Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Travel

How Explore Inspired’s Jonathan Ronzio turned a love of travel into a career

Rick Stella
By
jonathan ronzio, explore inspired

While many millennial-age entrepreneurs focus on developing the next great social craze a la Snapchat or Tinder, a Boston Massachusetts-based forward thinker named Jonathan Ronzio decided to spin a different kind of web. Infatuated with any and all things outdoors — like climbing a continent’s highest mountain or camping in Iceland in the middle of winter —  Ronzio gravitated toward making a career out of documenting and sharing his travels. Despite knowing he barely possessed the knack for keeping a consistent journal, he put a fierce desire to keep moving and exploring to work, launching a blog by the name of Explore Inspired.

Related: Luke Swanson’s Tripty Project aims to benefit, celebrate Bangladeshi culture

Related Videos

“The whole thing started as a personal challenge because I’ve never been any good at journaling,” the 26-year-old Ronzio told The Manual. “I take it all in in other ways and just have never been able to document journeys. After [the] Between the Peaks [documentary] came out, something I had worked on for four years, I thought, ‘what’s next? What if I started a blog?’ I just started telling people about it knowing that if it’s actually going to be something, I have to follow through with my word.”

ronzio-13

Concerning his mention of Between the Peaks, before Explore Inspired materialized as a means of documenting his journeys, Ronzio and two of his pals set out to summit two of the world’s esteemed Seven Summits. On paper, the idea was to buy one-way tickets to Chile and climb Argentina’s Aconcagua before heading north to tackle Denali in Alaska. Along the way, the trio intended to volunteer in every country they stopped in to give back to the communities they came in contact with.

The result?

An incredibly successful trip which not only fueled Ronzio’s passion for traveling the world but the self-produced documentary also won him the award for “Best Documentary Feature” at the 2015 Mountain Film Festival. Based on the raw personal transformation he experienced over the course of the trip, Ronzio wanted to find a way to pass that on to other travelers. To him, creating Explore Inspired in the wake of Between the Peaks was much more than just curating a blog or simply taking a group of people on a trip.

“It’s a mentality. A philosophy. A mission within the message,” he continued. “What I do isn’t confined to the start and end of the trip. The way you look at the world is something you want to continue feeling so what I wanted to create was a continuous experience about being inspired by the world around you. A slight change in perception of how you see your environment can change everything.”

ronzio-11

At Explore Inspired’s core, it’s this change in perception Ronzio is particularly after. Though documenting and sharing the details of his travels may serve as the genesis of the website, Ronzio’s startup is all about experiencing these perception-shattering voyages with other people. Don’t think of it as your run-of-the-mill group getaway, however, an Explore Inspired trip typically consists of no more than four to six people — Jonathan included — to keep the personal interaction of the trip goers at an absolute maximum. Because each seven-day trip lacks considerably in the department of extensive planning (on purpose), these small groups will rely on each other for almost everything (again, this is done on purpose).

Selected via an application process, those who join Ronzio on an Explore Inspired trip are not only expected to possess an open mind but also boast the ability to literally go with the flow. Be it an unexpected detour, an unforeseen change in weather, or an uncomfortable night at the end of a long day, there’s no room for pre-conceived expectations. To Jonathan, it’s all about letting go and being open to how changes in the road can turn into optimism in different ways.

“Expectation is something we all bring to the table. No matter what, everyone has expectations of what something’s going to be like,” Ronzio explained. “Breaking the expectations of those who join us has been one of the best things we’ve been able to change. Everyone needs to be taught how to let go, be it professionally, personally, or with relationships. We want to teach people to stop trying to define their future.”

ronzio-9

Moving forward, Explore Inspired is in the process of planning a trip toward the end of fall (end of November or early December) to either Norway or Iceland. As is the case with past trips, anywhere from four to six people are expected to be selected via the application process in order to keep the trip intimate — and the gear light. Though just because the time off between official Explore Inspired group trips may soon span 365 days, it doesn’t mean Ronzio’s been resting on his globe-spanning laurels.

Quite the contrary, actually.

