Travel Job Series: Dalene Heck
For my next guest in the series, I asked a long-time travel industry friend Dalene Heck to share her travel career story to show the many ways you can find success in this industry. She’s earned such a wonderful reputation, and I’ve had the pleasure of working with her several times on TravelCon, since was was a speaker a few years. And now, I’m excited to help her next entrepreneur venture as Trip Chaser Game co-founder with her husband Pete.
Dalene Heck, Co-Founder of HMI
I went from being a sheltered small-town girl to a world traveler, from a commerce grad and corporate climber to running multiple small businesses of my own in the tourism industry. I am a writer, a speaker, a creative and strategist, a leukemia-survivor, cat whisperer, The Office trivia champion, and a very happy wife and new resident of Nova Scotia, Canada.
What is your background and education?
I grew up in a small town in far northern Alberta that was stuck in winter more months than not. My first goal in life was to move south! After graduating high school and then spending one year at a local college, I moved 800 km south to Calgary to attend University.
After obtaining my degree in commerce, I went straight into corporate life with a focus on supply chain management. I was ambitious, worked hard, and rose the ranks quickly. However, after a few years, when my Director at the time advised me that I was on the fast track to upper management, my reaction was one of dismay instead of excitement. Was this really what I wanted to do?
I hung on for awhile longer, unsure of my answer to that question, and then some major tragedies upended my life. With both my husband and I reeling from trauma, we considered that question more deeply together: what did we really want to do? Just over a year later, we sold our home, quit our jobs, and in the fall of 2009, we bought one-way tickets to Bolivia.
We started a travel blog as a way to keep our family and friends updated; not at all anticipating that it would gain popularity and entirely change our lives. As OG “travel influencers” (before that was even *a thing*), we saw the opportunity to merge our collective business skills with emerging new media. In 2013, we incorporated our business (Hecktic Media Inc, or “HMI”) and began managing influencer marketing campaigns and social media for a variety of clients in the tourism industry.
We did this all while still travelling, and HMI has grown and expanded over the years. Unfortunately, it substantially retracted during the first year of COVID, like many tourism-based businesses, but we have since bounced back.
New Trip Chaser Game!
And like many entrepreneurs - our revenue streams are multiple! Not only do we still run influencer marketing campaigns and manage social media, but we also now have several income-generating blogs. And coming up, we are launching our newest (and most exciting!) venture yet - a travel card game called Trip Chaser, which will be available for purchase very soon. It was an idea borne during the pandemic when our client work had dropped off, but it is now taking over our lives!
What's a typical day for you on the job?
Now that we are no longer travelling full-time and have settled in Nova Scotia, days are a little more predictable, but still never “typical”! However, here’s a recent full day as an example:
Completed client work for our (original!) blog, HeckticTravels.com, by designing and publishing social content.
Set up a team meeting to brainstorm ideas for a client’s winter marketing campaign.
Set up a call with a potential client for our Creator House program for 2024.
Reviewed monthly newsletters created for a client by a team member.
Reviewed blog articles by a freelance writer for our RoadTripAlberta.com blog.
Began preparing for an interview for a major Canadian magazine about our travels and move to Nova Scotia.
Continued editing the “How to Play” video for Trip Chaser.
Discussed TikTok strategies with a team member for Trip Chaser.
What are your current projects & wins?
Our projects are similarly all over the map, but we’ve logged some good wins recently.
One of our social media clients keeps adding to our original mandate, and most recently asked us to design some graphics for their newsletter, social, and website. We expect our work for them to continue growing.
Since early this year, we have been working with a mid-size Canadian city to provide a variety of marketing services, and they just extended our contract once again.
After a year of employing a solid SEO strategy, one of our blogs was recently accepted into the Raptive ad network, and our ad earnings tripled in the first month.
Hopefully, if you ask this question again in a few months, we’ll have sold out of our original stock for the new card game! ;)
What do you feel is your biggest career risk?
My biggest career risk was certainly when I quit my original (lucrative) career and sold everything to travel! I never once anticipated that such a dramatic life change would mean launching into much more rewarding work, while also enabling my life as a digital nomad for almost 8 years. Sometimes I look back and can’t believe I ever did that. But I’m also so glad that I did.
What is your top career advice tip?
Love what you do, first and foremost. I realize that in saying that, I am coming from a super privileged place, as not everyone has the option to put their interests first. But because most of us spend the majority of our waking hours working, it is so important to find work that fills you up, or that brings at least some joy into your life.
Share one or more career highlights
One completely unexpected but thrilling career highlight was when my husband and I were recognized by National Geographic as Travelers of the Year in 2014. We were nominated by my mom (ha!) but chosen out of thousands by the magazine editors, and that honour was a life-changer for us. It opened so many doors, and also just gave us confidence that our crazy decision to sell-it-all-and-travel was maybe not so crazy, and that what we were putting out in the world was good. (Even if I am still in disbelief to this day.)
What's your most memorable trip and why?
During our almost eight years of nomadism, our time in Türkiye still stands out as our most memorable. We did some house sitting in a rural location for three months, and loved it so much that the following year, we urged the homeowners to leave again so that we could return!
We stayed in the small town of Burhaniye in northwest Türkiye, and the local English teacher became our best friend (he was the only one in town to speak fluent English). He invited us into his classroom and on picnics with his students because most of them had never heard native English speakers before. From that, the students invited us to their houses for dinner, to weddings, and to so many other events that we were overwhelmed by the hospitality. To this day, we still get messages from the kids (who are now adults!) asking us to return and visit. One of the kids even said it’s his life goal to travel with us sometime! We have never lived anywhere that was so welcoming, nor interacted with people who were so generous. A little piece of our hearts remains in Türkiye to this day.
What would you tell your younger self?
SO MANY THINGS, haha. But I think most importantly, I would tell mef to trust myself, and have the confidence to take big swings. Don’t wait for trauma to force the deep questions. Those questions should be considered at all stages of life.
Please share a fun fact.
My husband and I are both avid curlers! The sport even brought us together (via a mutual curling friend), and Pete is even a former Canadian Junior Champion. I never made it to that level, but we actually also competed at the same provincial championship event years before we officially met. We both still love the sport!
Thanks for your input and another person who’s journey highlights how many ways to work in travel! Make sure to support these entrepreneurs by getting a Trip Chaser this holiday season and one for the traveler in your life.
