Adventure with Purpose: How Uncharted Earth Redefines Travel Through Immersion and Impact
✨ Episode Summary
In this episode of The Inn Crowd, host Jamie Mattingly dives into the wild world of experiential travel with Leo Cuesta, founder of Uncharted Earth. From his early days in corporate real estate to crafting deeply immersive journeys through the Philippines, Colombia, and the American West, Leo shares how his passion for nature, culture, and authentic human connection fuels his adventure travel company. Tune in for a rich conversation on storytelling, sustainability, scaling with soul, and what it really takes to lead people through transformative travel experiences.
🎧 What Listeners Will Learn:
How to transition from corporate life to building a passion-driven adventure travel business
The difference between traditional tourism and truly transformational travel experiences
The adventure travel formula: physical activity + nature + culture = transformation
Real examples of immersive travel: trekking Banaue Rice Terraces and kayaking remote Philippine islands
Strategies for organic business growth without sacrificing your core mission
How small group travel creates deeper connections and more meaningful experiences
Practical approaches to responsible travel that benefits local communities and economies
🔗 Links Mentioned in This Episode:
👤 Guest – Leo Cuesta | Uncharted Earth
Website: 🌐 Uncharted-Earth Website (Note: There’s a dash between “uncharted” and “earth”)
Instagram: @unchartedearthadventuretravel
Email: info@uncharted-earth.com
🎙️ Host – Jamie Mattingly | Duval Street Media
Podcast Website: https://www.duvalstreetmedia.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/duvalstreetmedia
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Jamie Mattingly (00:00)
Welcome to The Inn Crowd, where we explore the stories and strategies shaping the future of travel and hospitality. I'm your host, Jamie Mattingly, and today we're stepping beyond hotels and into wild terrain with the founder of Uncharted Earth, Leo Cuesta. Leo is a seasoned guide, storyteller, and the heart behind a boutique adventure company that is known for crafting truly immersive off-the-grid trips. Leo, welcome to the show.
Leo Cuesta (00:25)
Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Jamie Mattingly (00:28)
For those who are just discovering uncharted earth, can you walk us through the company? What it is that you guys offer? What makes you unique and what inspired his creation?
Leo Cuesta (00:39)
So Uncharted Earth is an adventure travel company that specializes for now in the Philippines, Colombia, and the western United States. So we do nature-based active trips in what tend to be lesser known or more non-touristy destinations. Yeah, all of our
trips tend to have some form of activity like hiking or snorkeling, something like that. We always try to like engage with the place that we're in rather than just sightseeing.
Yeah, that's it. Inn short, in short, that's it. Yeah.
Jamie Mattingly (01:19)
Yeah, now that makes a lot of sense. was there like a
yeah, was there like a personal moment of yours that convinced you like that this is the type of adventure travel that you wanted to base your life around?
Leo Cuesta (01:31)
Well, I always grew up loving nature. Like when I was a kid, my dad had a farm and I would spend like all my weekends there. And I know you're saying a farm, that's not nature. Well, for me, I grew up in Manila, like the densest city in the world. So like the farm is like nature for me. Yeah, and I always just loved being out there versus in the city. And then in like my...
early 20s, got into a lot of nature-based sports like diving, mountain climbing. And at the time, my first, my career started out in the corporate world. I was working for the largest
real estate company in the Philippines. And my job was pretty good, actually. But then I always found myself just kind of looking forward to the weekend when I could do stuff out in nature and looking forward to trips. like, that was like when I look back at the past year, like that's all I could remember. Like those were the highlights of the year. And eventually I just figured out, hey, why don't I just do that?
rather than like live for the weekends. You know, I should like devote my life to that, like nature and travel. Yeah, and setting up my own adventure travel company seemed like the obvious thing to do.
Jamie Mattingly (02:52)
I love that so you really followed a passion and I have to say, know, you grow up in a city a farm is that absolutely nature, know, anytime you can really dig your hands into the soil or just get away from the hustle and bustle a little bit. So absolutely. But now, you know, you've really expanded upon that and now the earth is your canvas.
Leo Cuesta (02:59)
Uh-huh.
Mm-hmm.
