Unlocking Your Unique Experience With Zach Smith

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Skot Waldron (00:05.00)
Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Unlocked, where we talk about unlocking the potential of you, the people you work with, and the people you do life with. At the time of this recording, I’m offering all of you, yes, my lovely listeners, a free 15 minute communication coaching call. You come with some kind of communication problem, and I give you a solution. My calendar link is in the show notes so check that out.

Real leadership and real transformation come not from speed, not from scale, but from trust, patience, designing experiences that invite people to be fully present. Fully present, whether in business or in travel, the deeper impact, It all comes from how you show up, not just the thing you build.

This is what we’re gonna talk about today. Zach Smith is the founder of Anywhere.com. And if you haven’t checked out Anywhere.com and you love to travel and have authentic experiences, you should check it out. Yes, we talked a little bit about Anywhere.com and how it came to be and all the things that Zach went through and building that company. But what we really want you to understand is what it means to have real transformation inside your culture and the things that you’re doing in leadership and in life to have authentic experiences and designing those experiences
intentionally.

Zach is the founder and CEO of Anywhere, a human-powered travel company that designs seamless, meaningful trips built on trust, not transactions. After a one-way ticket to Guatemala, he sparked exploration across Central America, Zach launched Anywhere to make travel more personal, more connected, and more present. He’s lived in Costa Rica, Seattle, and Los Angeles, and now as a husband, father of two, and lifelong learner, he’s starting to share more of his story. His perspective? The journey never really ends, and it’s meant to shape you, not just move you.

His story has definitely shaped him and you’re gonna find out a little bit about it right now.

All right, Zach, here we go, man. You’re going to give me every travel deal that I have ever wanted on this show. And I’m never going to want to go anywhere else, right?

Zach Smith (02:24.483)
Well, travel deals are not really our specialty. You know, because ultimately we’re trying to consider the entire ecosystem and experience that you’d be going through. So the impulse purchase escapism, mass travel,

Skot Waldron (04:31.504)
Dang it. Okay. Okay.

Zach Smith (04:52.003)
is really not our thing. We’re really trying to help people identify their intentions behind travel and the curiosity that is driving them and match them with 10 days, two weeks, eight days, seven days, whatever duration makes sense and make sure every moment is, they’re able to be present and have no regrets.

And so we don’t sell tickets. We really try to craft experiences that help people connect with where they’re actually visiting and come back with real perspective, primary information about that place. yeah, the 50 % off of an all-inclusive resort for a week is not our thing, sorry.

Skot Waldron (05:46.04)
No, no groupons, no groupons available. Okay. Okay. Just checking. Just checking. Well, when I heard about Anywhere, right? And I was kicking around and I knew you were going to be on the show. was like, Hmm. Like I want to try this thing out. Cause I want to know like what the deal is, you know? Like, and so I was just doing some research. I went on Anywhere and I started like clicking around some stuff because you know,

Zach Smith (05:48.483)
No group bonds.

Skot Waldron (06:14.392)
We, we like to travel. We’ve been traveling a lot with a family. we’ve, we’ve been doing a lot of travel hacking type things. And so we’ve built up a rapport of, mean, and I, bank of points that we can use all over the world. And we’ve been able to, we’ve been blessed to be able to do that and travel and see these different cultures. And so was like, I’m going to kick this thing around. So I go in, kick the tires and it was so easy, man. Like, it was really easy to go through the whole thing and then to get a concierge like email back of like, this how it’s going to work. And this is you’re to go. Like I’m just telling you, man, it was, it was pretty seamless. So I don’t know how long it’s taken you to get to this point, but, kudos to y’all for making something so easy.

Zach Smith (07:05.802)
Well, thank you. And it certainly has taken a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. But ultimately, we think this is the way it ought to be. We think each individual has a unique set of preferences. Each family has a unique set of constraints and tastes and things that make them feel nice while they’re traveling. So we just try to honor that. And again, each of these geographies are not just places to check off on a bucket list. There’s whole societies here and cultures to experience. And so we really want it to be just more humane.

