AdvenChair in the Press

On Monday night, many of Oregon’s leading members of the travel and tourism industry were honored during the Achievement Awards at the 2025 Oregon Governor’s Conference on Tourism at the Oregon Convention Center. More than 600 professionals gathered for the event to share ideas, while also discussing how to improve the quality of life, culture, diversity, ecosystem, and economy of communities across the state through these partnerships hosted by Travel Oregon and Portland.

It’s not every day that someone from one of the world’s most renowned travel publications puts you on one of their Top 25 lists. So it’s easy to understand why Geoff Babb, founder and co-inventor of AdvenChair, a Bend-based all-terrain wheelchair, was somewhat taken aback when he learned that a writer from Conde’ Nast Traveller spotlighted him last week.

All-terrain wheelchairs aren’t anything new, but a former forest firefighter has designed a chair that allows even more adults and children with spinal cord injury and disease (SCI/D) to go off-road, while promoting time with family and friends. The AdvenChair is a patented and convertible hiking wheelchair designed for people with higher levels of SCI/D or limited upper arm mobility, such as from a stroke.

This excursion marks the launch of wheelchair accessible tours—called AdvenTours -- the AdvenChair in association with Wanderlust Tours of Bend to places previously thought unreachable.

"I think it went really well," said Jared Garfield, Wanderlust Tours co-owner. "Our mission is to get people outside in whatever capacity they are ready for. We want to meet people where they are at."