In addition to summiting Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro this summer, splitboarding down Mount Rainier, and competing in NBC’s Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge , Ronzio’s also found the time to avert his attention to a new business venture. Stylized as Startup MVMT, Jonathan’s latest enterprise is an activity-based event geared towards teaching people the fundamentals and concepts of startup culture — while breaking a sweat, of course. An idea which took a mere matter of days to materialize, Ronzio teamed with Boston’s General Assembly chapter to turn the thought into a reality.

startupmvmt-2

“So many speaking events are exactly the same in that someone speaks on stage while people just sit and write in notebooks,” he pointed out. “It’s not entirely engaging so I wanted to find a way to get people up and learning through activity. Startup MVMT helps turn concepts into metaphors we can teach through active learning. I connected with a local rock gym I frequent and asked to use their space for a General Assembly event. After they said yes, we held our pilot program there.”

A success in its own right, Startup MVMT’s initial showing gave Jonathan and his founding partner the ability to see what worked, what didn’t, and what they could do to adjust the program to make it flourish. Though no specific plans have yet been hammered out, Ronzio says he hopes to expand the event into broader one- or two-hour free events with more participants. Like any savvy entrepreneur, he’s already focused three or four steps ahead of himself as thoughts of developing various targeted series’ and expanding to other cities spilled out during our conversation.

With the ambitious project Explore Inspired humming along and the abundantly energetic Startup MVMT showing immense promise, it seems as though the world is quite literally Jonathan’s oyster. At the prime age of just 26, Ronzio’s lasting enthusiasm for continuing to grow, both professionally and personally, is an enviable trait one can’t help but glean inspiration from.

All photos courtesy of Jonathan Ronzio and Explore Inspired.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Get Lost ‘Man vs. Wild’-style with the Ultimate Black Tomato Travel Experience
black tomato travel

For many, travel is about escape. Whether it’s car camping in Yellowstone, fishing the wilds of an Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, or sipping Mai Tais poolside in Cabo San Lucas, it’s about getting away from the ordinary, the 9-to-5, the grind. However, some of us seek bigger, better, more over-the-top experiences. Enter Black Tomato, a cutting-edge luxury tour operator who’s just announced the most kickass travel experience we’ve ever seen.

Black Tomato’s Get Lost travel experience is about (wait for it …) getting lost — literally, philosophically, and completely — in a way that allows you to find yourself. Let’s forget the woo-woo, feel-good marketing and focus on just how amazing a trip like this could be.

Read more
West Coast Wild: Three Unique, Remote Hikes in California
remote hikes in california, siskiyou wilderness, kayak camping

California’s seemingly endless summer makes for awesome year-round hiking, but we’re partial to fall for the slightly cooler weather and thinner crowds which make for great solo hikes. There are plenty of great spots to disappear far off-grid across the Golden State. These are three of the best remote hikes in California.
Find the Bridge to Nowhere

In 1929, construction began near Azusa, California, to connect the town of Wrightwood with the San Gabriel Valley. Among the many bridges required to wind the road through the valley was a unique arch bridge built in 1936. The bridge was among the first to see completion, long before the rest of the route. Unfortunately, a massive rainstorm washed away much of the road before it was finished and the project was subsequently abandoned. Yet, the arched bridge remained — a bridge that connected … nothing. Hence the name: Bridge to Nowhere. It’s one of California’s unique, architectural oddities. Getting to the bridge requires a 10-mile round-trip trek along the San Gabriel River. The hike is moderately challenging, although numerous river crossings mean you’re unlikely to stay dry along the way. The final approach through a high-walled canyon known as the Narrows is the journey’s most dramatic stretch. It is here that hikers will find the Bridge to Nowhere in all its civil engineering glory.

Read more
Mingan Archipelago is the Most Beautiful Canadian Park You’ve Never Heard of
Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve of Canada

Adventurous hikers could spend a lifetime exploring Canada and barely scratch the surface of the country’s thousands upon thousands of miles of marked trails. Among its most beautiful and unique parks is Quebec’s Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve. With the fall season fast approaching, now is the time to start planning a solo camping trip.

Unlike the iconic Jasper, Banff, and Prince Edward Island National Parks, the Mingan Archipelago is somewhat lesser known; the tiny preserve only occupies 58 square miles along the northern shore of the St. Lawrence River. The park was “born” nearly 500 million years ago beneath a surprisingly warm, tropical sea that once blanketed much of the region. Fast-forward some millennia and all of the calcium carbonate, dead organisms, and other minerals deposited on the seafloor have slowly turned to solid rock under their own weight. Today, all of this makes for a fantastic landscape that feels unlike any other national park in Canada.

Read more