things of life. So from that standpoint it?s very nice, as long as we deliver on our promises.?

Getting there was an adventure few could have guided.

Grubb, who had already worked as a rafting guide as a young man, started River Odysseys West as a partnership with his brother in 1979.

Perhaps evidence it was the right move, Grubb needed an 11-day backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada to decide if he should pursue the venture.

The first year saw 13 people taken out rafting in raw Oregon rivers.

But business grew as Grubb marketed the company across the West Coast, giving hundreds of presentations to organizations as he puttered from spot to spot in his station wagon.

?I was young and naive, had a strong passion for sharing rivers with people,? he recalled. ?Frankly, the thought of failing never crossed my mind.?

The company?s first international guide trip was on his own honeymoon, with several

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guests sharing a yachting trip in Turkey and Greece with Grubb and his wife, ROW guide Betsy Bowen.

It was a trip the newlyweds couldn?t afford on their own, Grubb said.

?When (the clients) left, we spent another two or three weeks in Europe,? he said. ?It wasn?t like the whole honeymoon was with eight other people.?

Afterward, the company started offering tours in the Mediterranean every year. Eventually ROW became Remote Odysseys Worldwide, and the company delved further into foreign lands, like Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.

Grubb?s unwavering aim is to immerse tourists into the culture of locations they visit, he said, unlike harried, landmark-hopping tours that he scorns.

?We?re not gawking and superficially visiting a place. We don?t do Europe in 10 days,? he said. ?We go to one very small part of any given country, and we see that very well.?

The company will continue its evolution, he said.

Immediately, in fact. This year will mark the company?s first guided trip to Montenegro, Kosovo and Albania.

?Those three names probably send chills down people?s backs, but it?s something we?ve been looking at for a couple years,? Grubb said. ?It?s supporting small, rural villages trying to develop a new form of economic tourism.?

For local adventurers who want to be home in time for dinner, they can always just rely on ROW for a kayak trip on Lake Fernan, too.

That?s the beauty of ROW, Grubb said. It offers any adventure people seek.

?We don?t plan to rest on our laurels. We want to keep getting better,? Grubb said. ?There?s always room for improvement, and we always listen to our guests.?

Source: http://nibusinessjournal.com/2012/07/row-adventures-nets-magazines-top-spot/

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