A New American Town - Bentonville, Arkansas
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A New American Town - Bentonville, Arkansas
Explore the Ozarks with 37 North Expeditions
Join us as we sit down with Danny Collins, the visionary founder of 37 North Expeditions, whose journey is nothing short of inspiring. Danny's passion for the outdoors and his personal experiences have shaped 37 North into a catalyst for outdoor engagement and community bonding in the Ozarks.
37 North specializes in crafted outings that include hikes, biking, horseback riding, and more. Learn about how you can experience what they have to offer for the next time you Visit Bentonville!
Learn more at 37 North Expeditions – Guided Outdoor Experiences.
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Welcome to A New American Town presented by Visit Bittenville. I'm your host, Beth Bobbitt, broadcasting from Haxton Road Studios, and today we have Danny Collins, founder of 37 North Expeditions. So glad you're here. Thanks for coming in.
Danny Collins:Thank you.
Beth Bobbitt:So you all provide guided tours, outdoor experiences around Northwest Arkansas. Before we jump into the offerings, I want to hear a little bit about your story. You have an interesting history and background. NYC, Ecuador, Northwest Arkansas. Can you talk us through kind of your background, your journey, what led you here to the founding?
Danny Collins:Yeah, I will try to make it concise. It's been a wild ride. I'm very happy and privileged to got to do a lot of things already in life and that's been exciting. But we're very happy we've landed here in Northwest Arkansas for all the reasons that you guys highlight. But, um, I grew up pretty much in this area, just across the border, Missouri, in a tiny little town, um, but that was kind of home for me until, and so northwest Arkansas was a place I came to visit mostly for the outdoor activities, even before it was um such buzz. But ended up in Springfield, Missouri, for college and got my master's in architecture, my MBA there Mainly went to play soccer, but that's the past.
Danny Collins:And then took a job in New York City right out of school. I was in corporate architecture. Really thought that was going to be the life for me. To be honest, amazing opportunity, amazing firm. That just didn't hit everything I was looking for in life. But you know, I started guiding up in New York City.
Danny Collins:It's kind of crazy to think that it took me moving to New York City to find the opportunity to start leading people to outdoor adventures, um, but it was an amazing opportunity.
Danny Collins:Let a lot of day trips to upstate New York and then some overnight trips to the whites and other places in the Northeast. And then I got in the circuit and really get to lead some trips to Kilimanjaro and Machu Picchu and so that was kind of my introduction opportunity, um, into kind of these bigger destinations and this kind of like adventure tourism travel. Um, long story short, I was using way too much of my vacation time to take to lead people on trips and stuff, but um, I joke about that. But really I kind of got recruited in a way, kind of got opportunity to meet a lot of people at the within that naturalographic kind of world and I was offered a job to take the expedition manager role at one of their unique lodges of the world down in South America. So I literally could not have done the opposite. More of an opposite turn in life Went from corporate architecture in Manhattan to living in a resort in the middle of nowhere rainforest in Ecuador. Um, and it was just as amazing as it sounds.
Danny Collins:There was a lot of hardships about being turned on 24 hours a day and living in those conditions in a lot of ways, but you know, I just fell in love with the opportunity to introduce people to one of the most magnificent places on earth, so that was an amazing learning opportunity. I got to really be at the cusp of one of the most amazing organizations in my mind and in the world and they were really focused on that. Next, what is the next generation traveler looking for? And so my job was absolutely focused on the general management of that lodge and, from the experiences and managing the guides being the face of the customers when they came or the clients when they came assets that we have in that resort and actually a few others the Galapagos and a few other properties they owned and turn that into these millennial Gen Z traveler that's starting to enter into that, that world and what are they looking for in adventure travel. So it was a really cool, even beyond just the the obvious. It was an amazing job to get to kind of focus on and I really got attracted to and felt confident in kind of understanding what is that next generation outdoor travel or looking for authentic experiences and stuff.
Danny Collins:And so, unfortunately, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2017. It was a really bad prognosis. Um, small family, all these things felt like um needed to be here for that, that period of his life and just as much to be with my mom and, you know, for myself to be to be with him.
Danny Collins:Um, so moved back. Um kind of left all that behind. It was really hard to do that Um, on both sides of the spectrum. It was really hard to do that um, on both sides of the spectrum. It was a good relationship we I I think I was very valued there as well. So, um, but moved back and you know the kind of that stage of life I think. You know I grew up in a really adventurous family here in the ozarks. My dad was passionate about the rivers of the ozarks. He, he never wanted to do anything but be on a river here in Arkansas and I still realize I took it for granted what we have here. So that realization when I moved back was drastically inspiring to me of just like man, the amount of things that I just kind of forgot how amazing these places are. I always had that mentality. I need to get somewhere else to experience those.