Jamie Mattingly (03:10)
So let's dive into what makes a trip with Uncharted Earth so special. It's not just about the destinations, but really the intentions behind them. So can you talk about adventure with a purpose? Like, you know, what makes it feel so different when you're taking an Uncharted Earth trip?
Leo Cuesta (03:29)
Well, I would say it's the engagement with the place that you're visiting. We do like experiential travel, I guess is a term for it. But essentially we never go sightseeing. Not to knock sightseeing, I mean, I'm sure it's fine for a lot of people, but for me personally, there's not that much more value to going to a place and seeing it for yourself.
versus just seeing it in a photograph or on TV. If that's all you're gonna do is look at it. Like there's not much, yeah, you can get the same experience almost looking at it. Yeah, watching a video of it, right? Yeah, maybe what you're missing is like smell and breeze, but essentially that's it. And I kind of realized that, so my wife, our honeymoon was in Peru.
Jamie Mattingly (04:04)
Yeah, you can save a lot of money. Just put on a VR headset.
Leo Cuesta (04:21)
And it was awesome. spent, I think, two or three weeks in Peru. The whole thing was awesome. We went trekking to the Inca Trail, all that. The only thing that was not awesome was the Nazca Lines. For me, that was not really worth doing. For that, you take a plane and fly over the Nazca Lines, are like drawings in the desert made with rocks. And you see it from a plane.
I was like, okay, yes, just like I saw in like, it's like the photos that I saw. So yeah, I paid however much more to see it from a plane, which is kind of the same. And that's just an example of why for me sightseeing doesn't give much value to traveling. For me to make traveling worthwhile, you have to do something
Jamie Mattingly (04:50)
Google Maps, we saw it on Google Maps.
Leo Cuesta (05:09)
in the place that you're visiting. So either if you go to, whether it be like waterfalls or the famous waterfall or like the pyramids, like for me, you need to do something. So for us, when at all the places that we go to, we engage with that place. So if we go to like an island, we're not just gonna
look at it and sit on the sand. We're gonna go snorkeling, appreciate the marine life, go kayaking. Inn the Philippines, one of the most famous destinations is the Banaue Rice Terraces. So these are like steps cut into the side of the mountain. They were made by the indigenous people and they did that so they could plant rice in the mountains. So they're amazing to look at.
But again, if you just look at them, you could just look at a photo. So instead of doing that, we go on a multi-day trek through those mountains and we stay at the villages of the people who made the rice terraces.
And we walk among the rice paddies and everything. If our guests want to do it, we try to let them plant rice or harvest rice or pound the rice. And it's just a much more meaningful travel experience to do it that way. all of our trips are, that gives you an idea of how we do our trips. We always do something in the places that we go to.
Jamie Mattingly (06:39)
Yeah, you've got a real good mix of, like you said, experimental, adventure, cultural, restorative. You're kind of combining a lot of travel trends here, which is very good. You're passing a very wide net.
Leo Cuesta (06:50)
Well yeah, mean,
I don't know how they define it. So I started the company back in 2011 and at that time, some consultant, I guess, made a def, like tried to define what adventure travel is. And they said it's at least two out of three of these three things. It's engagement with nature.
some kind of physical activity or engagement with culture. So all of our trips have at least two of those.
Jamie Mattingly (07:26)
Yeah, like who can put a definition on it though? Like adventure travel, yeah that's it.
Leo Cuesta (07:29)
Yeah, I don't know if they distilled, yeah, it was like a consultant and then they,
but I think it's pretty, it's a pretty good description of...
Jamie Mattingly (07:38)
I think it sounds like a really awesome experience to
really encapsulate everything you guys are doing. I saw some of the photos on your website of those hills that you're talking about. And it does it again, you guys aren't just like standing at the bottom of the mountain looking at it. You guys are walking through them. that, you know, it's a much more immersive experience I have to imagine for your guests.
Leo Cuesta (07:52)
Right, right, right.
Mm-hmm.
I, the good thing about that definition is because at that time, like adventure travel was on the way up. Now it's pretty, it's pretty ubiquitous now, but at the time, it was still like in its growth stage. And when you said adventure travel, people thought it was like hardcore adventure, right? Which it was not. So that definition brings it down to like something anyone can do.
