I've built GAS Studio from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Most of my ventures operate digitally. I could, theoretically, do all of this without ever leaving my ZIP code.
But the travel that changes perspective — the kind that rewires how you see your work, your values, and your life — has been one of the most important inputs into everything I build. Not travel as vacation. Travel as creative inspiration. Travel as the thing that cracks open assumptions you didn't know you were carrying.
Here are five transformative travel experiences that fundamentally shaped how I think about building.
East Africa: Scale and Silence
The first time I stood in the Serengeti and looked at a horizon with nothing man-made on it — no buildings, no roads, no power lines, just grassland extending in every direction until it met the sky — something recalibrated in my brain.
The scale was humbling in a way that "humbling" doesn't quite capture. The realization that this landscape existed for millions of years before humans showed up, and will exist for millions of years after we're gone, puts your startup problems in a different category. Not unimportant. Just properly sized.
East Africa also taught me about silence. Real silence — not the urban version where you turn off notifications, but the kind where the loudest sound is wind through grass. In that silence, I had some of the clearest thinking I've ever experienced. About what I actually wanted to build. About why. About what mattered and what was noise.
The safari experiences directly inspired Sundream Stickers & Gifts. The design language, the color palettes, the connection to nature that runs through every product — all of that started with standing in a place that demanded wonder. I wrote about this creative connection in detail in what safari taught me about design.
But beyond the creative output, East Africa gave me a framework for scale that informs the entire GAS Studio philosophy. Doing good, at scale isn't about building the biggest company. It's about creating something that extends beyond you — the way a savanna extends beyond any single animal living on it.
Japan: Precision and Care
Japan teaches you that excellence isn't about doing more. It's about caring more deeply about the things you choose to do.
A sushi chef who spent twenty years mastering rice. A garden designed to look slightly different from every angle. A train system that considers a thirty-second delay a failure. This isn't perfectionism in the anxiety-driven, Western sense. It's devotion. It's the belief that the thing you're making deserves your full attention and skill.
Travel and entrepreneurship intersect here powerfully. I came home from Japan and looked at my ventures through new eyes. Where was I cutting corners not because of resource constraints but because of impatience? Where was I accepting "good enough" in areas that deserved better?
Japan reshaped how I think about systems and quality at GAS Studio. Not everything needs to be perfect — that's a trap. But the things that touch the customer experience? The product quality, the content, the design? Those deserve the devotion I witnessed in Japan.
Iceland: Extremes and Resilience
Iceland is a landscape of extremes — fire and ice, midnight sun and winter darkness, violent geysers and still glacial lakes. Nothing in Iceland is moderate. The landscape doesn't allow it.
What Iceland taught me about building businesses is that resilience isn't about avoiding extremes. It's about building structures that can withstand them. The Icelandic houses are designed for winds that would tear apart a building constructed for a mild climate. The infrastructure assumes the worst case, not the average case.
This is a direct parallel to venture building. Most businesses are designed for average conditions. They work fine when things are going well. They collapse at the first extreme — a supply chain disruption, a key employee leaving, a market shift, a pandemic. Building with systems means building for extremes, not just averages.
Iceland also gave me something personal: the understanding that darkness is productive. The long winter nights, far from being depressing, create space for introspection and creative work that constant sunshine doesn't allow. This feeds directly into my belief that slowing down is productive — that the fallow periods are where the next growth cycle begins.
Italy: Age and Permanence
In Italy, you walk on roads that are two thousand years old. You eat in restaurants that have been serving food for centuries. You see buildings that were constructed before the concept of a "startup" existed, and they're still standing, still useful, still beautiful.
Italy taught me about permanence — about building things that last. In a culture that celebrates disruption and "move fast and break things," Italy is a quiet argument for the opposite: move thoughtfully and build things that endure.
This transformed how I think about brand building. The brands that last — that become part of culture rather than flash-in-the-pan trends — are built with the same patience and craft that produced Italian architecture. They're not optimized for this quarter's metrics. They're designed for decades.
It also informed the purpose-driven philosophy at the heart of GAS Studio. Purpose endures. Tactics don't. A venture built around a timeless human need — connection, generosity, creativity, health — has the kind of permanence that a venture built around a trend doesn't.
Patagonia: Smallness and Gratitude
Patagonia — the place, not the company (though the company is named after this feeling) — teaches you that you are small. The mountains, the glaciers, the wind — everything in Patagonia operates at a scale that makes human endeavors feel modest.
This isn't depressing. It's liberating. When you internalize your smallness, the pressure to be everything to everyone evaporates. You can focus on doing one thing well instead of trying to matter at a cosmic scale.
Travel that changes perspective doesn't always expand your ambition. Sometimes it contracts it — in the best way. Patagonia made me more comfortable with the idea that GAS Studio doesn't need to be a billion-dollar operation to be meaningful. It needs to do good work, build real things, and create impact for the people it touches. That's enough. That's more than enough.
Patagonia also taught me gratitude in its most physical form — gratitude for shelter, warmth, food, and the people you're sharing the experience with. When you're hiking in thirty-knot winds and the rain is sideways and you finally reach the lodge, the simple act of being warm and dry feels miraculous. That kind of gratitude recalibrates everything.
The Invitation
I'm not suggesting you need to visit these specific places. Transformative travel experiences don't require a passport or a big budget. They require going somewhere that disrupts your routine, your assumptions, and your comfortable defaults.
Go somewhere that makes you uncomfortable. Somewhere that operates by different rules. Somewhere that forces you to see your work, your life, and your values from outside the bubble you usually inhabit.
Then come home and build better. That's what mindful travel does — it doesn't take you away from your work. It returns you to it with fresh eyes and deeper conviction.
Follow the Journal for more on travel, purpose, and building with intention. Or get in touch — I always love swapping travel stories with fellow builders.
This entry is part of our Purpose & Impact series. Subscribe to the GAS Studio Journal RSS feed to stay in the loop.