Danny Collins:And then also just the realization that there's a lot of, even locals that have lived here their whole lives that haven't seen some of these places. So that was the inspiration to start 37 North was this idea of wanting to share those places and help our community and our you know, our region take pride and we have some magical outdoor spaces here that are not showcased enough.
Beth Bobbitt:Yeah. And are the audiences local tourists? A combo of both?
Danny Collins:You know it has evolved. It's probably the hardest thing about the business is the evolution of the dynamic of this industry and this community are all the great things that we hear, but it's also it's hard to keep up as an industry as a business in this industry.
Danny Collins:We started really focused on on locals. You know, the real goal was to kind of have be an opportunity to compete with all the other things to do that weren't in outdoor exploration space, right. And so, you know, initially our hyper focus was people living here. We want to go see something unique that you hadn't done before. You know, instead of just kind of have your social outings, instead of just being eating and drinking and kind of consuming, let's find social outlets and outdoor exploration to kind of fit those needs of the community.
Beth Bobbitt:But it has evolved a million times over from youth to corporate, as has Northwest Arkansas.
Danny Collins:Exactly so. In a lot of ways it's exciting and lots of opportunity. We're kind of at that stage now to figure out, well, where do we need to focus.
Beth Bobbitt:Yeah, I bet, yeah, yeah. It's hard to keep up. So let's back up and talk a little bit about the offerings.
Danny Collins:There's so many outdoor experiences and you know you have tours and corporate events and kids programs, and just give us a little bit of an overview of you know who you serve and how you serve them yeah, you know, at the cusp of everything the out, the idea for us is we believe that outdoor experiences are the gateway to conservation efforts and that to us is in my mind and and that's been kind of instilled in everybody, that that that's a part of our organization, is if you don't physically see it, you're not going to really have that inspiration to protect it. And so our belief is that the experiences are the, the modern version of outdoor conservation. So that's kind of the catalyst, that's kind of at the epicenter of everything. But we have four very distinct segments to our company that all have crossovers but they definitely are very distinct, at least from behind the scenes. The number one thing is kind of four residents and it's really distinct on who it's trying to serve.
Danny Collins:The thing we just talked about, the single ticket sales, those are our commitment to our community to have a unique experience every single weekend of the year, 12 months a year. That is curated, it's very unique, it's very um, um seasonal in its approach and those are just tickets until it's full, um, those are really hyper-focused on residents. Then our second is private. Those are more focused on tourists, right, this kind of private booking of your group coming in or your family coming in, anything from a two-hour mountain bike tour to a 10-day all-inclusive and we've done anything and everything in between those. Again, that's kind of focused more on the tourists, but we definitely have private groups, a lot that we serve within our own community.
Beth Bobbitt:Do the business travelers kind of fall into that bucket?
Danny Collins:The third segment would be yep.
Danny Collins:The third or fourth would be the corporate travel. That to us, is that's kind of blends. Like I said, yes, some of that blends into this private, but really we approach corporate a little bit more on using the outdoor environment for team building strategy sessions. So we have what we call workshops and that's what we focus mostly on is how do we take these team building sessions offline?
Danny Collins:You know, in a world post-COVID where we're not getting to face as much face-to-face, in a world where we are more hypersensitive to things like alcohol is not the answer to all your social outings and so kind of. I love where we say, even just as I'm taking off my 37 North hat, I love where we sit in society. That it's not just, it's not okay anymore to just go open up a tab for your happy hour to be your social outing. Like that, our younger generations, um, and society in general is just saying no, we want more and we want our work relationship to be more deep than that so we're really trying to find answers to use the outdoors as this mental and physical health environment.
Danny Collins:That's focused on. How do you achieve these team bonding experiences? And then the fourth is is youth? Um, that's been probably the most obvious of us just filling a needed void. Um the other, the other segments, are us pushing and pulling and trying to find where to fit, maybe even to some degree degree convincing the community. It's needed. But the youth has just been. There's just a desperate need for youth and we have such an amazing community with a lot of that stuff. A lot of it is focused on the biking side, which is absolutely needed as well, and they're so excited and, 10 years from now, what you know, the organizations like the buddy pegs and the bike school.
