The Netherlands Tour: Making a Dream Come True

I’m not trying to sell you something… because I have nothing to sell. I want to tell you a story.

Ever since we first visited the Netherlands for escape rooms back in 2017, we have been enchanted by the escape games in the region. We returned in 2018, and again in 2019. It was on that 2019 trip, while standing on a small bridge in the fortress city of Naarden that we started wondering:

Could we bring an Escape, Immerse, Explore Tour to the Netherlands?

Lisa on a bridge looking out over a canal in Naarden, Netherlands. — Lisa in Naarden, minutes before or after we started dreaming up this Tour.

At that point, when were were standing on that bridge in Naarden, we had run a few tours, and were starting to really figure out how to do it well.

However, the jump from running Tours in New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco, to bringing a group to Europe felt… dramatic.

So we came up with a plan.

The Plan

If we could run a Tour to a destination in Canada in 2020, maybe we could level up our abilities as tour operators and consider the Netherlands in 2021?

We booked Montreal for 2020… and that got delayed until 2021 on account of the apocalypse.

When we finally ran Montreal in 2021, we were very nervous about booking transatlantic travel for ourselves. The idea of bringing a Tour to Europe seemed completely dead at the time. It was difficult to be anything but dejected.

But things change and last year we returned to the Netherlands and came up with a real, actionable plan that we deeply believed in. That plan became Escape, Immerse, Explore The Netherlands 2025, the Tour we have been dreaming of for years.

The catch was that this Tour was going to be expensive because everything about it cost substantially more than any of the 10 Tours that we had produced prior to this one. Launching it was scary.

A Very Short Presale

I told you that I have nothing to sell, because this Tour (all 48 tickets!) sold out astoundingly fast.

All of our Tours get released to our Patreon community for pre-sale. While demand has always been strong for our Tours… we would be deeply arrogant to assume that a transatlantic Tour with prices to match would sell immediately.

We released tickets late Tuesday night, planning a full week of pre-sale, went to bed, and when we woke up in the morning, nearly every ticket was spoken for.

It’s impossible to feel anything but gratitude for the fact that so many people are willing to trust us with their vacations. We’ve worked very hard to earn that trust… but knowing that we have a community of people who don’t just believe in what we’re doing, but will follow us around the world without hesitation…

It’s a dream come true.

Special shout out to those who joined this month: Dave, Vy Tran, Sherwin Doroudi, Charles Rasnake, Christopher Holland, Matthew McClain, Austin, Laurens van Laarhoven, The Court Jester, Mystery Unfolds, Simon Edwards, Michelle Cervenka, Iris Marin, Angela Kensy, Kevin & Alyssa, and Ian Hickson

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