Sitting in the boat, one of dozens of red and blue vessels packed into the Pucusana Harbor, I take my go-to herbal remedy for motion sickness. “There was actually a warning today about the seas, but we’ll only be in the big waves for 15 minutes or so,” says Gunnar, a biologist and Swedish expat in Peru who is our guide for today’s birding excursion. I pop an extra tablet in my mouth.
We haven’t even made it a few feet from the dock before the first sighting. Calls of “Inca tern!” ring out and fingers point toward the mustachioed black bird with a red beak. I’ll admit I don’t consider myself a birder, but that’s one of the reasons I’ve signed up for this Day of Adventure—to get out of my comfort zone and immerse myself in a little awe.
Gliding past rows of boats, we wave to the fishermen and women aboard who are reeling in their nets. Around the corner, we see a pile of sea lions in the sun, a mess of heads and fins and whiskers. “Kuscheln,” I note to the German journalist next to me, using the word for cuddling. “Gruppenkuscheln,” group cuddling he responds. How typical of the German language to have a compound word for even this occasion.
Suddenly there’s another call, the most highly anticipated of all: “PENGUIN!” We see it only for a second before it dives back underwater, but its black and white head is unmistakable. I get goosebumps realizing this is the first time I’ve seen a penguin in the wild. Maybe I’m starting to get the appeal of this whole birding thing.
Soon we reach the mouth of the harbor, where the swell seems to rise from the belly of the ocean itself. At the edge of the brown cliffs, inky water crashes onto the rocks, churning up white foam. Despite the fact that I’m an avid scuba diver and seasoned adventurer, I’m also incredibly prone to seasickness, so I try every mental trick in the book to steel myself as we head out into the water. The ocean lifts us so we’re almost at eye level with a blackish oystercatcher that scrambles up the rocks, then swings us back down, until we’re looking up at the bird from below. Just 15 minutes, I remind myself.
For me, each new bird sighting is a welcome distraction. Scanning the rocks in vain for more penguins, we spot blue-footed boobies, and laugh as several in our group mishear the name ‘guanay cormorant,’ as ‘one-eyed cormorant,’ pointing out that the birds do in fact have two eyes, rimmed in red. After a fresh ceviche lunch and excited chit-chat, we travel onward to Chilca, where we see flamingos and the awkward-looking Peruvian thick-knee in wetlands by the shore. “The last time I was here there were no flamingos. You’re very lucky.” Gunnar announces in his singsongy Swedish accent.
On the traffic-clogged route back into the heart of the city, I admit to myself that I understand how birding becomes an obsession for some travelers. The experience had de-anonymized creatures I otherwise might not have given a second thought. With the additional context provided by our guide (and the more experienced birders of the group), the birds suddenly had stories and meanings for me. I guess that’s the whole point of travel, whether birds are involved or not.
This wasn’t the first time Peru had taken me beyond the surface level. My introduction to the country came in 2023, when I attended my first-ever ATTA event: AdventureNEXT Peru in the city of Arequipa. As my pre-adventure unfolded across the Arequipa region’s vast landscapes and welcoming Andean communities, I’d connected so deeply with the destination that I promised myself then and there I’d move to Peru one day. Three years later, headed into AdventureELEVATE 2026 in Lima, I was finally fulfilling that promise, preparing for a move to the city in just a few months. My experience of Peru hadn’t just changed my perspective, but also the course of my life.
Because of my personal connection to the event host destination, I was already exploring this line of thinking about transformation through travel when I found it reflected externally, in the event theme of Alchemy. As a travel writer and language nerd, I love how event themes give me a new lens through which to see a destination, getting me out of my head enough to reach a state of curiosity where the best learning happens. This time, that meant seeing travel as the fusion of different elements, from culture and cuisine to nature and adventure. During the event welcome, Mayra Callo highlighted the importance of “a good pinch of creativity” as another of these elements, which allows travelers to “leave with an experience carved into their hearts.”
Once my mind was primed for this concept, I began to pick up on it everywhere over the next few days, from the panels and marketplace meetings to chats with industry friends over pisco sours. Perhaps the most striking example was during the opening keynote, when Bolivian chef Marsia Taha Mohamed Salas was asked about the word ‘authentic’ being used to describe food or experiences. “The word becomes dangerous when it becomes something static—something written in stone,” she said, “Gastronomy is something that is constantly evolving because the products, the ingredients, the techniques are also evolving.”
The same could be said of tourism as a whole. At their best, adventures aren’t lifeless itineraries laid out on paper but dynamic experiences shaped by people, nature, and culture. My birding experience was unique to that day and its conditions—the ocean’s stomach-turning lilt, the birds that happened to be out when we floated by, the chemistry of our group… I’ve come to associate this kind of multifaceted experience with Peru. As María del Sol Velasquez, the Director of Tourism Promotion of PROMPERU, put it: “What differentiates us is living culture.”
The longer I work in the travel industry, the easier it is to become desensitized to the true magic of travel…or even to the magic of travel industry events. Where my first ATTA event was an awe-inspiring learning experience, AdventureELEVATE Latin America 2026 seemed to pass by in a blur of meetings, coffee breaks, and jaunts into town amid a chorus of honking horns. But still, there were moments that pulled me into a state of wonder, back in the present moment. Whether it was seeing my very first penguin in the wild, learning about a destination in South America I’d never heard of before, or laughing with colleagues around the lunch table, I was engaging with the ever-evolving power of travel. Or maybe it was engaging with me.
As meaningful Travel Strategist Julian Guerrero said in the closing keynote, “The secret to a good trip lies in the ability to connect the physical journey with the inner one, to imbue it with sense and meaning, so that experiences become memorable, unique, and ultimately life-transforming.”
Just as Gunnar had given names and stories to birds I would have previously overlooked, the best adventures give travelers a new perspective they carry into the rest of their lives. Whether in the highlands by Arequipa, the grounds of Machu Picchu, or now the buzzing city of Lima, Peru has done that for me since my very first visit, transforming the country from a place I once visited into a future home.