St. Louis Residents Acquire Adventure Travel Company

Fit 4 Adventure, a 22-year-old international adventure travel company, has new owners in the St. Louis metro area.

Founded in 2000, Fit 4 Adventure (formerly Golden Adventures) started as a small group of runners and friends who enjoyed traveling together to attend races. Over time, new trips were added and the trip catalog grew to include hiking adventures, cycling tours, destination marathons, and yoga retreats throughout the US and around the world.

Fit 4 Adventure had grown to seven employees before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. In 2019, the company generated record revenue of more than $700,000. In the following two years, with a drastic slowdown throughout the travel industry, founder Diane Golden began to consider retirement. On January 1, 2022, ownership of the company was transferred to a partnership formed by three of its employees. The new partners are poised for the robust return of the leisure travel industry.

Joe Dann, a resident of Clayton, has been involved with the company for 12 years. He brings a breadth of experience in the adventure travel industry and a strong familiarity with the clientele to the partnership. Prior to this, Dann owned and operated a residential building and development company that he started in 1996, along with a commercial flooring business he bought in 2006. Golden, and her travel adventures, lured him away from the construction industry in 2009.

Nick Tilley is a St. Louis-native and joined the company in 2018. In addition to guiding adventure trips for the company, Tilley has spent extensive time living and working abroad and has pursued adventures in 45 countries and counting. His passion for the adventure/outdoor realm is apparent in the many articles, blogs, and social media postings he has published (including writing for Terrain Magazine).

Together, Dann and Tilley have partnered with Kris Corbett, who lives in Graham, Texas. Corbett, who joined the company in 2019 as an adventure guide, brings extensive experience in coordinating travel and events around the world.

“Kris is an endurance athlete and will bring that passion, skill, and stamina to her role in helping grow the company,” wrote Dann in a press release. “We are thrilled about a rebound in the [adventure travel] industry and are anxious to get back to traveling freely and frequently.”

More than 25 trips fill the company calendar through December, and several are already sold out with waiting lists. Fit 4 Adventure’s biggest event of the year is the Boston Marathon in April, during which it provides private shuttle buses, pre-race meals, and hundreds of deluxe hotel rooms booked near the race’s finish line for runners and their supporters.

A sampling of the company’s upcoming trips includes winter hiking in Bryce Canyon, Utah; multi-sport adventures in Costa Rica; a women’s yoga retreat in New Mexico; road cycling on the island of Mallorca, Spain; and a cycling tour across Missouri on the Katy Trail.

To learn more, visit fit4adventure.com.