The Best of Times: Vaya Adventures Founder Jim Lutz Doesn’t Miss Practising Law
As a Harvard-trained lawyer, Jim Lutz worked with people during the worst times of their lives. Twenty years ago he decided he’d had enough.
Jim Lutz is the founder of 20-year-old Vaya Adventures.
As a Harvard-trained lawyer, Jim Lutz worked with people during the worst times of their lives. Twenty years ago he decided he’d had enough.
Following his passion for exploring the world, he founded tailor-made adventure company Vaya Adventures, and for the past two decades has worked exclusively with people planning and experiencing the best times of their lives.
“Our long-time customers look at the trips they take with us as some of the most positive things they’ve done in their lifetimes,” Lutz told Travel Market Report Canada. “They represent a connection to larger humanity, an opportunity to see natural wonders, try different foods and forge deep relationships with guides and the local people they meet along the way.”
Lutz caught the travel bug early in life. He lived in Europe, travelled extensively in North Africa and fell in love with South America while living and working for two years in Quito, Ecuador in “a Peace Corps-like job.” But employment at a respected law firm with prominent clients had a ‘golden handcuffs’ element – it paid well, and enabled him to fund his love of travel and trekking during time off.
“Eventually a light bulb went off,” Lutz said. “I could probably make an okay living doing what I love doing.”
He looked at the turn-of-the-millennium travel landscape and noted that the market for personalized trips with expert planning and private guides was growing more quickly than the larger-group segment.
“Something changed around that time. In a certain segment, everybody had it in mind to take trips to some of the world’s most special places. And in the years since, the movement toward experiences and away from material things has become a mainstream idea. People had accumulated all this stuff, and then realized it wasn’t the secret recipe for being happy.”
The pandemic accelerated that social shift, Lutz said. “People realized that things can change really fast, and that they should make hay while the sun shines.”
Today, Vaya is a company made up of destination specialists who, like Lutz, spent years living and working in remarkable places, and exploring them along the way. Now they share that knowledge by creating unique adventures entirely centred around the interests of their clients, their timing and their ideas of what makes a journey special.
Custom travel isn’t cheap, so Lutz is asked how big a market it actually represents.
“The market has ballooned in recent years. I think it has got to be in the tens of millions of people. But it’s very fragmented. There’s no Coca-Cola, no one company that dominates. There are big ones, like Kensington and Abercrombie & Kent, but people don’t want this kind of product to be ‘off the shelf’ or predictable.”
According to Business Research Insights, the global private custom travel market size was valued at approximately US$5.53 billion in 2024. By 2033, it is expected to reach US$13.26 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of about 10.5% during the forecast period.
Bucket-list travel is a high-cost, high-risk proposition, Lutz said, so travellers should take their investment seriously.
“You will spend more than to do it on your own. But it’s not that much more expensive and for the difference the insights and experiences are amazing. Having someone to curate your trip, who will learn about you and create something based on that, something that really matches up, that’s priceless. It’s worth it for many reasons — quality, depth, lack of hassle.”
Today, Vaya offers tailor-made adventures in South America, Central America, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Polar regions. In terms of ‘hot’ destinations, Lutz said Japan is hugely in demand, Europe is perennially popular, the Galapagos islands are coming on strong and Egypt is doing very well, despite the turmoil in the Middle East.
Lutz said about 10% of the company’s business comes from Canada, and Vaya is happy to support travel advisors with competitive commissions and attentive service.
“We have strong Canadian connections, including some of our sales and marketing staff members who come from Canada. We love working with Canadians and we are definitely looking to increase the amount of business we get from advisors. We can make them look great. And once we have a customer they become very loyal — there are lots of Vaya customers who have done many, many trips with us.”
The light bulb that went off two decades ago is still glowing brightly for Lutz. It’s not likely he’ll be practicing law again anytime soon.
“I’ve been doing this for 20 years and I’d love to do it for 20 more. It’s a privilege to share these meaningful experiences with our customers, seeing amazing places, developing deep relationships.”
