Almost twenty years ago, when I was very young, there was no Instagram, and foreigners only associated Colombia with war and violence, I had the somewhat naïve desire of bringing South America nearer to the world. In that moment I wasn’t sure how I would do it, I just knew that this continent had to shine for its riches, its people, its beauty and its potential.

Foto 1 Inverted America, drawing by Joaquín Torres García, 1943. An Uruguayan artist and founder of The School of the South. “I have called this ‘The School of the South’ because in reality, our north is the south. There must not be north for us, except in opposition to our south.” / Source

 

Many people looked at me with disbelief, some said that there were better places to make money, others were infected by our energy and our ideas but didn’t know how to fit them into their business plans, and another even said that we were a bunch of stories without a foundation. The truth is that with time and thanks to the support of people that with less resources and power started trusting in us, we began developing projects that integrated our knowledge and experience in e-commerce with a passion that we had cultivated: traveling around South America.

Ten years ago we sold our first experience in Buenos Aires: a football tour. That was the first footstep for the subsequent expansion into 5 countries and the development of 7 websites, and, as if it were a cabalistic premonition, since 10 represents the number of divine order, just this year we finally accomplished bringing to light this great project, Daytours4u, which represents not only a unification of the work done all these years, but our maturity as entrepreneurs and our soundness as a company.

During this time it was extremely enriching to learn to work peer to peer with such diverse operators, ranging from a fishing community in La Boquilla, Cartagena, to tourism executives in Patagonia, Argentina, to converse and reach agreements with clients that go round the globe, from Brazil to Asia, and from Australia to Russia, to serve effectively both the business executive and the university student, but, above all, to respect one another in our diversity, to value our customs and identify what unites us.

Of course nothing is easy. We made some mistakes and did some things well. We were on the brink of falling, but through perseverance we hung on to our objectives and pulled ourselves up. Some things got broken, but our values and our professional ethics stood intact, and even more so our desire to challenge ourselves daily to be the best booking service for tours and activities in South America because we’re convinced that by getting to know each other, through traveling, we can have a better humanity.

But just as every cycle has its beginning, this whole trajectory has helped us to be able to proudly present our crowning project: Daytours4u (beta version). We hope that you enjoy it as much as we’ve enjoyed making it, and that it fulfills its purpose of being the ideal tool for enjoying your successful and authentic travel experiences in South America, and that, regardless of nationality, you continue to choose this wonderful continent as your travel destination, even maybe as your home.

We invite you to follow us, comment, make suggestions, write us, work, dream, grow and share with us this journey that we’ve set out on where we’ll convert our North into South.

Foto 2 We have a team! December of last year we celebrated 10 years of working together / Photo: Daytours4u

 

Special thanks to the 2016 and 2017 team: Carol Gallo, Daniela Rivas, Simon Hall, Nicole Eberhart, Luiza Cavalcante, Kristen Lawson, Estefanía Rincón. All of this began to develop thanks to you. Thanks to my brother and sister Ruben and Melina for all of the support and for being participants from the start. To the young French people that adapted to our craziness, some of the more recent ones being Edouard, Chris, Catherine, and Simon. Thanks to Nathy Cobo for her wines and endurance, thanks to our tireless colleague and charismatic guide/translator and friend Marina Bohn. Proud of and thankful for our powerful team of Latina women that make up our company: Paola, Edimar, Keilma, Vanessa, Nathaly, Lorraine, Mariana and Dayana for their ideas, their support in the most difficult times, their work, and above all their professional ethics, and to Rommel, the only man of the team (in addition to being my associate) for his contribution as a tourism expert. Thanks to my associate and CFO Gilad for sharing this dream and always taking care of the structure, to our designer Fede de Copetín, to our programming team from One Tree for helping us to develop each idea and, of course, the most important of all, thanks to my son Eitan for letting us fly with his creativity.

Written by: Nohelia Sanchez, CEO & Co-founder of Daytours4u