Un-Tours Of Myanmar Offer Adventure and Unpredictability

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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Is there an unusual part of the world, or even your own country, state, province, or city that you enjoy showing off? If so, maybe, just maybe, you might be interested in starting your own part-time tour business. That's what happened with today's featured case study. He had found a way to make a life for himself by working remotely so he could travel, living in and visiting lots of different countries, and one of them that he loved, in particular, was Myanmar, also known as Burma. His friends kept asking him to lead tours there, and he finally agreed.

But as an off-the-beaten-path traveler, he didn't want to stick to the usual sights, so his untours, as he called them, would be anything but typical. These untours offer adventure and unpredictability. They also earn him an extra $7,000 every time he does one. Stay tuned for the story. [Music]

In many ways, Dustin Maine was living the dream.

He had a successful travel gear blog called Too Many Adapters and was working remotely out of Thailand. As his visa time ran out, he took the usual trip across the border to get his passport re-stamped. He had to do that every 30 days. Except this time, one particular trip, he did something unusual. Instead of just crossing the border and then crossing back, he decided to stay a few days in the country known as Myanmar, used to be known as Burma, before going back to Chiang Mai.

It was a very different country. Exotic in a new way. In just a couple of days of hanging out across the border, Dustin was captivated. He had to get back to work in Thailand, but he couldn't stop thinking about his new discovery. Over the next few years, Dustin visited Myanmar over a dozen times, getting to know it well.

A skilled photographer, he even produced a photo exhibition for a gallery in the US titled This Myanmar Life, that told the story of the country's shift from oppressive military rule to blossoming open nation. And before long, people started asking Dustin to take them back to the country. People started asking Dustin to take them with him. By this point, he knew a much deeper side of the country than most tourists, had many local friends, knew a bit of the language, and understood how to navigate the often unpredictable country. But before he made his own tour, he wanted to try an exotic, unusual tour for himself.

So he went to a country that most Americans and Canadians can only visit with a guide. That country is Iran. A friend of his was Iranian, so Dustin was able to take the tour of a lifetime. And he noticed it was so different than the big tour bus groups that were going by. They ate at local restaurants, went to food festivals, and walked around abandoned mud villages.

It was a beautiful, humbling experience. And Dustin knew he could do the same thing for people in Myanmar. So it was time to start planning. He wanted to keep the tour small, just eight people maximum. This meant his earning potential was limited, but it also meant he could make the tour intimate in a way that's usually impossible.

In fact, he didn't even call it a tour, he called it an untour. He contacted guest houses he'd stayed in before, he called up some local guides and experts, and he crafted a rough schedule. For two weeks, he'd take his guests across the country to various cities, festivals, and historical sites. For a trial run, Dustin took his mom to Myanmar. It was a fantastic experience, she loved it, and he knew it was time to start selling.

So when Dustin sent out his first email to friends and followers saying he was gonna open up an eight-person untour of Myanmar, he had his first sign up within a couple hours. After that, it was slower going. It took a few months to fully sell out, 'cause this was an almost $3,000 tour, but Dustin did it. His first untour to Myanmar was fully booked. Meeting the guests at the airport to start the tour was a surreal experience.

They had trusted him with thousands of dollars in nearly two weeks of their time. Now it was his turn to deliver. The untour group drank chai at neighborhood cafes, visited temples after dark, and finally, at the end, attended the Festival of Lights. At this massive festival, locals sent hot air balloons high into the sky, and these hot air balloons are loaded with fireworks. It's an annual event that features one of the most wild and amazing fireworks shows in the world.

That tour didn't go off without a hitch. There were some issues, and some plans had to be changed along the way. By the end, however, everyone was smiling and had a story they'd never forget. Dustin has led six more untours after that experience, each a little different, and he's found some ways to reduce the burden. First, he hired one of his guides in Myanmar as an assistant.

She could help plan travel, pre-order food for the group to save lots of time, and have alternative plans thought up whenever they had to make a change. Second, he started giving the group two free days throughout the tour so that they could go out and do something on their own. Dustin is an introvert, like me, shout out to all our introverts out there, and those two days to recharge by himself helped him enjoy the untours much more. And third, he's now an expert at setting expectations. It's important that everyone on the tour knows that infrastructure in Myanmar can be unorganized.

Also, the food is not something that most people are used to, very different from Thai food, and that's all part of the journey. Establishing these expectations up front has smoothed out a lot of tense moments, because, as he says, you just never really know when something unusual is gonna come up in Myanmar. These days, he runs two untours each year. All of his previous guests have turned into word of mouth evangelists, so he's not having too tough of a time selling out anymore. After expenses, these tours generate roughly $14,000 per year in profit for Dustin, and he's still looking to grow.

Later this year, he'll release a book about Myanmar. He's also planning to introduce the country of Jordan as his next untour destination. If you're interested in going along, maybe you should check out his site to book an unpredictable adventure. [Music]

Well, this was a fun episode for me to work on. I remember visiting Myanmar way back in, I was trying to remember what year it was, 2006, I believe.

I had just moved back to the US after spending several years living on a hospital ship in West Africa, and so I did this trip to Southeast Asia, where I went to Hong Kong for the first time and Singapore for the first time, a couple other spots, but I also did a few days in Myanmar. And back then, it was certainly not like any place I'd been to, and I'm sure it's changed so much since then, but I also do know that it's still very much a lesser travel place compared to everything else in the region, so good for Dustin in taking these small, intimate tours, which seemed very respectful and very focused on culture. Now, he also said, we had some comments from him. He said, "It's really amazing for me to be able to share my enthusiasm and passion for the country of Myanmar and its people. Not only that, but to be able to experience the country through fresh eyes gives me joy." And on the business side, he said, "Tour companies typically make money by selling as many seats as possible, and by limiting mine to eight people max, I'm really cutting out the main profit maker.

That means I need to sell out to make it worthwhile for me to run, which can be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, as sometimes I can go months without bookings, sometimes wondering if I should even be doing this, but then I'll sell five seats in a week." So lots to take away from that. Obviously, he does this for the joy, for the passion, because it's something he believes in, but because it's a side hustle, it is profitable. So that's great. It's not something it sounds like he wants to do full-time, it's just something that complements all the other projects and all the other work he does. If you'd like to check it out, we'll be sure to link up his site and his Instagram on the show notes page.

He's got some really beautiful photographs as well. That page is thaddestleschool.com/747. 747, just like the plane that might take you to Myanmar. You never know. All right, thanks so much for listening.

I hope you enjoyed it. I'll be back again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]