July 1997 – On a hike in Yellowstone National Park, Sean & Chris come up with the original BootsnAll Code of Conduct.
December 1998 – Sean & Chris meet at the Bluebird Tavern in Chicago to discuss ‘BootsnAll’ as a business.
1999 – BootsnAll registered as a business and inital pages of the website are live on the interwebs. The Code of Conduct is one of them.
2000 – BootsnAll is the target of a buy-out offer from a San Francisco start-up at the end of the dot-com bubble. Sean & Chris decide delivering newspapers at 4am is a better way to fund the business.
2001 – Portland newspaper The Oregonian writes ‘Bootstrapping’ feature on the anti-dot-com, spending the entire day at the BootsnAll office, including delivering newspapers. With zero revenue, the impact of 9/11′s repercussions on the travel industry are minimal on the young company.
2002 – Co-founder Nick O’Neill moves to Bali, Indonesia to create the first daily updated travel guide, Bali Blog.
2003 – BootsnAll has its first profitable month. The company moves from Eugene, OR to Portland, OR and launches its own consolidator airfare engine.
2004 – BootsnAll recognized as RTW travel expert/resource in National Geographic Traveler.
2005 – 30 BootsnAll members attempt to summit Mt Kilimanjaro on New Years Day.
2006 – Spending over a month in Germany, BootsnAll produces extensive coverage of the World Cup & subsequently launches TheOffside.com, the largest English language soccer blog network.
2007 – Lonely Planet co-founder Tony Wheeler visits the Portland office & agrees to be interviewed in the basement ‘studio’.
2008 – BootsnAll’s 10 year anniversary party sees over 500 people in attendance.
2009 – Sean reconnects with independent travel with a 4 month trip with his fiance. He marries her later that year.
2010 – BootsnAll launches the WhyGo writing program to develop partnerships with passionate travel writers to produce high quality websites about destinations or travel themes that are constantly evolving and growing over time.
Want to know more? Find out the whole BootsnAll story.
