In the last six years, Dave and Deb have been to more than 80 countries—they laugh in disbelief at having lost track of the precise number. The full-time travelers are the founders of The Planet D, an adventure travel blog with almost 78,000 Facebook fans and just as many followers on Twitter. Their website—true to the slogan “Adventure is for Everyone”—is a resource for any potential traveller; young, old, well-travelled, first-time flyers, avid outdoor people or play-it-safe sightseers.
All but bursting with enthusiasm, the pair has the exact exuberance you’d expect from two people who are living their dream. Rapid caught up with Dave and Deb at the Madawaska Kanu Centre in the whitewater wonderland of Ontario’s Ottawa Valley, where they finished each other’s sentences as they gushed about how they make a living doing what they love.
How did you become world-traveling bloggers?
We knew we wanted to travel so we worked really hard to save money. For years we would save up, travel for a few months then go back to work again but we knew this was what we wanted to do full-time. Eventually we saved up as much as we could and quit our jobs for good. We couldn’t go half way. We saved enough to have a starting point, but ran out of money pretty quickly so for a while we just had to figure it out as we went to make a bit of money here and there.
How do you make a living from it?
At first we sold ads on our website because it was the only way we knew how, but that was before we’d really built our brand. Now we make our money through partnerships and sponsorships, and we really had to build our website and put ourselves out there to make it happen. We’re American Express Ambassadors, Expedia Viewfinders, HouseTrip Diplomats—we have all these different names. We’re brand ambassadors, and we regularly work with tourist boards.
Lots of our readers would love to be living the dream like you are but have other commitments that get in the way—what advice would you give them?
If you know what you want and step out of your comfort zone to try to make it happen, doors will open, but it’s not going to work if you just go with the wind. Have a plan to get to where you want to be, and be willing to modify and mold that plan. You have to be flexible and work really hard. We thought the website would be a good way to keep travelling but when we were building it, it was like having two full time jobs—we worked our normal jobs all day then worked on the website at night for a year.
You’ve been skydiving in New Zealand, ice climbing in the rockies, and cage diving with sharks in South Africa—how does whitewater stand out from all your other adventures?
There’s something about doing the Ottawa River that feels like a rite of passage—it is the big river of the world. We’re both from Ontario and have travelled all over to find adventure, so being back here is amazing. We keep thinking ‘I didn’t know you could do that in Ontario.’
This interview has been abbreviated for publication.