And the vending machine mass travel model is actually not really helpful at curating an experience. It’s really great at facilitating a one-way transaction. then you as the user have all the accountability for your own experience. And that’s a simple business model. The vending machine is one of the simplest business models. What is more tricky is to try to ensure that the visitor has a relaxed state of mind as they’re adventuring through a country they’ve never been to. And that’s the challenge that we take on.

And we think it starts with really understanding the preferences and then empowering locals to communicate and be there for you in trip, you know, as a on-demand concierge. So there’s a whole integration from that planning side to the in-trip experience that we take accountability for.

Skot Waldron (09:18.678)
Yeah. I, and I love that mindset and. You know, the, the typical idea and we’ll get into kind of leadership principles and cultural things in just a minute, but I want to set the framework for just your brain and doing things and solving problems that you see out there. Cause that’s what we do in business. Yeah. We solve problems that we see as something that’s in, you know, there’s an opportunity. There’s something that we can solve when you’re looking at the typical vending machine model or the, Hey, I’m going to go find some travel agent that I’m just going to call and give them my itinerary preferences. And then they come back to me with a few package deals or whatever. mean, what do you see as the main difference? know that it’s like boots on the ground. There’s, there’s locals that are there curating and experience for you. Is that what you see as the main thing that people want? mean, when you’re getting these surveys and the feedback from these individuals. It’s like, is that what they want now?

Zach Smith (10:26.499)
Well, mass travel is, not going away. I think that a lot of people still believe that, you know, when they go on vacation, they’re, they’re there to be served. And, and it’s about, you know, Hey, I paid for this. You work for me. And that mentality is, it ripples from the across the industry. We very much take a different approach that these are opportunities to gain perspective and to learn and to explore the real world rather than be in a closed system of convenience which essentially is what an all-inclusive resort is or what a cruise ship is or what a place like Dubai or Abu Dhabi is. And, you know, some would argue that’s the future of tourism is a big scaled up brand new place where you can get all of your… know, conveniences readily met and that is travel. That’s one definition of travel because you’re doing it in another place, but that’s not really the intention behind what we enable. I just think that our role is to be a door that people walk through rather than… the mass travel button that they just kind of autonomously hit because other people are doing it. So we’re kind of, yeah, just trying to be an opportunity where not only are we accounting for this, more of a value chain that benefits the local economy, but also allows the client to get a more differentiated experience rather than be kind of just sold a ticket where they’re one of you know, a large number. And so again, I don’t want to judge, you know, the people that are doing that. It’s just that we’re different. We really want people to experience the real world. We really want them to come away with more perspective and confidence that they can go and explore the world safely when they have a trust network that backs them up, which is pretty much what we’ve established and what we pride ourselves on as being more than just a travel agency, more of like we are a trust network ready to enable this client to go where they want to go, how they want to go, and we match them and yeah, it’s pretty win-win-win.

Skot Waldron (13:41.526)
So when you were building this model, where are you now versus where you were? Like how much have you scaled up? How many destinations are you in? How many different people do you work with within your network? Give, give us the scope of the business first, and then I’ll ask you. No further on what, what, what, why I’m asking that.

Zach Smith (14:04.717)
Sure, yeah. Well, this business was very much in an organic process from the beginning. I originally just was traveling through Central America after I graduated from university. And then I had a few serendipitous encounters, ended up working for a guy in Monteverde.

Costa Rica, which is this cloud forest area, really, really beautiful. And I just got a little taste of tourism, like what it is, how information helps the visitor make good decisions for when they’re going to actually be there in the country. And so I learned a little bit about how the business model works with different hotels or transport companies.

And so I piqued my curiosity and I ended up, this is way back in 2005. So I ended up deciding that I wanted to buy a couple of websites that had a little traffic. And I didn’t tell my family, I didn’t tell anyone else. And here I am on an aerial tram going through the rainforest. And this person across from me is on a vacation with his wife.

