Jennine Cohen
JENNINE COHEN is a the Managing Director of the Americas for GeoEx. A trusted adventure, luxury and travel expert, Jennine also supports travel conservation efforts. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the International Galápagos Tour Operators Association (IGTOA) and has been featured in Travel & Leisure, Afar, Conde Nast Traveler, Vogue, YahooTravel, Fortune, Forbes, ABC, CBS, Travel Weekly, TravelAge West, Recommend Magazine, SmartMeetings, Travel Alliance Media and beyond. Besides sending people traveling around the world, Cohen advises, coaches and helps small businesses, women entrepreneurs, healers, and business leaders to uncover their everyday magic.
3 words to describe Nature?
Peace, Pachamama, Purity
3 things Nature taught you?
Like nature, I am a force;
Hitting the reset button in nature = clarity;
No regrets for going bigger
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The South Yuba River, Nevada City,
Wrangell Saint Elias National Park – Alaska,
Dead Horse State Park - Utah
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
I want to be out there, in the waves instead of sitting on the shore
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Like everything is right in the world
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Mother Earth is amazing
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Like the days are precious – and we should appreciate and have gratitude for each uniquely beautiful day.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
At home
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Intrigued
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Mountain – but love them all deeply
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I didn’t have much exposure to the wilderness as a child, and my first real introduction was in college through UCLA’s Outdoor Leadership Program. My first backpacking trip with UCLA was through Sequoia National Forest – it was how I fell in love with the West.
I was surrounded on that trip by much more experienced peers who had spent their childhoods enjoying frequent family camping trips. I on the other hand, didn’t even know how to set up a tent – let alone use topo maps and a compass. Despite this, as we hiked through the mountains and under some of the largest trees on the planet, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction, calm, sense of purpose. Though I was an absolute beginner, but my unbounded excitement for my new found passion over time led to my competence in and eventual addiction to the outdoors. My life was forever changed after that trip, and my career in the adventure travel industry born.
Coincidentally, that same trip happened to fall over 9/11. We had been in the wilderness and seemed to be the last ones on the planet to find out about the terrorist attacks to the World Trade Center – emerging from the woods a full week after the tragic event. Not being surrounded by news all week likely shielded us from the high levels of stress and anxiety that the rest of the country was suffering from.
It is a good reminder about the importance of disconnecting from the noise of today’s anxiety inciting media – in order to intuitively return to the abundance of calm and clarity.
