17th April 2019
We thought that you might like to know a little more about the people who run Inspire2Adventure and what makes us tick! We are a family business, set up by us, Paul and Liz Marshall, in 2005. That was a big year for us in many ways as it was also the year our daughter was born and so every year we celebrate both being the same age. Now 14 we’ve watched both grow and develop and take on a life of their own. The time has flown by as we’ve been very busy looking after both. We started off by offering just a few of the activities with Paul instructing, to now delivering 7 adventure activities with the help of our fabulous team of instructors Mark, Justin, Marianne, Craig, Anthony, & Josh and we are now able to cater for much larger groups and families looking for multi-adventure activities in the area. Of course all of this runs alongside raising our daughter who has a hobby that keeps us busy in our spare time that is also in the outdoors, so a bit of a juggling act!
The Beginnings
As we grew our family we wanted to build a business which would allow us to enjoy the great outdoors whilst also raising our daughter. Paul is a highly experienced and qualified outdoor professional and is also a consultant and coach, so running an outdoor activity business was the perfect fit for us. We started out offering a select range of outdoor activities – canoeing being the most popular – and our business quickly grew to include a much wider range and we took on other instructors. Every year we look at what we might add or do differently the next year. For example we added stand-up paddleboarding in 2018 and it has proved to be incredibly popular! Sometimes the business decides that for itself as if there is one activity which is solidly booked we know that means for the next year we need more kit and more instructors.
Location, Location, Location
We are based on the outskirts of Monmouth in South Wales which is a fairly central location for us considering the wide area we operate activities in, including the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire to the east and Monmouthshire in Wales to the west. We can also enter the River Wye from Monmouth so it’s ideal for canoeing, kayaking and stand-up paddleboarding. This is a popular section of the Wye Valley, and because of the way the river curves and turns back on itself, driving distances are often much shorter than travelling by water. It’s only a couple of miles from here to another popular spot along the river, Symonds Yat in Herefordshire, England, yet it’s around 6 miles on the water!
The Future
This year we are celebrating 14 years of bringing adrenaline-fuelled activities to the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean! We’re expanding our stand-up paddleboarding kit to include more individual boards and we’re now taking online bookings for some of our most popular activities, to enable us to spend more of our time outdoors running the activities and less time in the office. We’re looking forward to Easter at the moment and taking more families and groups out on the Wye, into the gorges and on an adventure with our team of instructors. We look forward to showing you our outdoor playground soon…
