Hidden Gems: Meet Laura Gravino of Ian Taylor Trekking

Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Gravino.

Hi Laura, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
I have been an athlete my whole life! I was a tennis player as a child, won Kansas 6A state my Junior year, and went on to play for a D1 University, so I have always known what hard work and dedication meant! After my tennis days were over, I decided I was ready to see the world, so I started my journey by getting a 4-month work and travel Visa to Ireland!

I spent my 4 months there and was not ready to leave after the 4 months were over, so I then decided to study at the University College Dublin, where I received my Masters’s Degree in Education. That bought me another almost 2 years in Ireland and when that finished, I was lucky enough to have my job sponsor me to stay and work in Dublin! In the meantime, I met my future husband, Ian Taylor, and began spending as much time as I could traveling, hiking, and exploring!

In 2008, my husband became the youngest Irish man to climb Mount Everest! Soon after, we developed Ian Taylor Trekking, our trekking and mountaineering company, and began offering hiking and climbing trips to others around the world. Our main destinations are the Himalayas of Nepal, Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and the Inca Trail in Peru, among many others! We are now based in Eagle-Vail, Colorado, where we run our business and where we love our outdoor lifestyle and home.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road! We have had many challenges along the way, not only with my husband and I working to get visas to stay together either in Ireland or the USA to make our business what it is today! It has taken us over 15 years to get to the point we are at today and it has been hard work from day 1!

We have decided to build our local offices in Nepal, Tanzania, Peru, and other places instead of focusing on having a full sales team in the USA. So that means that Ian and I are always the ones that our clients are talking to! We are the ones answering the calls and emails daily! It has been hard work every day since we started this journey, but we feel so privileged to get to work with our amazing teams around the world!

As you know, we’re big fans of Ian Taylor Trekking. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
You can find us online at www.iantaylortrekking.com! We offer trekking and mountaineering trips around the world from Everest Base Camp in Nepal to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the Inca Trail in Peru, Cotopaxi in Ecuador, Aconcagua in Argentina, and many, many more! We run the highest standard of trips and are here for our clients to help them prepare in every way for the journey they have chosen.

From training information to kit lists and 5-day-a-week support to answer any questions you have on your adventure! We want to make sure that our clients are coming with all the information they need to not only be safe and successful but to fully enjoy the journey at hand. We focus on safety in all of our destinations and always offer the highest standards in the industry.

We also focus on building and strengthening the communities we work in. We have to build a school in Uganda, 4 schools in Nepal, work with an orphanage in Tanzania, and are working to start a restaurant for our local team as well in Tanzania. Our teams around the world are family to us and we want to make sure that we are helping them to live in sustainable ways!

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I think luck plays a part in our journey! I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to follow my dreams to play sports as a young person and then move to Ireland where I was lucky enough to meet my future husband and partner! We have also been extremely lucky to meet the people we work with along the way.

We would not be where we are today if we did not meet the best people in the world to work with! So luck does play a role in how our lives have developed, but we have put in the hard work, every day, to make the business what it is today!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.iantaylortrekking.com
• Instagram: @iantaylortrekking
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IanTaylorTrekking/
• Twitter: @Everestclimber
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/IanTaylorTrekking