Danny Collins:Bentonville what those are going to do and see the bikes, the bikers here in 10, 15 years that are um, but we we do some of that, but we try to use the bike more and less of training you on bike and more use it as a tool to get to different places and then focus on everything. I mean your traditional team sports are just hyper-competitive in the burnout rate and then, combined also with just this mentality of the Boy Scout, girl Scout concept, is not quite fulfilling its needs. So we're really trying to kind of outdoor exploration, using that as a tool to learn as a kid to just be confident in the outdoors anymore, right.
Danny Collins:Just find your passion in the outdoors. That is just to us. That's just what's needed, so bad.
Beth Bobbitt:I agree and I love the potential there too. You talk about your core being really transforming people to be, you know, conservationists, and that's where the power is in educating our youth. I mean they're going to lead us.
Danny Collins:And I'm just experience learning. I mean, I think we believe and I think the whole world is turning a little bit more into this kind of like. And what a better place to have experiences, to kind of teach you true real values of life experiences, than being outdoors, right? So yeah, experience or learning and really trying to fill that void of just put down the technology and just be present in the outdoors. Our focus is a lot more simplified. We're not really trying, we're not aiming to teach skills as much as we're teaching to just be confident and present in the outdoors.
Beth Bobbitt:How does some of your unique training and certifications feed into that philosophy? Can you talk a little bit about like your wilderness training and certifications feed into?
Danny Collins:that philosophy Can you talk a little bit about, like your wilderness training and that kind of thing? Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that it's um, it's an interesting time where where we you know wilderness for I'm a wilderness first responder certification I've had that for about 15 years now Um, it's so applicable to so many other things I mean really it's a problem solving certification.
Danny Collins:It's like how do you think calm, relax and solve a problem with very limited resources? That's kind of the concept of what a wilderness education is trying to achieve. I'm very passionate about the wilderness first aid mentality of that. It shouldn't just be for people that need it in their job. I mean, it's anybody that's out there. Biking can happen. Wilderness doesn't have to mean out in the middle of nowhere. Wilderness can be on our trails or it can even be in our you know, on our sidewalks. Like if you can't get the safety or the need that you need, you need to be able to problem solve and just know, have a basic. It's kind of like everybody should have a basis of financial education or business education, just because life is that. I kind of feel like anybody that's ever doing anything in the outdoors should have a little bit basic of what to do to solve a problem, if you get into a problem, if something happens in the outdoors.
Beth Bobbitt:So have you worked at all with any of the local schools?
Danny Collins:We have and some of again that evolution of the where we spend our resources and stuff. But yes, we have worked a little bit with the public school systems and trying to implement a little bit of that more. We've definitely had our wilderness first aid certification courses. We're heavily partnered with University of Arkansas for some time to kind of have that be a crossover and get that into the education of the kids or the students there.
Danny Collins:But yeah, it's one of those. It's a growing. I'm excited to see that become less just focused on I need this for my job and more focused on I need this because I explore with myself and my family and my kids, you know.
Beth Bobbitt:Right, yeah, just a basic understanding will help everyone. Yeah, talk a little bit about. You mentioned the kind of single ticket aspect. What are some of those programs? I saw? I've been really into the standup paddle boarding this summer and I saw there was an event for that.
Danny Collins:Yeah, I mean the goal of that. Again, it really was more for the residents. I'd say that that's probably the most unique aspect of our business. You know, a lot of people would probably say we're a guide service. I actually tend to stay away from that terminology pretty wholeheartedly because to me, when you see your guide service, it's more focused on you need me.
Danny Collins:you need us, and that's really not what we're aiming for here. There's some aspects of that, but most of the time we're going to elevate that experience you're having. We're going to optimize your time. We're going to have one-way bike rides versus round. You have to have round trips or your same loops that you do, and what I'm getting at that is kind of that probably stems from my creativity and my architectural background, that extreme desire to just.
Danny Collins:You know I can't just go on normal rides you know, for me, it's that creating that really unique loop, or my wife would, um, she would probably laugh at this, but also understand the frustration of we go anywhere and I say, hey, can I just ride home, because that's such a more unique way to get my miles in on a gravel ride than it is, you know, just leaving from the house every time.
