Playground Earth is an online travel publication dedicated to exploring and sharing travel stories, destination tips and deals from the most beautiful places on earth. 

HISTORY

Founded in 2002, Playground Earth began as an online travel company.

The name Playground Earth came up during a long hike in Hawaii celebrating that we live in an amazing playground. Realizing that each of our vacations offered us unique experiences along with fascinating travel stories, we started taking notes and creating journals. With time we found that travel writing and photography was our passion. The reflection and observation that comes through writing made our vacations even more interesting and memorable. We just needed to travel more! We needed a long sabbatical.

After 2 years of planning, we left our jobs, sold our home, cars, and most of our personal belongings, and set out to explore extraordinary places and write positive stories and reviews of our adventures. We had landed on the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores before COVID hit with the intention of staying there for 3-4 months. The challenge was that the summer was fast approaching and the islands were fully booked! This changed in a blink of an eye. Two weeks later all tourists were leaving on emergency flights. The whole archipelago was closing down.  We had the good fortune that our resort was privately owned and the owners were kind enough to let us stay. The staff left so we were on our own as tenants with no resort services but with full access to the hotel laundry room. At one time we learned that we were 2 out of 11 tourists left on the island. We were lucky and grateful to be “stuck” in one of the most beautiful and safest places as the pandemic spread throughout the world. We lived in Furnas a full year enjoying the entire island, the hot springs, hikes and lakes almost totally alone. For us it was a magical life experience.

As fortunate as we felt, we were mindful of the local and global toll that the pandemic was taking on the very industry we had set out to promote. We dedicated our entire lockdown time to rebuilding Playground Earth from just a travel blog by adding a robust and useful adventure finder and marketplace.

We added the listings platform and search features to showcase companies and adventures that we had experienced during our travels or companies that helped us along the way. An example is the many sailboat brokers that we worked with while looking to buy a boat. Things didn’t quite work out because buying boats is an intensely time-consuming challenge with many roadblocks. However, we wanted to include these great people who invested their time and expertise to inform and educate us.

Another example is the privately-owned unique resort that had to close its doors during the early days of the pandemic but let us stay as tenants for as long as we needed it. We are now friends for life.  Another good new friend was a hotel manager in the Isle of Skye who gave us a ride up a hill to our B&B. We were not even staying at his hotel but he offered to help us anyway.

We started adding listings for these folks and friends as a way to give back and say THANK YOU.

Eventually, we added the ability for the best adventure or travel companies to add their own listings and products directly to be part of our global directory that we will work to grow as we continue to explore and showcase the most beautiful places around the world.

From air, land and water we know that it is the adventures and activities (and the delicious foods we enjoy) that make our travels memorable. We cover activities and adventures, arts, architecture, foods & markets, destinations as well the wonderful resorts and hotels we find along the way. 

Our work benefits from 50 years of combined experience working in Search, Technical SEO, Search Marketing, Online Advertising, Content Marketing, and Real-Time Communications (RTC) as well as Account Management, Business Development, and Vendor Relations.

CONTACT US

Jim Dorsey

CAO l Chief Adventure Officer | Travel Writer, Editor & Publisher

I spent 31 years in the apparel industry specializing in Marketing, Business Development, Account Management and Client/Vendor relations.

During that time I had the good fortune to work with a wide variety of brands, companies, museums and non-profits including The North Face, Timberland, Patagonia, Esprit, GAP, Banana Republic, Malibu Shirts, LACMA, MOMA, MOCA, Panavision, The Cousteau Society, ONE.org, American Rivers, Oceana, Rails-to-Trails and many more.

My intensely personal and professional approach to Account Management and Business Development was essential to opening, growing and maintaining long term relationships with hundreds of clients and industry partners throughout the world. Now I bring these skills to connect and work with adventure companies, travel partners and food vendors to write articles, stories and reviews about the most beautiful places we discover.

Contact with me to explore advertising, partnership and sponsorship opportunities or to discuss anything related to adventure, food and travel!

Fernanda Dorsey

CFO | Chief Fun Officer & Photographer

After attending film school I took a sharp turn to built my career as a Product Manager working for various tech, telecommunications and media companies. Product Management is a fascinating profession and a wonderful way to experience life. just like travel. 

Combining these two passions I started Playground Earth as an online travel store, pivoted with Jim to build a clothing line and eventually a travel publication and adventure finder.