In this episode Mitch Bach sits down with Marinel de Jesus, a former human rights lawyer turned tour operator. She is filled with questions about the adventure tour industry: Why do porters on the famous, touristy Inca Trail in Peru carry crushing loads for little pay and even less dignity? Why is it so difficult to find women adventure guides in so many parts of the world? What do indigenous communities actually want from tourism—and why doesn’t anyone bother to ask them?
These are just some of the uncomfortable questions and themes she’s carried with her as she’s lived and trekked around the world. Originally from the Philippines, she became a human rights lawyer in Washington D.C., spending 15 years prosecuting child protection and mental health cases. Then her mother passed away—and she never went back to the office. But Marinel didn’t just start a tour company. She moved into indigenous communities. She lived with Quechua porters in Peru and learned the dark truths behind the picture-perfect Inca Trail.
She spent nearly 300 days in Mongolia during Covid, co-creating a nomad camp that started with tea and a blank piece of paper—not a business plan. She walked 100 days across Nepal with Mingmar, a female guide she searched for over a year and a half to find, proving that women belong on the Great Himalaya Trail.
In this episode, Marinel challenges everything we assume about adventure tourism – the colonial narratives baked into our itineraries, the voices we never hear, the scripts we impose on communities who know how to welcome guests far better than we do. She makes the case for showing up with no agenda, listening before designing, and building something that matters more than scale.
Marinel’s organizations:
- Equity Global Treks (Brown Gal Trekker)
- The Porter Voice Collective
- Her vision for Himalayan Women Trail Leaders
- Her film KM82 on the Quechuan Porters of Peru
- The Khusvegi English & Nomadic Culture Camp she helped start in Mongolia
Key Insights from the Conversation
1. Start with a blank piece of paper, not a business plan. Marinel’s most powerful initiatives came from sitting with communities, drinking tea, and simply asking what they want—not arriving with a pre-built itinerary. The best tour designers have no agenda; they listen until the community reveals their dreams. When you show up as a seeker rather than an expert, you build something that actually reflects what the community values.
2. Money shouldn’t be the starting point of community partnerships. Leading with financial incentives can breed greed and distort what a community really needs. When Marinel asked Mongolian nomads what they wanted, they said English education for their kids—not cash. Focus on what matters to them first, and the sustainable business model will follow.
3. Your job is to be an interpreter, not an architect. Tour operators should translate the desires of a community into something Western travelers can experience—not impose Western ideas onto communities. This means listening deeply and then bridging two worlds without overwriting one with the other. You’re a conduit, not a director.
4. Porters and guides aren’t grateful just because you gave them a job. The tourism industry tells itself a comfortable story that jobs equal dignity and opportunity. But many porters see their work as something they endure because no other options exist—not something they chose. Understanding this gap between our assumptions and their lived reality is the first step toward more ethical operations.
5. Stop scripting every moment of the experience. Over-programmed itineraries strip away the spontaneity that makes travel transformative. Marinel’s Mongolian camp has no rigid rules for homestays—guests simply live with their host family and let things unfold. Loosening your grip creates space for genuine human connection.
6. Meet communities where they are, not where your marketing wants them to be. Tourists often arrive expecting an ancient, untouched culture and feel disappointed when they see Wi-Fi and smartphones. This is a failure of expectation-setting, not a failure of authenticity. Your job is to prepare travelers to encounter real people living modern lives—not a performance of the past.
7. Consider who’s not at the table—then invite them. Decolonizing tourism isn’t an abstract concept; it starts with asking who’s missing from industry conferences, marketing images, and decision-making roles. Are Quechua porters ever asked what the Inca Trail experience should look like? Inclusion means elevating voices that have been systematically silenced.
8. Women guides exist—but the industry makes them invisible. Marinel spent 18 months trying to find a female guide in Nepal for a 100-day trek, facing dozens of rejections from operators who insisted women couldn’t do the job. She found Mingmar, and together they proved the industry wrong. If your default is always a male guide, you’re part of the problem.
9. Small operators have an advantage—don’t waste it trying to imitate big companies. Large companies have marketing budgets and brand recognition, but they’re often disconnected from what’s actually happening on the ground. Small operators can stay close to communities, adapt quickly, and build experiences rooted in real relationships. Your size is a feature, not a limitation.
10. Tell the full history, including the uncomfortable parts. Tourists love the colorful clothing and ancient ruins, but they rarely hear about the marginalization, exploitation, and colonial violence behind what they’re seeing. Including these narratives isn’t a downer—it’s honest, and it creates deeper understanding. The Quechua story isn’t complete without acknowledging what was taken from them.