Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Peña.
Hi Lisa , it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Looking back after having my business for 6 years now, I see that little seeds were planted throughout my life that perked my in having a business like this. As a child and teen, I constantly explored in the woods behind my Kansas City, KS home. Later in college, I led canoe trips for youth in the Boundary Waters through a Christian camp. Right out of college, I joined Peace Corps and was in the Dominican Republic. Part of what I did was organize community walks to the local health clinic so women could get routine well woman exams.
As time passed, hiking and backpacking and my city became a love of mine. So when I heard a podcast episode highlighting Alex Kenin of San Francisco who started her own urban hiking business in San Francisco, I was so inspired and knew it was something I wanted to do.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Kansas City has truly wrapped their arms around my business. Our urban hiking tours are filled mostly by Kansas Citians and I have many colloborations with local businesses and organizations. However, it wasn’t always like that. When I first started it was a challenge to get the word out about Urban Hikes Kansas City. The search term “urban hikes” or any derivitive of it was ranked really low in google and it took some time for my website to start appearing in google searches.
However, once we started to offer more versions of urban hikes with different routes and guides, word spread about how fun it is to go on an urban hike and our tours started to fill up. Additionally, our colloborations with different organizations and businesses has been key to our growth.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We specialize in providing interactive experiences where we walk 3-5 miles and highlight the history, art and hidden gems of Kansas City. We thoroughly research the history, art and local businesses on our routes and share them in a fun and engaging way with our groups.
Every weekend, we offer 3-5 urban hikes for the public and during the week we provide customized urban hikes for team building and team outings.
Our google reviews show that we are known for sharing interesting aspects and hidden gems of Kansas City that even most Kansas Citians don’t know about it.
Our experiences are more than a “walking tour”, in many cases, we include hills so that we can get a walking work out and the length is longer than most walking tours. However, we customize our urban hikes for private groups and can easily leave out the physcially challenging aspects.
Additionally what sets up apart is that we give urban hikes in some areas where many other Kansas City tour companies don’t like Quindaro Ruins, West Botttoms, Kaw Point and Strawberry Hill.
What does success mean to you?
Success is that our participants are happy with the experiences and keep coming back.
Success is that our guides enjoy giving the urban hikes and we are make a profit as a business.
Pricing:
- $38 per person for most of urban hikes
- $45-$65 per person if an urban hike includes coffee, food or wine
- $300 is the minimum to provide a customized urban hike
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.urbanhikeskc.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/urbanhikeskc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/urbanhikeskc/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisampena1/
