About

about me – jordangassner.com

My Story

Every journey has an origin story, and mine began long before I ever boarded a plane. The spark that drives Meaningful Adventures for the Modern Explorer started in the movies that shaped my imagination: stories of exploration, courage, and wonder that would eventually guide how I see the world.

Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, The Mummy. Growing up, my dad would always introduce my sisters and I to the coolest movies, even if we didn’t realize how great they were until after we watched them. I can still remember how his face lit up when he’d share his favorite scenes with us for the first time – it was magnetic and contagious.

It was December 2002 when my dad first dragged me to see The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. An awkward middle school student at the time, all I could think was how embarrassing it would be if we ran into friends. “Please don’t take me!”, I begged. “No one can see me watching this.” Of course, the only response I received was some dad joke about how dark the theaters were. So, off we went.

3 hours later, the veil had surely lifted. I was no longer embarrassed, but intrigued… even if I was too proud admit it. My dad must have noticed because when we were walking to the car he asked me in his round-about way, “Next weekend, want to watch Fellowship?”.

Ever since that intense intro to Lord of the Rings, I’ve been captivated by fantasy and adventure. I consumed all the content, collected all the memorabilia and even fought my way into the film and video game industries so I could experience even more of these genres that I loved.

Then, in August 2017, everything changed. I had been planning a trip to New Zealand, excited to see The Shire and Rivendell, when my dad was suddenly diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.

Trying to wrap my head around things, my trip became a big “what if…“. I didn’t want to be gone for a long period of time – just in case. But when I told my my dad I was going to call off my trip, he looked at me like I had grown two heads. Cancelling was simply not an option.

“You have to tell me all about Hobbiton,” he said, “I can’t wait to finally experience it through you.” And so under his direction, I kept to my planning, even welcoming it as a distraction to the hospital visits, the phone calls and the frequent care updates.

A month later, my dad passed away.

True to his wishes, I did press on to New Zealand. But it wasn’t until I was looking out over a rugged alpine lake glimmering under a setting Kiwi sun that I fully understood the weight of what he said: Experience it through you.

As earnest as it sounds, time stood still while I processed his words and allowed for a long-awaited realization to kick in: I wasn’t just seeing the magic I had long dreamt of on-screen, I was fully living it. The fantasy had become my adventure, my reality. I was transformed.

My time in New Zealand changed how I understood travel. It showed me that meaning can exist even in heartbreak, and that exploring the world can help us find our way back to ourselves. That perspective became the foundation of Meaningful Adventures for the Modern Explorer: a belief that travel, when approached with curiosity and care, can restore something we thought was lost and remind us what it feels like to be fully alive.