Jamie Mattingly (08:22)
Got it. Okay, yeah,
that makes sense.
Leo Cuesta (08:24)
Yeah,
it's something anyone can do. You don't have to be super fit or anything. You don't have to be a mountain climber or anything like that. As long as you engage with, So it made it much more accessible. It made the term adventure not so scary because people thought, I'm gonna be, whatever. It's too much for me. It really isn't, it really isn't.
Jamie Mattingly (08:32)
You're not like chartering a boat to go to Antarctica with six other guys.
Yeah, I that makes sense. So now that we've talked about the heart behind the experience, I want to talk about how you actually reach these travelers, the people who are interested in the adventure, in the immersion, in the culture. So what has been working for your team and what hasn't been working to attract that right audience?
Leo Cuesta (09:13)
Um, from the very beginning, I think the biggest thing is being found online, uh, through search. Right. So, um, I started the company 2011 just with a website and it took some time for people to
to find it. Like I would go every day and see like how many people visited my website. And what really helped was after getting my first couple of customers and they wrote a review and trip advisor, then just shut up. That made me, yeah. So that...
Jamie Mattingly (09:39)
Yeah.
Exactly, yes. Yeah. It does seem like
in the end, you're sort of niche of this travel industry. Testimonials and customer views are the best thing, you know, because we all want to go on an adventure, but can I trust this guy? If you can read a list of people who are like, yes, this is amazing. Absolutely.
Leo Cuesta (10:05)
Exactly, ⁓
Right, so once you have that, then you have credibility. And also just being on such a busy, know, visited site like TripAdvisor, that's huge. That drives up...
The hits for your your own website because it's linked to that, right? So that's super important that that is the most important for us. think prior to that So how I got my first customers you might be wondering like if no one knew you were there How do you get your first customers? So I actually Used like another website that sold other people's tours so
I still do that. That website actually now is gone. So they failed. But at the time they were, it's called Info Hub. I think it's still there, but no one uses them anymore. No, yeah, no.
Jamie Mattingly (10:55)
You're not on it anymore. No, no, no. You've
become, it seems like you've become your own version of that.
Leo Cuesta (11:00)
Well, not quite because of these those those websites Like they don't do they don't do any of their own trips they just sell other people's trips and there's like they're like a Marketplace I guess for tours. So we're not like that. We actually do arrange our own trips But there's still plenty of websites like that like the outer to a radar so
Jamie Mattingly (11:23)
Yeah.
Leo Cuesta (11:24)
We still work with websites like that to advertise our trips.
⁓
Jamie Mattingly (11:33)
You know, you need to contact
It's really hard to grow and scale a business like this that was founded with such passion and connection to the places that you're going and the tours that you're going on.
How do you scale something like that without losing that magic, without losing the soul? How do you bring on new people and make sure that they understand the message? You your team members, when you're not the one who's able to guide that tour, is that something that you find or that you hold dear a part of like your recruitment process? I want to make sure these people are really aligned with my values. Is that something you guys think about at Uncharted?
Leo Cuesta (11:57)
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely. I mean that's what it's all about really. Like getting the right people to work with you. So when I started for probably the first year, I did all the trips myself. Like I guided, I was taking people out myself. Obviously you can't keep doing that. So you have to keep to get.
other people to guide your trips. But all of our guides are people who I've either gone on a trip with or like yeah so like all my first like my first set of guides
they were people that I've done these adventure trips with and they saw exactly how I did them, how I interacted with customers, how we operated our tours. And then as we got more people, I couldn't go with everyone anymore, but it would always be like an older team member who would go on a trip with like a potential new recruit.
