The reason for the success of bespoke agricultural tour agency Explorations by Thor can be summed up succinctly by co-owner and co-founder Donna Thor:
“Farmers love to talk to other farmers!” she said. “And whether it’s a farmer from across town or halfway around the world, they always like to share their stories with each other.”
Explorations by Thor specializes in creating custom agriculture tours, which can be a variation of agriculture-related study abroad trips, classic agribusiness or market trade tours. It is a full-service provider which can make all of the arrangements for a client group, including international and domestic airline tickets, business visas, hotel reservations with business meeting rooms, ground and water transport, bilingual guides and professional ag guides.
The tours provide an opportunity for farmers to learn from each other about traditional, modern and organic methods in both large scale and smaller local farms.
The agency was founded in 2010 by Donna and her husband Alex. Donna was born and raised in eastern Kentucky’s coal country. Alex is a Lexington, KY, native with experience working on tobacco farms. The two studied at the University of Kentucky. After the couple got married, they began to explore their mutual love of travel.
Alex and Donna Thor met in college and turned their passion for travel into a way to share farming practices. Photo by Enrico Villamaino
Donna explained, “Together we have traveled to many places throughout the world. We share a passion for travel, customer service and truly enjoy helping others plan their vacations… After years of building tours ranging from extreme multi-day jungle treks to family vacations throughout Panama, we discovered our passion for agri-tours. We enjoy meeting new people and learning about our clients to help us to create the highest quality tour.”
Alex, who spent years living and traveling all over the world, from Southeast Asia to South America, is pleased that his experiences can be used to help farmers from all over the globe better understand one another.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to study abroad, work, travel and live in some amazing places,” he said. “My passion to share international destinations and diverse cultures with other travelers makes for an exciting career. I take pride in showcasing all locations in the destinations we work and hope our guests enjoy it just as much.”
The sizes of the travel groups vary. Alex said that they have had groups that have numbered in the hundreds, but it is more normal to have excursions of 20 to 40 farmers on a trip.
During the American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Conference in San Juan, PR, in 2023, the Thors hosted a group of 65 farmers from 20 different farms.
It’s not unheard of to see global agritourism – the 2022 International Workshop on Agritourism took place in Burlington, VT, and the 2024 event was hosted in Bolzano/South Tyrol, Italy. To learn more, see agritourism.eurac.edu.
For more information on planning something domestically, visit ExplorationsByThor.com.
by Enrico Villamaino
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