By MARLEY LIEN-GONZALEZ
Active Riding Trips is an equine travel agency committed to the environment, animals, and small businesses while continuing to branch out all over the world. Founder Stacey Adams has just expanded her Stanfordville, NY operation to include offices in Australia and France, bringing the joy of horses and travel to even more people.
Setting the Standard
Every experience that Active Riding Trips offers has been personally visited and evaluated by Adams. Not only does personal investment go into selecting other businesses to partner with, but it is also a personal guarantee that destinations and activities are vetted to the top of safety and wellness standards for both horses and people.
Adams says, “We go places first to ensure the quality before we ever turn around and send clients there. Of the things that we inspect when we’re on a trip, the most critical piece is the horses.” As a horsewoman first, Adams knows no vacation is a good vacation if the horses are in poor condition.
“We’re looking at the total body condition and at how the horses act toward us and each other. How do the guides interact with the horses? Are they giving them baths at the end of each day? We’re looking for horses that are 100% taken care of.”
Clients of Active Riding Trips never have to question the welfare of the horses; instead, they can fully embrace and enjoy the equine travel experience. “One of the things that is so nice about getting offline one on a riding vacation is feeling that you have a wonderful, internal, and intrinsic sense of what makes that area so special. Because otherwise, why would you bother leaving home?” says Adams.
Part of that respect for the area is Active Riding Trips’ “Leave No Trace” motto. If guests stop somewhere for lunch or unpack overnight, later, when they leave, it’s as if they were never there at all. Sometimes, that looks like leaving the site in better shape than they found it, which is all tied back to the values of Active Riding Trips: “Bring awareness and invest by visiting responsibly, and come away feeling like you’ve made a difference in the local community.”
When Active Riding Trips was starting, Adams invested in her local area in New York. Even now, as she’s expanded globally, she focuses on supporting small, local, eco-centric businesses, many of which are women-owned like her own, and fostering a network between them and her clients.
“It’s been incredible to meet other dynamic women out in their areas, all making a difference. It’s empowering to know that the people we’re sending to them support them financially and emotionally because they’re making connections and becoming friends. Everyone’s network is getting bigger,” says Adams.
The Client Experience
Active Riding Trips offers over 95 adventures spanning nearly two dozen countries for various levels of riding, family needs and interests, and climates. Agents are thoroughly invested in each individual’s experience, and often, once guests travel somewhere with Active Riding Trips, they come back to the agency repeatedly.
“We’re very particular about staying in touch with clients. We spend a lot of time prepping them before they go. We check in with them to ensure they’ve arrived safely–although we would know if they didn’t. We check in with them midway through their stay, not to interfere, but make sure their expectations are being met,” says Adams.
When guests book solo trips, unshakable bonds are formed. Adams says, “Something magical about the equine travel industry is that people will book a trip on their own, spend a week riding with other people that they didn’t know before, and all of a sudden, they’ve created their own group of travel friends, and they’re making future travel plans together.”
Even friends who met on trips but live across the world from each other still unite annually on Active Riding Trips adventures. Travel urges people to unite and encourages storytelling–a wonder Adams has seen countless times yet never ceases to amaze her.
For horse people, among which vacations are not common nor often relaxing, the perspective Active Riding Trips brings them is this: “You can’t be the best and offer the best to your employer, to your family, and even to yourself unless you carve out time to refresh. Women, who are 85% of Active Riding Trip adventurers, feel particularly guilty about taking time off and prioritizing themselves, but when they do, they return as a force.”
Vacation skeptics also worry about the lack of cellular signal in rural destinations. Adams says, “People are terrified not to have their phones working.” So, she educates people about how liberating being cell phone-free can be.
“Everyone is attached to their electronic leash,” says Adams, “When we help them just take a breath and let that go, it adds a whole amazing, wonderful aspect to the restorativeness of the trip because they have to disconnect. They’ve completely gone on vacation.”
A Clear Path
While originally built around bringing established equestrians together, Active Riding Trips also introduces not yet equestrians to the realm of horses through beginner-level adventures. Adams is an integral part of boosting the license and integrity of the sport and also gives back to the community wherever she can.
Active Riding Trips collaborates with True Ranch Collection, a series of ranches across the United States that offer dude ranch experiences, wherein a portion of the booking funds are donated toward the historical preservation of the land. Additionally, Active Riding Trips offers an exclusive multi-day training program with paralyzed Olympian Kevin Babington at his farm in Florida. Proceeds from that experience go towards the Kevin Babington Foundation.
Adams says, “We’re all part of the community, and giving back as stewards of equestrianism is important. It will always be beneficial for us to continue doing so.”