And that's how we do it. We get a lot of people who apply, they want to become trip leaders, guides. And my first step, obviously the first step is an interview. And then the second step is them going on an actual trip with one of our guides and with actual customers. And they don't do anything, they don't do anything...
on that trip other than observe. And they pay, I tell them, this is like a no commitment thing. So you will pay for whatever costs, whatever we have to spend anyway, you don't have to pay for that, but your own personal costs, pay for it. So for example, if we're taking like a vehicle,
and he just rides with us, he'll do that for free, but you know, his own food, his own lodging, he'll pay for that. So it's no commitment. And I have, I do that for two reasons. First, so he can see like how we do our trips.
decide if that's what he really wants to do. Because a lot of people want to become like guides. I ask them, what makes you interested in this job? And they always say, I like I like traveling. I like adventure. Well, yeah, but traveling for someone else is completely different from traveling for yourself, right?
I want them to see like is this really the type of thing you want to do because a lot of them Yeah, they don't realize that they just think the job is about I get to travel but it's complete More than yet. You should like traveling but more than that you need to want to Take people with you and show them around and show them, you know a great time and that's That's your mission and that's what you need to enjoy
Jamie Mattingly (14:35)
Yeah.
Leo Cuesta (14:53)
because if you don't enjoy doing that, it's not going to work. So yeah, so every potential recruit, we do that. So they can see what we do and decide if that's really what they want to do. And then the actual guide on that tour also observes him, how he interacts with our guests, with the locals and all of that.
Yeah, and we talked to both parties. Like I talked to our guides and, okay, what do you think of this new guy? Do you think he'll fit in? And then I talked to the new guy and I asked him, know, are you sure this is what you want to do? And a lot of them say, no, it's hard work, man. I don't think that's not what I expected, but thanks for, you know, thanks for letting me join your trip. So with that process, we ensure that all of our guides like are off the same.
Jamie Mattingly (15:29)
Hahaha ⁓
Leo Cuesta (15:42)
mindset. They're the same kind of people who you know they love traveling, love nature, and probably most importantly they love bringing other people to these places and like showing them a good time.
Jamie Mattingly (15:59)
Yeah, like a, you know, you gotta be a storyteller to lead a pack like that, I bet. So I know that you guys offer some amazing experiences. You guys are in the Philippines, you're in Columbia, you guys are in Las Vegas. You said the West Coast, is there any other locations that you're getting into right now?
Leo Cuesta (16:02)
Mm-hmm.
So for now, just those three main areas. We have done trips in Peru and Bolivia. We do that through a partner in those countries. I do want to expand to like other countries. Like Bolivia is, I have a friend whose dad is from there and keeps telling me,
Like these, I've never been myself. So I need to visit it, you know, see what they have to offer. Yeah. And so I think like the, I'm not really that concerned about like growing. know it's, you know, most companies are taught that if you don't grow, you're going to shrink. Yeah, maybe, but.
I've never been too bothered by it. like, I've had my company for almost 15 years. I started with the Philippines, then Colombia, then COVID hit and both of those countries were closed. So that's when I decided to do like Western US. And they're all, all those three places are doing great.
So yeah, maybe it's time to add like another place. I'm not in a hurry. want to visit the place first and see what's available. But yeah, I'm thinking somewhere in South America probably.
Jamie Mattingly (17:31)
I love that.
I think that is maybe an old school idea that yeah, if you're not growing, you're dying. I love that we're sort of seeing a shift. It's like, well, I do want to enjoy the life that I'm building for myself, right? So what's the point of just continuing to pour ourselves into something to not take the time to enjoy the fruits of that labor? So I love the idea of, you're not really concerned with it. It sounds like you live a great life. You turned your passion into your career and now you can scale it as slow as you want, as long as it's paying the bills
Leo Cuesta (17:50)
Yeah.
Jamie Mattingly (18:00)
you're seeing the world.
Leo Cuesta (18:01)
Right, yeah. I and I went to business school, believe it or not. And that's like, and that's a major thing that they tell you. You can't just, they tell you, you have to grow or else you will retract. Yeah, if you're like heading a big corporation, yeah, that's probably true, but I'm not heading a big corporation.
Jamie Mattingly (18:04)
I believe it.
No, no, so you must have seen some pretty incredible things over the years. Are there any stories that really stick out to you?
Leo Cuesta (18:31)
Yeah, one of my first trips. I think it was my third trip ever with guests. So the trip is in those mountains with the rice terraces that I telling you about. So it was supposed to be like a six-day trip and you know I always check. They went during the rainy season. So the Philippines has only has two seasons, dry season and rainy season.
