Andrew Tyree wants to take you on the adventure of a lifetime.
Tyree, the founder of Coast to Costa, won’t be your sole tour guide on this journey. He’s made plenty of friends with the locals during his visits to South America and Europe, and they’re happy to share their expertise.
“It’s like you’re being taken care of by your extended family,” says Tyree. “Our crew is really good. Toward the end of the trip, everyone becomes friends with my local friends.”
As an entrepreneur, Tyree has traveled for more than a decade. He lives more like a resident than a tourist, studying the language and immersing himself in the culture.
What inspired his idea for starting a travel company? It all began after his junior year of college, when he studied for three months in Spain. He decided to drop out of school to teach English abroad, first working for other companies and then striking out on his own. But when the economy tanked in 2009, he couldn’t renew his work visa. He returned to San Francisco and worked as a wine buyer.
“I wanted to go back to Spain, so I took groups of friends to Barcelona, organizing trips and renting a house,” says Tyree, based out of Los Angeles’ WeWork Gas Tower space. “And it turned into motivating people to get away from daily routines, make meaningful connections, and open their mind to humanity.”
Mostly through word of mouth, Tyree has been getting regular requests to run other personalized excursions. Satisfied customers have helped him spread the word.
“We’ve always been very strictly DIY,” says Tyree. “In the first group, I brought a friend who was a photographer, a guy who did web pages, and a girl who did videography. I got all my friends to go and built out content. More than having a viable website, everyone told their friends about it afterwards and people have come.”
He’s organized trips to Barcelona, Seville, and Madrid in Spain; Oaxaca, Sayulita, Tulum, and Mexico City in Mexico; and Havana, Trinidad, Cienfuegos, and Viñales in Cuba. Tyree has also been leading monthly trips to Baja California.
As Tyree focuses on leading trips, his wife Natalie, the company’s chief operating officer, makes sure everything is organized on the back end.
The trips—attracting a mix of solo travelers, couples, and groups of friends or family members—are geared towards making connections, both among other travelers and with locals. From talking with chefs in Barcelona about the origin of tapas to chatting with drivers taking you to vineyards where you can watch the sunset over the ocean, there’s something for everyone.
And Tyree has plenty of tips on the best way to meet locals.
“People need to know they’re going to another culture,” Tyree says. “There has to be a willingness to be respectful and open-minded. Things don’t run the same way they run in America. It requires a bit of patience because it’s slower paced. People need to be fun and willing to laugh at things that are funny.”
Tyree is quadrupling the number of cities his company visits, but wants to keep the options limited.
“I don’t want to expand to a whole lot more,” Tyree says. “I want to keep the ones I know and love, have traveled to a lot, and feel personally connected to.”
Photos: Kat Wickstrom