DAYTONA Seashore — For extra than two many years as a salesman, Steven Gooch had pitched all the things from vacuum cleaners to telecom systems.
Now, powering the wheel of a 23-foot business tour bus, he’s offering pleasurable.
“I experienced done profits for 25 decades and I was exhausted of marketing items to persons that they didn’t want,” said Gooch, 50, the founder, owner, tour guide and bus driver at Fun Coastline Tours, a freshly opened organization that specializes in themed 4-1/2-hour excursions showcasing neighborhood breweries, landmarks and history.
Gooch and his wife, Cassie, who teams with him to run the small business factors of the company, moved to Daytona Beach from Gainesville a handful of several years in the past. Right after leaving a telecom sales job there, Gooch had commenced performing as an Uber driver as he contemplated his upcoming transfer.
It opened the doorway to a new job.
“When you seriously get started to drive Uber enthusiastically, you get started to come to be a tour tutorial in any case,” Gooch said. “I identified that I acquired improved suggestions the far more I understood about landmarks and the historical past of the location. I found out that men and women never even thoughts heading a very little little bit out of their way to see a thing fascinating or to hear a tale.”
In July, Gooch and his wife introduced Enjoyable Coastline Excursions, featuring Segway tours that involved a beach front journey, scavenger hunt and “Daytona at Dusk” tour melding history and ghost tales.
Initially, he had planned to develop into brewery bus tours in 2022, but as visitors enthusiastically embraced journey all through a file-location tourism summer months in Daytona Seashore, the timetable was expedited. By mid-July, he had purchased a 23-foot bus geared up to host a dozen passengers in cushioned seats tailored with cup holders.
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“I located it on Ebay,” Gooch mentioned. “There’s a dude who sells buses out of Michigan.”
Gooch paid out $5,600 for the utilized Ford E-350 with 265,000 miles on it and another $1,400 to a driver hired to provide it from Michigan to Daytona Beach front. He put in a further $600 on repairs that incorporated two new tires, an AC recharge, additional lights and other touches.
Pleasurable Coast’s Brewery Bus Tour functions a revolving itinerary of stops that consist of Copper Base Craft Distillery and Red Pig Brewery, the two in Holly Hill The World’s Most Popular Brewery (formerly the Pallet Pub) on Main Street Ormond Garage and Beachside Brew Pub, both in Ormond Beach Dunes Brewing in Port Orange and McK’s Tavern & Brewery and Daytona Taproom in Daytona Seaside.
On the eve of Halloween, the corporation included a 2nd tour, a trek that showcases unique dive bars.
This week, Pleasurable Coastline presents a number of new stops and another new enjoyment wrinkle all through a Turkey Trot Bar Crawl that operates from 6-9 p.m. Wednesday from the Streamline Resort on North Atlantic Avenue.
In addition to stops at the Streamline’s Sky Rooftop Bar, Ocean Deck, Landshark Bar & Grill and Tir Na Nog Irish Pub, the a few-hour party also marks the debut of Enjoyment Coast’s Tickle Me Transit notion showcasing a stand-up comedian on board.
The $35 ticket contains a single totally free consume at each of the stops, a complimentary swag bag and prize raffle. The Pleasurable Coast bus will operate a steady shuttle route from the resort to the participating bars during the event.
For reservations or far more information and facts on the Turkey Trot, call the lodge at 386-947-7470. For facts on other Exciting Coast choices, check out the business on line at funcoasttours.com.
“I’ve in no way accomplished comedy on a bus prior to,” claimed Doug Canny, a comedian based in Palm Coastline who has toured the stand-up circuit for 12 a long time. “I did stand-up on a flat-mattress truck yrs back.”
Tour enterprise seeks promising partnerships
For the Streamline, the tour bus partnership is an chance to construct a perception of community between the resort and other well known vacationer-oriented companies in the location, explained Ashley Zalkin, the hotel’s celebration sales director.
“We want to do extra bar crawls in the long run,” Zalkin mentioned. “This is form of a complete new undertaking for the Streamline.”
For Gooch, the Streamline link signifies the type of partnership he hopes to forge with other tourist-relevant organizations.
Looking forward, Gooch also is teaming with the West Volusia Tourism Promoting Authority to convey excursions to DeLand, Orange Metropolis and other West Volusia locations.
An initial Dec. 11 tour transporting visitors from Daytona Beach to pay a visit to breweries on the West Volusia CoolCraft Beverage Trail is previously sold-out, reported Ga Turner, govt director of the West Volusia Tourism Promoting Authority.
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“We sold it out quite quickly,” Turner said. “There’s definitely a foreseeable future for us to get the job done with them. So several individuals on the east side (of the county) want to occur in excess of to see what west aspect has to provide.”
Gooch also is searching for nearby ghost hunters or paranormal specialists who could possibly be interested in lending their information to excursions connected to that topic, he explained.
To assistance encourage the tours, Gooch also lately introduced a travel-oriented podcast, Downtime in Daytona, to elevate consciousness of tourism alternatives in Volusia County. In its 13-episode run, friends have ranged from hoteliers to community officials together with Daytona Beach Metropolis Commissioner Ken Strickland.
Gooch is optimistic about the company’s prospective in Daytona Beach front.
“Despite the pandemic, tourism did not end,” Gooch reported. “Everyone kept coming. If ever the iron was scorching, it’s now.”