And rainy season is like almost half the year. So it's fine to come in the rainy season as long as there's no like hurricane, typhoon we call it, which is essentially a hurricane. So they went during the rainy season. You know, I checked the forecast, of course, see how the weather is. And the forecast said there was a typhoon, but it was not supposed to hit the place where we were going. So I said,
Okay, yeah, fine, we can do this trip. It's gonna be a little rainy, it might not be, probably not gonna be sunny, but the typhoon is way south of us. So I brought them up. This place is far north from Manila. You need to take a bus nine hours to get to the mountains. So that's what we did. So first day, it was...
Kind of light rain, but no big deal. Still great. We hiked through the mountains, through the rice terraces. Still beautiful, even if it was a little rainy. So fine. And then stayed overnight in the local Ifugao. Ifugao is the name of the indigenous people who lived there and built the rice terraces. So we stayed overnight in the village. And then the...
it was just howling the whole night. Right? And there's no phone service in this place, right? Because you're in the middle of the mountain. So there's no way to know like what's happening. You know, no internet, no phone, no TV. What we didn't know was that the typhoon that was supposed to be south of where we were, like just went up.
made a left turn and went north and just hit us dead on. So we were, yeah, we were in the middle of a typhoon in the mountains. So anyway, long story short, I had to change the trip. We couldn't go to all the places we were supposed to go to anymore. And we essentially just spent the next two days getting back to civilization. And we would like, you know, walk,
walk through the storm, flag down like local, local vehicles to try to get to the next city. So we worked our way back to Manila that way. It was kind of an ordeal. But throughout the whole thing, this was a like a young couple from Australia that I was traveling with.
And throughout the whole thing, they never complained. They actually seemed pretty happy. And at the end of it, yeah, and at the end of it, I was like, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm so sorry your trip turned out this way. I'll, you know, if you come back to the Philippines, I will give you guys a free trip to make up for it. And Nick, the guy was like, dude,
Jamie Mattingly (21:27)
is adventure.
Leo Cuesta (21:46)
it's fine we we we went with you to go on an adventure and that's exactly what we got and yeah he said it with a smile i was like that's awesome and that's exactly it you know it's like people who go with us go with us to get
an adventure, like a unique experience. Obviously they want to see like the amazing sights, which they also did. They did see the rice terraces and all that. But more than that, it's like the overall experience. Yeah, disclaimer, that's never happened again. This was like my third trip ever. I didn't really know what I was doing yet. So never again has anything like that happened. So like, our trips now, yeah.
Jamie Mattingly (22:18)
Yeah.
No, understood. I live in the Keys. We've
had storms that were definitely gonna miss us and then suddenly they hit you or storms that are definitely gonna hit you that suddenly don't hit you.
I get it. You expect something to happen with like a lot of, you know, everyone seems to agree with you, but you, but again, I love that. Um, they were so positive about it because I have been through a hurricane and I can tell you that it's actually, I hate, I don't know if that sounds weird. It's a fun experience. It's a cool experience. I've never been through one where I thought I was going to lose my life. So I know that's a lot different, but
Leo Cuesta (22:32)
Well, yeah, well the-
Mm-hmm.
Jamie Mattingly (22:55)
It is a wild experience to see mother nature in that manner. And I can only imagine that if you are in the Philippines looking for an adventure and you suddenly are surrounded by a typhoon, they probably tell that story a lot.
Leo Cuesta (23:11)
Right, like
yeah, it's wild because like that area when there's a typhoon like you get landslides like the roads are just like at one point we had like the vehicle we were in Couldn't go any farther because like the road was blocked because a landslide You know washed it out. So we had to like Trek through the rubble to get to the other side get another vehicle Yeah ⁓
Jamie Mattingly (23:29)
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Leo Cuesta (23:39)
You know, in hindsight, what I did back then was pretty dumb. I should have just stayed put. That's what I should have done. Like stay put, know, like wait out the storm. But like I said, this was my third trip. So we're much safer now. We don't do anything dumb like that anymore. And actually,
Jamie Mattingly (23:55)
You know, they say we entrepreneurs,
fail forward, right? There's no such thing as a mistake. It's just lessons learned. So that's funny because it kind of brings me to my next and my final topic here is that it really seems that it gets not just about tourism or the sightseeing. This is more about transformation.