Danny Collins:So that that desire for creativity and those having those very unique experiences that's really where that stems from is that we believe that one of the greatest assets we have here is we have amazing seasons. We can bike, we can hike, we can do almost every single activity at any point in time, and so but it's very different if you paddle in the winter versus you paddle in the summer, biking in the winter versus biking in the spring, and so, um, finding those really cool things that we say, hey, here's in our mind, what's the best thing to do at this point in time? And a very unique place, and it's not just about the outdoor activity too, we pride ourselves in finding, um, the coolest wineries or breweries in the middle of nowhere those farm-to-table experiences or going and having those cultural experiences that are paired with.
Danny Collins:So it's a fully curated holistic outing that is very thought out, and that's the idea is that it's really just to be something very unique to go experience with yourself, with your right, I mean I love the curated aspect and also the efficiency of.
Danny Collins:You know there's a bunch of us doing this, let's you know all ride together or whatever yep, social first, really the idea that, and again stemming back to the kind of the core concept, our ultimate goal is for you to have an amazing, fun time, and that might be very different from one person the other one of the main things.
Danny Collins:I tell my guides when I'm, you know, trying to train them, but I definitely it's. It's amazing to have different guides they're coming on that are better than me, which is super cool to kind of have that that point in time now. But but really what I'm getting at is that you might have somebody that's trying to find their future significant other on the same trip, that somebody is training for a massive, um, maybe mountaineering experience that they're having in this.
Danny Collins:Both of them are on the same trip, and so your goal is to help them achieve as much as possible what they're trying to get out of that experience, because, at the end of the day, if they don't have a blast, they're going to be less likely to go into the outdoors again. So it all comes back to that idea that we want them to want to enter into the outdoors again and again and again, because that's how we get outdoor advocacies.
Beth Bobbitt:I love it. Yeah, talk a little bit. This is super unique about the Adventure League.
Danny Collins:Yeah, that is something that has been. You know, I'm the race director also for Expedition Ozark, so it's kind of parallel to 37 North. It's semi-related, but that's you know. I was contracted with the Ozark Outdoor Foundation or Ozark Foundation they're the ones that put that on and I just got the opportunity and the honor to be the race director, co-race director for those. That to me out, you know, in my mind. But kind of back to, focused on the youth side and seeing some of those gaps, I also see for some reason we're doing a really good job of that as a community. In some ways, nike is a perfect example of taking your non-traditional activities and trying to find the ways to get some of the same amazing benefits that traditional team sports have, and so, bear with me, this might be a little bit odd.
Danny Collins:But the goal of that is your dodgeball leagues or your volleyball leagues, like, what are the reasons people sign up for that?
Danny Collins:It's healthy, it's active, but it's social, it's fun, right, and if you're meeting other people while getting the sweat on and having a fun game together, how could we take your, your biking and your trekking and your paddling which are really individualistic aspects or different individuals activities, and how can we apply that to this, get to at least a taste of the same benefits you get in that kind of adult league, that amateur adult league, right? So that's really where the idea came from is it was in my mind. It's one of the most unique things we've ever done. It was my brainchild a while ago and I just luckily got the Bentonville Parks and Rec to kind of come on board to do this together. It's a lot of work to set up in a lot of ways initially, but you know, now I think I have kind of a map of about 500 checkpoints out there and we're using technology. You're using, we're able to kind of use technology and replicating a picture and of a moment in time to go find these checkpoints, and so it's a really fun league.
Danny Collins:We've had amazing results from from the spring season and really excited to grow. That you know huge aspirations to to see that you know huge aspirations to to see that kind of have a playoff situation very similar to some of the other lakes, so yeah, yeah, that's a unique one.
Danny Collins:Adventure racing has really taken off in the last decade especially, and so I think that yeah, it's to me and you know, and I do adventure racing, although actually you know, here going to nationals in west virginia a, and then we'll head down to Ecuador to compete in Worlds.
Danny Collins:So that's kind of my personal thing I bike and I trek and I paddle, but really it's all for the adventure racing side of things. So what I love about it is it's a team sport. I mean, it's absolutely, At the end of the day, you do not get to feel team in almost any of these activities that we have so prevalent here. Your trail running, your mountain biking those are very individual, Um and so kind of finding adventure. Racing does a really good job of taking that feeling team-like, and that's what I love about this adventure league. We're finding ways Nike is another great example of finding a way to take this individual sport and making it feel more team-like.
Beth Bobbitt:Yeah, yeah, well done. Um, okay, I think that we've hit on all of the questions related to 37 North. Unless you want to tease or promote anything that you have coming up, I mean, you know it's it's.
