AdvenChair in the Press

Condé Nast writer Sophie Morgan visits Central Oregon and is impressed by the accessibility to its natural environment, thanks to the AdvenChair hiking wheelchair. “Surrounded by a grinning team of able-bodied volunteers, all strapped onto the Advenchair with ropes, they prepared to lower me into what felt like the set of an epic Western. Smith Rock, a jagged, rust-red marvel shaped by ancient lava and sculpted by wind and water, rises from the Oregon desert like a sandstone cathedral. Ahead of me lay a trail that clung to the cliffside. Behind me: the rope team affectionately known as the “mules.” By all logic, this terrain should have been off-limits to someone like me. But this environment was nothing to the Advenchair, Geoff had taken it to the depths of the Grand Canyon previously.”

A collaboration between two outdoor industry pioneers that launched in 2024 yielded a prestigious award last week, even as they were building on the foundation of their teamwork this year.At the 2025 Oregon Governor’s Conference on Tourism held at the Portland Convention Center last week, AdvenChair and Wanderlust Tours were honored with the Partnership Award, which recognizes that leveraging traditional and non-traditional partnerships enables organizations and businesses to maximize their budgets, employee capacity, and skill sets to create an increase in efficiencies and a higher-level of aligned outcome.

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.