Winter Weather Antidote: A ‘G’evening’ with G Adventures

When it’s February and Toronto’s streets are stacked with snow from two separate recent blizzards, it’s very tempting to just hunker down and stay home.

But when there’s an invitation for cocktails, canapes, games and prizes with G Adventures, it’s time to strap on the snowshoes. These folks know how to have fun, and how to show appreciation to their travel advisor partners.

About 120 of those advisors braved the slippery sidewalks to join the G Team and tourist board representatives from Costa Rica, Peru, Ireland, Colombia, Cuba and Jordan. The dress code was “a sea of purple,” the bar was open, and the night was filled with fun game shows, lots of laughter and lively conversations.

The event also saw about $3,000 raised for G’s Planeterra Foundation, which tangibly uses travel as a force for good by funding community tourism projects around the world. Donations earned raffle tickets and there were three prize trips awarded — to Costa Rica, Peru and Jordan. 

Lucky advisor Beverley Edgar, The Travel Agent Next Door defied the odds and won trips to both Peru and Jordan, while while Camille Wilson took home a G package to Costa Rica.

There were no long presentations on the night, hosted by the genial David Green, G’s VP Customer & Sales Operations and Managing Director, Canada. Green is passionate about G’s product and its philosophy of community tourism that directly benefits the people and places its groups visit.

“This is simply a thank you to our partners and a chance to get out and have some fun during the winter months,” Green told Travel Market Report Canada. Similar events will be held in major centres across Canada in the coming days, with Vancouver as the next stop.

Despite eschewing formal presentations, the ‘G’evening with Friends’ gave advisors an opportunity to learn – and display their existing knowledge – about all things G Adventures. And at tables dotted around the venue in the Storys Building event space in Toronto’s Entertainment District, tourist board representatives shared their latest updates with advisors.

For this writer, the ‘G’evening’ was an opportunity to reunite with some of the advisor group members from my first-ever G Adventures trip last year, the 9-day Classic Belize and Tikal. 

The fam trip was memorable for a number of reasons, chief among them the wonderful camaraderie of the group that featured G Adventures Global Purpose Specialist Jenna English and Chief Experience Officer Juan Carlos (JC — Just Chillin’) Martinez.

We stayed in fairly basic, locally-owned accommodations, ate in humble local restaurants and crowded on to local buses with all our luggage in tow. It was the least “luxurious” trip I had taken in years – and one of the most satisfying.