And he’s like, Hey, what are you up to? And I just decided, why not tell the stranger what I’m up to? Because I kind of have an open mindset about this stuff. And he is my business partner today. He happened to be a software engineer on a trip interested in heading down to Costa Rica, maybe at a future date. And so, that catalyzed an opportunity to start anywhere Costa Rica, which was the primary expression of what we wanted to do, which is AnywhereCostaRica.com was an online guidebook with trip planning and booking associated with it. So just a one-stop shop to get what you needed to know as a potential visitor. And so we built hundreds of hotel and tour operator relationships around the country. And the whole idea was that no matter what budget range you were in, ultra luxury or mid range or premium, we would have a relationship that we could utilize to match you with what you wanted. So we started just building all those relationships and it worked out very well. That website got a lot of traffic and over the years it became really a standard for the country and then we got ambitious and started adding more countries and independent websites. Anywhere, guatemala.com, anywhere, peru.com, anywhere.

Ecuador.com, et cetera. And then we got ambitious again and said, well, we don’t want to have all these websites. We wanted to have one. And so in 2016, we flipped the switch and did a 10,000 or more pages 301 redirect to Anywhere.com. And so we thought we had a real mandate to express this form of travel. Google liked it, our clients loved it, the trip experiences were great. However, and the SEO experts said, hey, you guys are gonna really amplify your presence by doing this consolidation. And the complete opposite thing happened. We lost almost all of our in-market traffic. We were expecting a short-term penalty of 30%, that’s what everyone said, but it ended up being a full penalty. We got page six. And so all of our in-market audience basically vanished and we had to just scramble to maintain our volumes. So a lot more paid traffic and that was difficult, but you know, we still managed to get through it because the customer experience is really what we’re all about the publishing and all the tricks and things you do to try to show up in the right search engine. It wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing with my time. And we saw that the more we worked on it, the worse things became. anyway, long story short, then COVID happened. Everything went to zero.

And we had to just be patient and wait for people to be able to travel across borders again. so now we are in 11 countries. We’re adding about four more this year. We have more efficient ways to do that than we did before. And so we feel like there’s not really a pressure to do it at a certain speed and a certain amount of time. We believe that, yeah, we’re building the right types of relationships and we’re adding geographies in a line with our client base. So yeah, I mean, think this year we will… be well over 10 million in sales. And in travel, that’s actually not that much. We really are built to be much larger than that. But again, we’re taking our time and have kind of just believed in this long-term approach. so we feel like we have all the tools and the primary information around our marketplace that that we can just steadily move forward.

Skot Waldron (20:44.386)
When you, when a person in business hears that story, maybe they didn’t go through specifically exactly what you went through, you know, those specific things that happened to you. but what I want to understand from you is through that story, through your growth, through the hiccups that happen, that is business. That is the world of growing a company. That is whatever issues you’re going to have, you’re going to have them.

When you went through those things, it’s really easy to shift. Well, easy. say easy. know, no, it’d been like, Whoa, dude, you’re in the travel industry during COVID. You got to find something else like fast, you know, whether people were in the entertainment business, you know, live event business during COVID. Whoa, you better find something else fast. Cause you’ve got some issues.

Hospitality, whatever it was, but you didn’t do that necessarily. What, what message do you have for businesses that are out there that will go through stuff? it’s not a matter of if, but when, and when it happens, what sustained you through that and what’s your recommendation or advice to other people.

Zach Smith (22:10.507)
Well, number one, survival is the name of the game. So that challenge that shows up, that obstacle that shows up is a test. And again, the amount of thoughts and stress and things that show up when you’re put in those circumstances, I mean, they leave a mark. There’s no doubt about it. They leave a mark. But again, I do think that they are ultimately a form of test. Can you sustain this? maybe you’re not meant to sustain it. I felt like we were meant to sustain it. We made choices.

You know, not to leverage our business, not to go after mass scale, not to involve, you know, too many cooks in the kitchen. So, you know, we just had to tolerate that pain for a while, me and my, me and my partner. I mean, on a personal level, I, I had, I mean, we had a daughter during, during COVID. So, I did have family distractions, which was helpful. We took some road trips and went on lots of hikes. I mean, there just wasn’t much to do. So I was able to renew some of my energy in that way. But ultimately, when you’re trying to make the ideal real, you just have to be patient. And these tests that show up, give you so much additional perspective about what you’re made of, you can tolerate. And so I do think that… in a weird way that they’re necessary.