Leo Cuesta (24:02)
Hahaha!
Jamie Mattingly (24:14)
Do you stay grounded in your mission as you lead others to these wild and unfamiliar places? What is it that you're hoping that they take when they go back home?
Leo Cuesta (24:26)
I like the way we do our trips is just, didn't really think too much about it. It's just like the way I like to travel and I, and also the, like the most responsible, sustainable way to travel. and that's why we run the trips the way we do. so all of our trips are.
Low profile and low impact. Meaning, try very hard not to be noticed too much by the place. We try to blend in with every place that we go to. So we do that by going in small groups, first of all. Our most common group size is three. Meaning a couple and their guide.
Our maximum group size for our group trips is seven. So still quite small. Sometimes we will do upon special requests like a bigger group. Like the biggest group we've had is 20. And this was like for a school group. Or sometimes we'll work with another travel organizer who has like a group of 15 to 20. We'll do that. If the place that we go to can handle it.
By handling it, mean, because a lot of places we go to are, you know, they're remote, they're very small, like these villages that I'm talking about. Like you sleep in a villager's house sometimes. So you can't have like a group of 30 people in that village, let alone that house. So yeah, so we definitely never travel in big groups.
We don't have like, we don't wear t-shirts with our logos, right? Yeah, we use, we as much as possible, we use whatever is available in a particular place. like local, like we're, if we can, we try not to bring our own vehicle to a place. If there's like a local system of transportation, we'll use that.
Jamie Mattingly (26:03)
Yeah, neon shirts with, yeah.
Leo Cuesta (26:23)
not only because you're helping the local economy, but also it's a better experience for your guests. Why ride in a regular car when you can ride in some cool local transportation like a Cheva or a cart pulled by a water buffalo? For sure, you'd rather do that, right?
Jamie Mattingly (26:43)
Yeah, no, absolutely. That's awesome. So
yeah, that's amazing. what's next for Uncharted Earth? Are there any, I know we just mentioned that you're not in a rush to go too crazy, but you did mention maybe you had your sights set on South America. Are there any dream trips or partnerships or maybe some like out there ideas that you're like, ooh, maybe one day I'll do that?
Leo Cuesta (27:09)
well, so I, I personally do a lot of like more extreme adventures. So I'm, I'm a rock climber. go back country skiing. and these are things that, although we do have a few like rock climbing trips, we don't really focus on that and they're, they're pretty tame. They're designed for, for like beginners.
But I do do more extreme sports. So I often play with the idea, what if I offer more extreme stuff? Because we don't. We do a lot of diving trips, but diving isn't extreme. So I'm considering it maybe. These are things that I like to do most.
I'm not sure if I'm ready to try to make a business out of providing these same things for other people. ⁓ I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There's a lot of risk involved.
Jamie Mattingly (28:00)
Yes, that's a point.
Leo Cuesta (28:06)
Yeah, I'll think about it. You say dream, so maybe that's like, yeah.
Jamie Mattingly (28:10)
Yeah, no, that's, no, I love it. That's exactly
what I wanted to know. What was the dream? And that sounds perfect. And I like how you kind of said it though. Sometimes the things that we dream, it's like we dream it because we're passionate, but do we really want to turn that part of it into a business? It might take away some of that.
Leo Cuesta (28:15)
Mm-hmm.
That's one part
of it. another thing is doing something yourself and bringing other people with you are two different levels of things. The expertise that you need to bring other people with you is on a much higher level. So for example, I have the highest respect for guides of anything.
because they necessarily have to be extremely good at whatever it is that they're guiding. So like say a fishing guide. I remember my wife and I were watching this. We like watching like reality competition shows, right? We were watching the show about, it was a fishing competition show. This was a long time ago, but like they had many, like maybe 10 different like sport fishermen and one...
