FORT SILL, Okla., Sept. 1, 2016 -- Some people like to plan their own trips, and some people like to have the planning done for them. For the latter, there are two entrepreneurs who will offer a way to try something new without spending a lot of time researching and planning. One leads hikes to cherished places on the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, and the other does niche tours off the beaten path.
Tammie Ferguson, wife of Maj. Jerald Ferguson, 75th Field Artillery Brigade, started her travel business Love In Action after they and their two children moved here in December 2015, while she was pregnant with her third child. The focus is on small scale group tours with several unique niches.
"It's cultural immersion," she said, "not just a vacation." Trips are planned around themes that enrich the soul, whether they have a religious flavor, a historical or agricultural connection, or an opportunity to be of service to others.
"Our trips are very intentional," she said. "We choose eco-friendly hotels, dine at local restaurants rather than national chains. We might do a local community service project or support small businesses. We stay away from the touristy stuff."
Trips can be just for a day, or overnight. The fee covers everything transportation in a van or bus, meals, tickets, lodging. She is booking for a three-day Fall Foliage tour to Branson, Mo. The usual musical attractions aren't on the itinerary. Instead, it's the beauty of the landscape, a live stage play "Moses", and a visit to the College of the Ozarks with its innovative method of letting students work for both tuition and credit.
Previously, she was director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau in Leavenworth, Kan., and she has led several trips overseas to help build homes in places like Guatemala, Bolivia and the Dominican Republic. In November she will take a group to Oklahoma City to spend part of the day helping to build a Habitat for Humanity home.
"It's for age 16 and up," she said, "and you don't need construction experience."
She's also planning a trip next year to the Black Wall Street of Tulsa. It was an affluent African-American community that was destroyed during the race riots of 1921. Today there is a historic church, a cultural center that tells of the history, and Reconciliation Park. She also hopes to have a cruise to Cuba and the Dominican Republic which will offer both cultural immersion and an opportunity to help with a service project.
"You get to step out of your comfort zone," she said of her tours. "And we build relationships that last a lifetime. It's like having an extended family," she said of the group experience.
Her travel business is home-based and part-time, and fits in with the mobile lifestyle of a military family. For more information, see www. LoveInActionTravel.com
info@loveinaction.com
Phone: 678-653-2170
Air Force veteran (1969-1973) Steve Enter lives in the Oklahoma City area, but spends most of his free time hiking at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near Lawton. After 11 years of becoming intimately knowledgeable about the great places to explore there, he decided it might be nice to introduce others to the joys of the trail.
So he started the Wichita Mountain Man Hiking Company in June. However, he is first to admit that people tend to not want to hike in the Oklahoma summer heat. He operates with a permit from the refuge, which he has to pay for, and is limited to taking paying customers Mondays through Thursdays.
"Weekends are busy," he said.
Enter certainly looks the part of a mountain man, though he says he doesn't like camping. "I need amenities, like a mattress," he says wryly. He grew out his lush gray beard to be in character, he said, showing his driver's license with its clean-shaven picture.
Why would someone want to pay for a guided hike? "A certain amount of people fear getting lost on their own," he said. His target niche is "anyone that fits the criteria of not wanting to go it alone."
Most of his hikes are easy to moderate, and they include trips to the Narrows and 40-Foot Hole, Elk Mountain, the six-mile long Bison Trail, and other spectacular spots. He said the purpose for him is to introduce people to the joyous experience of being in nature, and appreciating the wildlife and flowers without needing to know the names of what they're looking at.
Since he's worked in horticulture for four decades, he can identify many plants and flowers. "What I'm really good at is observing detail," said Enter. His love of the outdoors is also expressed in his photography, which he sells at the Red Door Gallery in Medicine Park.
"I'm fascinated with everything I see out there," he said. And that fascination is what he hopes to share with his clients. Once the weather cools off.
Contact Enter at wmmhco@outlook.com, or call 405-205-1300 for a brochure.
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