Local travel company Ancient Wayves earns top honors
by David Boyle
News Director
Finalists for the English magazine JRNY’s 2025 Best Tourism Experience included theme parks in Florida, fall in New England, museums and other exhibits, but the magazines 2025 Best Tourism Experience award was given to a San Juan County Company.
Diné-owned Ancient Wayves provides river and hiking tours in San Juan County led by Indigenous guides. Ancient Wayves Louis Williams said they were surprised to learn they had won a major ward.
“It was an awesome surprise and it’s still recent. We haven’t received the hardware yet. So, we’re still soaking it in and we’re still kind of celebrating.
“We’re this at the end of the river season, so we’re kind of simmered down around the activity, so we’re able to soak it in. Yeah, it’s a great award.”
While the company officially was founded in 2020, Williams explained its origins go back to 2011, when he first became a full-time river guide on the San Juan River, which acts as a northern boundary of the Navajo Nation.
“That’s our ancestral homelands and I noticed that we didn’t have a guiding company out there, an outfitter to provide the stories of our land and the stories of our people. That’s gave the motivation to create a company to fill that void.”
Williams thought about and developed the idea for years and eventually started the company in 2020.
The name Ancient Wayves comes from Williams childhood growing up around his grandparents.
“They didn’t speak English and so back home they speak to me and my grandparents taught me of how they grew up of the Ancient Way. So I talk about that Way all the time.”
One key moment was when Ancient Wayves was able to register as a Navajo LLC and receive permits for both sides of the river.
“River Left is the Navajo Nation and River Right is BLM land and there’s also land with the Ute tribe. So we’re permitted with BLM and the Navajo Nation and we became the first commercial company to do that. So, it was awesome.”
Ancient Wayves also leads hikes within the Bears Ears National Monument and Monument Valley Tribal Park. The company can tailor hikes to match guests abilities ranging from easygoing casual hikes to more strenuous hikes as well.
The company has grown from three guides to 14. Throughout the hikes, the guides share their indigenous culture.
“Our guides are from different areas of the region, the Southwest, you know, some of our guides have Puebloan culture background. (...)
“We’re very fortunate to have several staff like Danzel, he’s Zuni and Laso, he’s Hopi.
“So they get to tell stories about their culture. I love to be out there when we’re all together because I hear stories from all the different cultures. Our team strives to just talk about our culture and the uniqueness of it.”
Williams said they’ve already seen some impact in the exposure of the award both on social media and elsewhere with inquiries for hiking trips mentioning the award as well and offered thanks to JRNY magazine for acknowledging their work.
“The reason why we got this acknowledgment is just doing what our guide is doing what we love. We’re out there um just trying to spread the good word about nature. Taking care of nature and how nature takes care of us.
“We want to just acknowledge the plant life and the native wildlife that are out there and they’ve been out there since time in memorial so, we want to take care of them and that’s what we do it’s just uh we really promote outdoor recreation.”
Williams referenced the Navajo idea of Hózhó, “which is just a balance of nature, your mental state, your physical abilities and your spirituality. So that’s what really affects our guests is just connecting with nature.
That’s what I want to share, encourage everybody to get out there and smell that sage brush. Plants out there that want acknowledgement.”
More information about guides can be found on the companies website TourAncientWayves.com