Skip to main content

Honula Is the New Standard in Adventure Travel Booking

Honula
For international lawyer Francesco Colicci, the call of the waves is more than a hobby. It’s a note from the soul.

An avid surfer with more than 20 years on the water, he’s enjoyed the sport in several different countries while building a successful food recovery business in his native Italy.

Related Videos

“The success of that business made me realize I could do something bigger and better,” he says.

All the while, Colicci became a leader among his group of friends in finding the best new spots to surf.

“I was their source for recommendations,” he says.

He adds that he saw adventure travel was becoming more fragmented as a whole. In an industry that’s seem tremendous growth in the last few years, there wasn’t a one-stop shop for research and booking of adventure experiences worldwide – especially in the surfing community.

Colicci and five of his entrepreneurial, wave-catching friends saw an opportunity last year and started Honula – the first large-scale aggregator of surfing experiences worldwide. The name comes from a Hawaiian term for “red turtle” meaning safety in travel and adventure.

“People are searching for experiences more than anything now,” he says.

It’s a bet that’s likely to pay off.

According to the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA), more than half of adventure tour operators expected to see profit growth last year and that’s not expected to slow down anytime soon. It’s a growing segment of the travel market – people looking for unique experiences that combine far-flung destinations and activity.

Launched at last fall’s Web Summit in Lisbon, Honula offers a frequently updated listing of surfing camps, lessons, and excursion in 14 countries around the world, with a primary focus on Europe.

Colicci and his team spend weeks on the road traveling everywhere from South Africa to Peru, creating relationships with small operators that have distinctive water experiences, sometimes in small beachside communities.

“Our offer is based on quality,” he says. “We really like to go to the destination and get to know the people (running the operation). The human approach matters.”

Although it’s only been live for five months, Honula is already working with organizations like the Italian Rafting Federation to create specialized adventure experiences that other providers can’t offer. They’ll continue to build on that success with bespoke opportunities in other countries in the next phases of the company.

The variety is already appealing. You can surf off private islands in Panama, the havens of Southern California, or in the south of France (with, as Colicci puts it, “the inventors of Glamping”).

Over the next two years, Colicci will increase Honula’s focus on other water sports and have a broader worldwide presence by 2019. He’s aiming to become a major source of adventure travel booking for small operators globally, while keeping the community aspect of the business alive and well.

“Just like our name, we want to provide a unique experience,” he says, “and bring adventure travel tourism into the 21st century.”

Editors' Recommendations

Air New Zealand Announces Bunk Bed Sleep Pods for Economy Passengers
air-new-zealand-skynest

Vanishing legroom, a ban on hoverboards, and the possibility of a standing-room-only cabin — it seems the airlines are doing their worst to make air travel as terrible as possible these days. Every so often, however, we witness a spark of brilliance. To wit, Air New Zealand just announced the possibility of bunk beds for economy class passengers.

The concept images of the so-called Economy Skynest show six lie-flat sleeping pods stacked, bunk-bed-style in two columns of three beds each. Air New Zealand intends to allow economy passengers to purchase the upgrade and enjoy a quick nap or a seriously intense snooze on its longest-haul flights. The latest version of the Skynest beds is nearly 80 inches long and just shy of 23 inches wide. That’s compact, though not cramped by any means. It certainly beats struggling to nap for the better part of a day in an economy seat with two inches of recline.

Read more
Travel Destinations to Help You Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions
travel destinations to help new years resolutions cycling france getty

So it’s March, which means it’s time for some real talk about your New Year’s resolutions. Don’t worry, we’re not here to beat you up for not following through, or for less-than-stellar results. We're here to commiserate. Among people ages 25-34 who made a New Year’s resolution, more than half have abandoned it by now. Of those who are still committed to their resolution, only about 40% consider their efforts successful.

If you feel your resolve flagging, don’t give up just yet. It could be that all your resolution needs to be successful is a recharge in the form of taking a trip.

Read more
Why Carbon Offset Should Be Your Essential Travel Accessory for 2020
Traveler watching planes from an airport window.

Accessories are an essential and much-loved part of the modern air travel experience. From neck pillows to tangle-free headphones to TSA-friendly skincare products, every year we’re bombarded with endless articles and listicles for the “Top Travel Accessories” or “20 Essential Accessories Every Traveler Must Have,” which we all dutifully buy and add to our ensemble. While most of these items are nice enough and in small ways can make flights more comfortable and endurable, the true value of travel accessories is in what they imply about the people who buy and use them. They mark their owner as a jet-setter; someone who’s worldly, sophisticated, and trendy. Someone with discerning taste and cash to spare. In short, a person most people aspire to be. 

But, with more and more people traveling every year (globally, 4.3 billion people flew in 2018), yearly flight carbon dioxide emissions topping 860 million metric tons (accounting for about 2% of total greenhouse gas emissions around the globe), and the increasing (and justified) pressure to either curb our flying habits or find some way to make them more sustainable, carbon offsets have emerged as one of the easiest solutions to immediately reducing your personal carbon footprint.

Read more