Today we’d like to introduce you to Christoph Dressler.
Hi Christoph , so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Having been cooped up as a child behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany, I always wondered what the world would look like. Would it be like I saw on West Germany commercials? All sunshine? The Wonderlust was strong. At nights I would sit on the hills of the Thuringian Forest, looking south, where about 5 km below me was The Wall and beyond the magic of West Germany unfolded with light-domes marking towns and dwellings. Conserving electricity made for a dark place in East Germany, but the west was bright and as beautiful and magic as candlelight on a Christmas tree.
Much to all of our surprise, the Iron Curtain fell in 1989. My urge to travel and see the world must have had other-worldly powers as I manage to win a scholarship to be an exchange student to the USA. I was 15 years old when I left my home. I was one of 100 East Germans amongst thousands of applicants who received a Congress/Bundestag Youth Exchange scholarship. Little I knew then that this was just the beginning of my travels.
Over the years I turned from being the traveler and explorer to being the one offering and enabling others to seek adventure, to learn and be bewildered. We now offer unique, small-group travel experiences for the inquisitive traveler. We offer one-of-a-kind experiences, curated and executed with community, sustainability, and maximum learning in mind.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I am glad to say that even the bumps, the ups and downs, the road blocks, the failures as well as the successes were always par for the course. Life is not well lived if you don’t encounter struggles. Challenges lead to learning, which leads to growth. Personal growth. Character building. The current challenge for us is to get in front of people, getting a chance to tell about the value of Dressler Detours. In today’s disconnected world it is not only important, but extremely rewarding to build community, to travel the world as bonded travelers, to really see, not just visit. Our trips include everything, to give the gift of worry-free travel. We give the gift of connections by offering access to our friends we made worldwide to our clients who in return become friends. To explain Slow Travel and the value of intensely seeing the world is what we need to do more.
We’ve been impressed with Dressler Detours, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
The words our industry uses to define what we do is: Multi-day International Outbound Tour Operator.
While there are many of such tour operators, some of which are huge operations with big brand names, we still stand unique within that definition. While others focus on growth and profit, we focus on maximum learning with most positive impact possible for both, the travelers as well as the place and people we travel to. We are a business focused on community building. Our high rate of repeat clients tells us we are on the right track. Without exception, all our trips have a certain lens which we apply to our journeys and through which we see and discover. We travel to our destinations with subject experts such as Classics Professors to learn about mythology while exploring Sicily and the Eolian Islands, or a Military Expert visiting Normandy’s D-Day beaches and honoring the sacrifices made in 1944 in depth and like no other tourist ever gets a chance to. Our groups are never larger than 20 participants, a luxury in today’s tourism industry. That’s by design so to maximize our attention to each traveler, to be flexible and nimble as a group, to be able to go to places large group never can, but also to make little impact at the places we discover, to be able to stay at a boutique and family run accommodation, restaurant, or sites impossible to do with more than 20 people.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Honesty. Passion. Knowledge. Content and happiness.
Pricing:
- We include everything in one trip price. No change orders, no add-ons. We have you covered, including tips.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.dresslerdetours.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dresslerdetours/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dresslerdetours
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/99267698/admin/dashboard/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzq86t9N8blSFwRasbb6Qw
