CFO Services for Adventure Travel

Your industry is wild. Your business doesn’t have to be.

You build experiences. You guide clients across glaciers, jungles, and desert plateaus. You do the kind of work that makes people feel alive.

But somewhere along the way, the calendar started fighting back. One week you're flush with bookings. The next, you're refunding a wedding group because a volcano decided to join the party.

And while some folks shrug and say, “That’s just how it goes in this industry,” that doesn’t help when you’re laying off your team. Or staring at a low balance alert while everyone else thinks you're "living the dream."

Meanwhile the guides want answers. The guests want Wi-Fi.

And the bank wants a miracle.

That’s where we come in.

What we bring to camp

We’re here to help you make better decisions under pressure—financial decisions that hold up when the weather turns or the bookings flood in.

We work with you to reduce complexity where simplicity is required—and manage complexity where it’s needed, with grace. The goal isn’t to make everything easy. The goal is to make what matters clear.

Here’s how we do that:

  1. Living Cash Map
    Thirteen weeks ahead, twelve months wide. We track deposits, refunds, and quiet shoulder weeks so you see the cliff before you hike to it—and the trail beyond, once you’ve cleared it.

  2. What-If Drills
    Currency spike? Border closes? Low snowpack? We run the scenarios and keep a Plan B packed.

  3. Trip-by-Trip Margins
    Every trek, paddle, and summit tells its own money story. We translate it so you know which adventures pay for the campfire coffee.

  4. Real Unit Costs
    Custom itinerary vs group departure, private chef vs packed lunches. We crunch the facts so you price with confidence instead of guesswork.

  5. Value-Chain Muscle
    Guides, DMCs, outfitters, outbound partners. We help you build fair, long-game relationships. Healthy trust equals healthy margins.

  6. Balanced Revenue Mix
    Too much weight on one region or season makes a brittle business. We spot the imbalance and sketch out sturdier streams.

Strategic finance for real-world volatility

Weather turns. Borders close. A quiet year suddenly fills with bookings after a magazine feature or a viral clip. The world doesn’t move in straight lines—and your financial model shouldn’t pretend it does.

Here’s how we approach planning:

  • We model for the extremes, not the averages. Averages are tidy, but they lie. We build in edge cases, wind gusts, and lightning bolts.

  • We keep the upside wide open. When growth comes fast, you’ll have the cash and capacity to ride it.

  • We make the downside survivable. When plans collapse, you’ll know the pivots, the cash burn, and the call list.

  • We leave room for slack. Not waste—slack. A little buffer where it matters makes the whole system more human.

  • We adapt quickly. Rolling forecasts update as the world changes. No more waiting for quarter-end to see how far off track you are.

When the unexpected hits—whether it’s demand surging or a storm closing borders—you’ll already know where your levers are.

Which trips carry margin.
Which partners flex.
What to cut, what to protect, and how far the runway goes.

That’s the difference between reactive chaos and clear-headed leadership.

Stuff People Actually Said About Us

  • Turning the Lights On

    When I stepped into the Head of Sales role at GeoEx, our CRM migration was a disaster and our lead pipeline was chaos. Reports were broken. Forecasting was guesswork. I was spending hours manually fixing data just to get a weekly snapshot.

    Doug noticed—and instead of watching from the sidelines, he stepped in and built a dashboard that gave us everything: visibility, clarity, and control. Suddenly we could see bottlenecks, conversion rates, lead sources—what was working, what wasn’t, and what to do next.

    Doug doesn’t just know numbers. He knows how to use them.
    He made my job better. He made our company better.
    I can’t recommend him enough.

    ~ Gayle Lehmann @ Africa Manager Ultimate Jet Vacations

  • He Didn’t Just Show Up. He Rewired the Place.

    Doug made a significant impact during his time as our CFO. He transformed the way we operate, adding value across the organization, going far beyond the typical CFO role.

    From day one, it was clear that Doug was laser-focused on making a meaningful impact and approached his work with a sense of purpose that was contagious. Doug’s strategic vision went far beyond the financials, especially when it came to modernizing operations, creating efficiencies, and building processes. His combination of talent, foresight, and resourcefulness enabled him to identify exactly where we needed to evolve to stay ahead.

    Doug genuinely cares about the success of the people around him. He is a true partner, always looking for ways to help others succeed. With a leadership style rooted in collaboration, Doug made sure to engage with every corner of the organization, making himself available to guide, support, and inspire. His ability to lead with both heart and vision has left a lasting legacy, and his contributions have set the company up for long-term success.

    ~ Katia Kravtchenko - Head of Marketing @ Geographic Expeditions

  • It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.