Skot Waldron (24:27.256)
They shape us. That’s for sure. there’s yeah. Yeah. You got that right. the, the value system you hold has helped shape your company vision has helped shaped you all of our values shape who we are. There those deep and grain things that should be, you know, our, our bumpers and the bowling alley of life to make sure that we’re not falling in the gutter. what, what are some of your values?

Zach Smith (24:28.471)
Yeah. Not fun.

Skot Waldron (24:56.878)
that have held you straight and strong.

Zach Smith (25:01.367)
Well… For me personally or on the business side? I mean, they’re kind of similar. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (25:10.188)
Why? Well, let’s talk about that. Cause my, my belief is that especially with a company like yours, I believe that the company values will be a reflection somewhat of yours and your partner’s values, but I don’t know. I find it really hard to run a company where my values aren’t partially integrated.

Zach Smith (25:34.019)
Yeah, they’re different.

Skot Waldron (25:36.684)
You I mean, if you’ve got a different idea about that, let me know.

Zach Smith (25:41.087)
Yeah, well, I guess, yeah, there’s definitely some childhood things that I think helped, but ultimately they all, they have kind of distilled down into, you know, we value the individual, we value you as a unique expression of your own humanity. And so we, that is certainly a fundamental value that, you know.

We are all connected in some way, but we’re also unique in many ways. And that’s a good thing. And that’s something that we want to account for always in relationships that we maintain with clients. then of course, like range of, you know, relationships we have in our personal life. I mean, we all have unique perspectives in our life that show up. And I think that’s great.

I think connection is the other core one. I mean, we really are trying to be a bridge between cross-cultural connection. Also connection that occurs during travel between family members. I think it’s such a unique experience to be in a faraway place for 10 days with your core people. And then you’re also… you know, having opportunities to bump into people that are maybe quite come from a different, you know, culture, different language. And you start to appreciate that, connect with that. And it just, think really broadens, you know, the joy for life in some way when you can have unique and new connections that start to show up or to deepen a relationship.

And then the world as adventure. I mean, I really believe that this world is meant to be lived, it’s meant to be explored, it’s meant to be better understood. And so I’m an eyes up kind of guy. Like, yes, I have to do things on the phone and on the computer, but I really prefer to be in front of the computer or looking at a screen. I’m an eyes up guy, I wanna meet people, I wanna be outside. And I do think there’s a lot of people that crave that. And we just wanna give them those really highlight moments in their life where they get to go and do really cool stuff.

Skot Waldron (28:25.08)
We’re going to let’s let’s play this little game real quick. So I wrote down some keywords that I’ve heard you say throughout this thing. Okay. yes, they apply to travel. Yes, they apply to you as an individual. Yes, they apply to your company specifically and what you built and what you’ve done and kind of your goals. So gain perspective, learn, curate opportunity.

Your expression of you connection. Adventure. When I think about these words, I go, well, shouldn’t every company, whether you’re a million, 10 million, a billion, shouldn’t you be creating all of that? Like if I worked for a company that where I could gain perspective and learn.

Where there was curated experience, where I had opportunity for growth that valued the unique me, that created cultural and family dynamics of connection and adventure, a sense of adventure, this, even the mindset, the concept of that. I mean, wouldn’t I want to work there?

Zach Smith (29:43.169)
I yeah, I suppose. I mean, I do think there are human values and I do think that the world and society would benefit from, know, dabbling in some of them from time to time. But a lot of people don’t get the opportunity to stay in that present state that much. You know, there’s a lot of external pressure that I think short circuit some of that, know, idealism maybe that comes with my values. And I just somehow have tried to walk the path that, you know, just suited me. And it is maybe a little counter positioned to you know, quarter quarterly reports or the, you got to get, you know, 10 % growth month on month in order to, you know, generate the next investor round or whatever. I mean, I just, don’t believe in all of those things as being the most important use of your time. That’s so, so again, I.

Timeless values maybe is another way that I try to like look at this stuff. And I am most curious about the things that are not trendy and more timeless.