Danny Collins:Every season is amazing. Um, I think it's one of the greatest things. It's it's. You would think that everybody would always talk to me. Well, what do you do in the winter? Oh yeah, I'm like we still.
Danny Collins:Actually, in a lot of ways, a couple of those buckets that I talked about, of different things we do, are, like, more prevalent in the winter, because that's when people are itching to get outside more and more and there's still. I mean, it's not crazy to think that we're going to have frequent 70 degree days in the winter here, that's's one of the special things about Northwest Arkansas.
Danny Collins:But we are entering into the fall and there's there's not many more special places in the entire country in my life, in my mind, than you know some of our pristine places in in in when the colors start to change Right. So yeah, I'm excited. We, we have, we, we we've've.
Danny Collins:we do a lot of train rides you know train rides and come combined with hikes, um, and combined with bike rides and stuff. So the fall is a pretty time, um, and we really value getting to these new places right, finding not just your iconic, obvious overlooks, but finding the ones that might be a little bit more off the beaten path. And so yeah, I definitely encourage. Look at our calendar coming up. It will be. It's a special time to get outside in this area the best time.
Beth Bobbitt:Okay, so we're going to go through the wrap-up question. We ask all the guests and I'm hoping yours is a little different than the ones we typically hear but what does a dream day in Bentonville look like for you? What do you do? What do you see starting in the morning?
Danny Collins:Yeah, I mean, you know I, I to me, I have lived a lot of places. Um, when I moved away, I never imagined being happy back in the Midwest. To be honest, it really was. The only reason I came back was my family, and then I just fell in love. And I think one of the greatest things about our community of Bentonville is it's deeper than just biking. So I don't want to say biking, but it's the connections of our trails to all. Of our assets are on the trails. That is one of the most special things to me. I always suggest to anybody that's coming, even if you're not a biker, grab an electric bike and just kind of orient yourself with the bike. So that to me, is we, my family, we love living close to downtown. We bike. On a Saturday we probably bike into downtown four times.
Danny Collins:You know I mean literally just being able to go back and forth. Um, I mean you go back for naps and diaper changes and that stuff at this point.
Danny Collins:But um, but no. I think to me I, if I had a dream day, um, that I could do anything I want. It would be waking up early, and it would head it out to the Kings River to put my boat that's my happy place to be on the water, stopping in for lunch at Eureka Springs and then coming back into Bentonville for just an amazing dinner and the, the in my. I just love that. I don't know, maybe I would even change it to say I wouldn't want to miss a. I wouldn't want to miss a farmer's market Saturday morning though, too, so it's probably not as unique as you'd want to say, but I always go to, just no matter where we're going. Even with a one-year-old, three-year-old, I want to be there by bike.
Danny Collins:I want to be able to connect by bike.
Beth Bobbitt:Right, I love that.
Danny Collins:I don't know if it's as unique as you were hoping for.
Beth Bobbitt:It's perfect. I love it. It's making me long for the trails and for fall and all of it. Well, this has been so much fun talking to you and I'm dying to try one of your guided tours and experiences.
Danny Collins:Please do.
Beth Bobbitt:Yeah, thank you for coming on.
Danny Collins:Thanks for having us and thanks for what you guys do.
Beth Bobbitt:I love that.
Danny Collins:It's amazing how much pride as a community we have and we should and it's nice that we're finally living up to how much, taking pride in what we have here.
Beth Bobbitt:It's an amazing place to live, and enhancing the experiences, as you all are doing. Where can we find out more? Website social media.
Danny Collins:Yeah, I mean our website. We really take a lot of pride in spending time on our website and adding the details. You know we really want people to feel completely comfortable, knowing exactly what they're getting themselves into and what it all includes. So I always encourage, no matter what, go to the website. I think that we, I think it does a really good job and, to be honest, even if you're looking for things to do on your own, like we want to.
Danny Collins:We want to be that concierge out of concierge experience for here. So we want to be that concierge experience for here. So even if you want to go do stuff on your own, look at what we're doing and go do it. You know more outdoor advocacy is more outdoor advocacy. But then our social media is fine. We definitely try. It's pretty easy to have really good content when we're taking a lot of people in the outdoors all the time so our Instagram and our Facebook is definitely very profound as well.
Beth Bobbitt:Perfect, great. Well, I hope you all check out 37 North soon. And don't forget, visit Bentonville is here to help you navigate things to do, where to eat and stay and what's going on in our new American town. Give us a follow on social media, sign up for the newsletter and check out our website at visitbentonvillecom. Thanks for listening.