All of them were like professionals, like some of them were like in the pro bass tour or something like that. But only one of them was a guy who actually took other people out to go fishing. And I was like, that guy I'm sure is the best of these. bringing, yeah, because bringing someone out is completely different. Like I'm a dive master. So to be a dive master,
Jamie Mattingly (29:32)
Yeah.
Leo Cuesta (29:42)
Inn the Philippines, it's kind of different from a dive master in the US where a lot of dive masters in the US, you take your customers out on a boat, you give a description of the dive site, and then they go, you don't necessarily need to go with them. Inn the Philippines, you go with them. You're like an underwater guide, right? And if they get into trouble, you know, a lot of divers, especially the new ones, like do dumb things underwater, like you need to handle that.
So like your expertise in diving to be a dive master has to be like really high for you to bring other people, paying people with you. Yeah, so that's why like, can I guide people rock climbing and all that? Probably, but I probably need to get better.
Jamie Mattingly (30:11)
Yeah.
No, I understand
that because listen, if I'm paying someone to be my guide, I definitely want them to be the best of the best.
Leo Cuesta (30:38)
Right, right. Because
you can't be like the guide has everything has to be second nature to him. Like he's not thinking about himself at all because all of his attention is to his customers. Yeah. And so we like, I can do that for like Greg, the type of adventure trips that we do. Like I and my, the guys who work with me are like that. Like the hikes that we do are no problem. Like we don't even break a sweat. Right.
Jamie Mattingly (30:50)
Yeah.
Leo Cuesta (31:05)
because it has to be like that because you have to take care of these other people.
Jamie Mattingly (31:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, it makes complete sense So if people after hearing all of this are like, alright, I'm sold I want to book an adventure. Where can they go to learn more? Where can they go to book more? What's the process for booking that next trip with you guys?
Leo Cuesta (31:24)
So the best way is through our websites. So we have several websites, one for each of our destinations, but the main website, uncharted-earth.com, www.uncharted-earth.com. There's a dash between uncharted and earth.
Jamie Mattingly (31:41)
Yeah, we'll
put it in the show notes. We'll make it easy.
Leo Cuesta (31:44)
Yeah, so it's there. That's the main website and that has links to our other websites for the Philippines, Colombia, and the Western US. And there's, you there's a, you can send us an email through any of those websites. You can also send us a message on our Facebook page or even text or call our numbers or are up on those websites.
Yeah, so any of those three things, email, text, call, Facebook message, any of those.
Jamie Mattingly (32:14)
And you guys can go to their social media accounts through the website and and through you can actually Visiting the website you guys can look at some photos that they've shared from previous trips and they look quite amazing So I think if you guys are looking for any inspiration for your next trip definitely check them out Leo I want to thank you so much. This is such a great conversation I think that our listeners heard a lot of really valuable things. I love the direction that you're going with the company I love the uncharted nature of it getting away from the typical sightseeing
and really like walking people through the actual destinations that they're in. I think that it's not only the future of travel and it seems like you were there 10 years ago, 15 years ago almost at this point. So I just think you've grown a really great company. I'm gonna commend you on that.
Leo Cuesta (32:59)
Thank you, yeah. It's not a new concept. It's just, you know, I think back when the world was not quite as accessible, because now it's so easy. You go online, or people think it's easy. You go online and you can find out so much about all of these places. And...
You know, it's kind of what's harder is to find these places that are not super touristy. Right. So we're always even the places that we used to visit like 15 years ago when we started, some of them have gotten a lot more touristy than when we were first going there. We still go to them because they're still awesome destinations. But now we have to try to find.
Jamie Mattingly (33:24)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Leo Cuesta (33:44)
new experiences in those places and also find like other places to visit that are you know more off the beat off the beaten path. But I think people will always find like the richest travel experience in doing less ordinary trips right.
Jamie Mattingly (34:04)
Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. Well, Leo, thank you so much for this conversation. And to our listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who's building a purpose-driven brand or someone planning their next unforgettable trip. And if you know someone who would be a great guest for the in-crowd, head over to javallestreetmedia.com and request to be on the show. And remember, guys, the best travel doesn't just take us somewhere new, it changes how we see the world. So until next time,
Keep exploring, keep innovating, and keep making an impact. Safe travels.