Skot Waldron (31:21.326)
What do you think’s missing from companies, um, organizations that are trying to create a culture of, of all of these things, right? Or maybe they’re not trying to create culture of these things. That’s the problem. But what do you think’s missing from the world, from our mindset, from. You know, the, ability to go through life and. Experience that adventure. Like what’s holding us back.

Zach Smith (31:47.597)
Hmm… mean, it’s…

I think everyone, I mean, you’re trying to unlock people and it’s a really unique combination for everyone. And so you could say in general, maybe people need to be more aware of what narratives are entering their state of mind and how it changes their emotions or changes their perspective. So, you know, what are you reading? What are you listening to? What behaviors don’t serve you but you’re doing it because other people are doing it and so it’s normalized. You know, just questioning some of those things might be a good start, but I do think it is a unique combination that everyone has to kind of determine what works. And again, I think it’s all about getting to this point where you can make the next best choice. Because we’re stuck with making lots of choices in this world. Like many, many, many, many, many choices have led us here that will lead us along the next stage. And you just want to try to make the next best choice over and over and shift course if it doesn’t feel right, but trusting your gut, trusting your intuition, reconnecting and remembering who you are and what values stick with you. Yeah, I mean, it’s again for everyone to kind of unlock their own best version of themselves as a process.

Skot Waldron (33:58.478)
I will send you $4 for every time you say unlock on this show. Well done, sir. I mean, to sum this thing up, I want to bring it all around. mean, your journey started in Costa Rica, this whole shifting of what you did, this all birthed out of this idea of being in that beautiful part of the world. And yes, that forest is brilliantly beautiful.

Zach Smith (34:20.675)
Definitely.

Skot Waldron (34:27.264)
Explain the idea of Puerto Vida for, for all of us. And like just that mindset. I think, I think it’s so interesting. It’s, know, the Costa Rica idea and where it comes from. Give us that at the end of this. And I want to, I want to end it on that point.

Zach Smith (34:51.007)
Yeah, I mean, they really have a way of communicating among themselves where pure Vita is kind of that phrase that it’s like, see you. Like, you know, we might be waiting in line in the bank and it might be annoying, but it’s poor Vita or something might have you know, been challenging in their external world, but when they see each other or when they see another person, it’s like you honor that person, Pura Vida, we’re here, we’re life. And so that’s on a deep level what’s going on. And I guess one of the things that has always motivated me is for a visitor just to have a bit more perspective, not only of Costa Rica, but when they go to Mexico or when they go to Peru or when they go to Vietnam or when they go to Ecuador, that they see the people as conscious, aware, family oriented, friendly, open, welcoming. so, yeah, mean, Costa Rica got the ball going for me, for sure. I I traveled all through Central America. And then when I arrived there, I recognized the fundamental difference among the people, how calm they were.

And how enlightened the government ultimately was at different stages to disband their army, to focus on getting clean water and education and healthcare for all of their citizens. So they were able to internally raise their standard of living and conserve their land for visitors.

At the time, was in the 70s and 80s, there was a lot of deforestation occurring there. And they fundamentally shifted into a conservation mindset. And I think ecotourism and sustainable tourism and all the different iterations of regenerative development, out of whatever terminology you want to ascribe to how you solve development issues, Costa Rica has examples of actually living their values and doing it that way. so again, for me to have lived there for a few years, really got a business going there, I always wanted to do it in a line with those values as well. So a lot of other businesses will, you know, they’ll hire foreigners to answer the phone or to sell travel because it’s easier. We really want that each community or each country to have their own, I want them to be able to participate in the client experience from the very beginning. And so that’s why me is like, founder and CEO, I’ve never really wanted to communicate much out in the, you know, I didn’t really want any of this to be about myself. The whole point was always about the geography, the culture of that geography, the client and their experience and their vision. And so it’s a little uncomfortable for me to be like, yeah, I did all this because I didn’t, I helped enable it. I’ve worked behind the scenes, but it’s really just trying to facilitate this bridge as I mentioned earlier. But as time has gone on and I’ve become a little bit more comfortable communicating, I think that it’s necessary now for me to serve my community by just telling a bit of the story.