    Quote Source

Make It

FAQs

  • Not at all. If you’re juggling trips, payroll, invoices, deposits, and wondering whether you can afford to hire a new guide or open a new region—then you’ve already got CFO problems. You just haven’t had help yet.

    This is for founders who are still flying the plane and building it—and would like someone watching the instruments while they keep the nose level.

  • You talk. We listen. Then we show you where the stress is coming from. We build tools around your world—not a finance textbook. You’ll get simple visuals, clear forecasts, and real-time conversations about where things stand and what comes next.

    No finance degree required. If you can tell a guide where to pitch a tent in a storm, you can work with us.

  • Bookkeepers track what happened.
    Accountants make sure you don’t get arrested.
    We help you figure out what to do next.

    Your books might be clean, but if you don’t know how much cash you'll have when the next trip season hits—or what happens if a big client cancels—you’re flying blind. That’s our zone.

  • Item descYes. But we won’t throw them at you like a 400-tab Excel riddle. We use really cool software so we can build. Rolling forecasts, margin models, “what-if” drills (this one is really our magic). Think of it like a financial compass, not a financial cage.

    But we build them with you together and we are always working with you to make them better and more relevant as they adapt to the continuously shifting realities.

  • Nope. They do the debits, credits and reconciliations. Some of them file the taxes. We help make sure there’s something there to tax.

    We often work alongside your accountant, helping bridge the world between what happened (accounting) and what needs to happen next.

  • We’re your CFO—with fractional pricing and long-term commitment.

    We work as part of your team, right alongside you, with skin in the game. Not hovering above, not checking in quarterly, not handing you decks for someone else to explain. We're there when the real decisions hit—when it’s messy, unclear, or urgent.

    We’re not in this for performative consulting. We’re in it to help you lead well, grow smart, and stay standing when things tilt sideways. That means thinking with you, pushing back when it matters, and showing up like someone who gives a damn—because we do.

  • Yes—and we pretty much always do. Most of our clients bring us in for finance and keep us for decision-making. Hiring strategy, pricing shifts, operational tools, vendor negotiations, leadership coaching—we’ve done it all.

    We’ve been founders. We’ve run teams. We’ve fixed messes in departments that were once considered hopeless. If we can’t help, we’ll say so and we have an extensive network of people we work with who can help.

  • We don’t plan for tidy, theoretical futures. We plan for the messy, exhilarating, late-night-text kind of reality you actually live in. That means we work in rolling forecasts, plan for surprises, and give you tools that can flex without falling apart.

    Also? We care about what you do. A lot. We care about you being able to play in the game and win on your terms.

  • Some finance folks still think the future moves in straight lines. We know better.

    We plan for:
    – The freak snowstorm that kills your spring trips
    – The viral Instagram post that sells out a new itinerary overnight
    – The guide who moves to Bali with no notice
    – The DMC who “forgot” to tell you they doubled rates

    In short: we apply and approach the stress tests your business, built with systems that can help us make decisions when they need to be made.

  • Because we have. We’ve built software for this industry for over a decade. We've written books about being entrepreneurs in this industry. Fixed the backend of $30M travel companies. Slept in the gear shed (but that was on accident after getting locked in). Argued about satellite phone bills. We’ve seen the good, the gritty, and the totally absurd.

    We sound like we get it, because we’ve walked a few hundred miles in your shoes.

  • Most finance shops are obsessed with control. Lock it down. Predict it. Measure it. Repeat.

    And yes—structure matters. But too much control chokes off discovery.

    We design systems that do both:
    – Enough clarity to act with confidence
    – Enough flexibility to seize opportunity
    – Enough resilience to try something bold and survive if it flops

    Serendipity isn’t some dreamy “aha” moment. It’s what shows up when you build space for good things to happen—and have the guts (and cashflow) to follow them.

    Control gets you stability. Discovery gets you somewhere worth going.
    We help you balance both.

  • Here’s what sustainability means to us:
    – Fair pay and dignified treatment for everyone in the value chain—especially guides, DMCs, and vendors doing the heavy lifting
    – Long-game partnerships over extractive ones
    – Respect for land, people, and story—not just using destinations as backdrops
    – Financial decisions that align with your values—not just what looks efficient on paper

    We’ve worked in companies that got this right. We’ve worked in companies that absolutely didn’t. We know the cost of ignoring it—and the power of building it in from the start.

    If you care about where your gear comes from, who your guests meet, and whether your business uplifts or erodes the communities you touch—we’re with you.

    And if you’re still figuring it out? That’s okay. We’ll ask the hard questions with you—and help you find answers that hold up when no one’s watching.