Skot Waldron (39:37.71)
Super cool, man. This is, this has definitely been a little bit of a pace shift from what a normal show is normally about on this, on here. you’re sorry. No, man. No. this has been like, I mean that in a good way. Like I mean that in this idea of like, how can we shift our mindset a bit?

Zach Smith (39:38.625)
Yeah. Sorry.

Okay, cool.

Skot Waldron (40:06.99)
To what we do and how we do it to create those experiences for, mean, I’m gonna tie it back, right? To our people, the people we work with, the people we live with, how do we do that together to the point where I see you and things are gonna go be hard, things are gonna be tough and we’re put a V to, like, it’s this idea of like, how do we create that in our own lives instead of just being hunkered down on that next quarterly report that some of us frankly have to hit and those sales numbers and whatever. So, but if we can have this mindset a little bit more of catering those experiences to be more authentic, more adventurous. I think that there’s a lot of growth for all of us. you know, anywhere.com people can go there.

Zach Smith (40:43.191)
No? Yeah.

Skot Waldron (41:04.294)
And check it out. it’s seriously, man, your whole catering to the needs of what I was like, wow, this is getting very specific and very customized to what I want. And it doesn’t take a long time to go through. people can check that out. It’s really smart the way you’ve built that thing. So anywhere else, if you want to talk to you, people want to get in touch with you, what do they do?

Zach Smith (41:28.035)
You can email me be at anywhere.com. I’m on LinkedIn as well. yeah, just, we’re, you know, we’re just trying to get our story out there little by little. And, you know, what you, what you spoke to, it’s just thought of this and, you know, that the world gives us a lot of external pressure, no doubt about it. And that can be very adaptive and a good thing. But one thing, getting into the Pure Vita mindset, one thing that is something that we’ve done in our organization, and I think it’s a conscious choice, is to not intentionally pass stress to anyone within the organization. Sometimes clients will pass stress to us.

We can then, you know, unconsciously pass that around. And then it’s like this whole game of shifting that around. you know, we do not want to pass stress to anyone as stress stops with us. we absorb it and you know, that, that allows for that next person to think more clearly. And when, when that external pressure is just this kind of just the way that you speak or the tone in which you bring or it’s just like this psychic energy that doesn’t need to transmit stress. I think that is one thing that organizations, they’re, if not all of them are capable of that, but if you’re in the information business or if you’re in a lot of different organizations, it’s like just be a little bit more sensitive about how you’re pushing that message out. Because we all need to cooperate. And if you start passing stress and you still need to cooperate, you just are disabling your organization to think more clearly. Because we know that when there’s stress hormones happening, you don’t think as clear. So it’s really not adaptive to do that.

Skot Waldron (43:51.96)
Well said, man. Thanks. Thanks for capping it off with that. Cause I think that’s really, really smart and, we all need to be aware, much more aware of that. So good luck, Zach. Thanks for being on man. help us travel the world and, you know, experience that culture that we, think maybe we don’t realize we want, but once you experience it, you’re like, this is cool. You know, I’ve been there and had that shift and I hope that everybody gets to have it too.

Zach Smith (44:21.219)
Thank you, Skot. It’s been a real pleasure.

Skot Waldron (44:44.219)
Did you learn something, in there? His story is really interesting. Yes, there’s a lot of serendipitous moments in that story and we all have them, but do we notice them? Do we take advantage of them? Do we understand what they really mean? And for him, it’s I mean, I was blown away by that the amount of patience and the amount of discipline it probably took for him to wait things out or to be thinking or to strategize and mean to go through what he went through. And his industry would a lot of you probably went through in your industries. When COVID hit, I can’t even imagine. I continued to work. I was blessed with a lot of good clients and a lot of good work and it kept me going in that moment. My speaking business obviously took a little bit of a backseat, but he’s just a lot of webinars. It was easier to adapt him. Not so much. It’s an industry built all around travel. You can’t, I don’t know, virtually do travel. I don’t know. Maybe some of you did it. I don’t know.

This was an interesting perspective to me that, you know, how do we view life and how do we walk through life in a way that’s empowering for us that we’re designing these experiences that are meaningful, not only for us, but the people we live with, the people we work with. I want you to be thinking about that as you go about your day today, as you go about your week and as you go about your life.