Middlebury Magazine

  • Recent Stories
  • Menu
    • Features
    • Pursuits
    • Q&A
    • Review
    • Old Chapel
    • Road Taken
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • How Did You Get Here Series
    • About
    • Advertising
    • Contact
    • Support
    • Writers’ Guidelines
  • Search

Winter 2020 Pursuits

Jungle Love

A love of nature and an entrepreneurial spirit have led Tamara Jacobi '06.5 to create an ecotourist's dream vacation destination.

By Megan Michelson '04
Photographs by Kelly Guenther
February 25, 2020
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • Email icon

Tamara Jacobi ’06.5 is paddling out to catch a wave at Burros, a popular surf break near the town of Punta de Mita, Mexico. She’s grinning, chatting in Spanish to other surfers, and enjoying a day off from her usual duties at Tailwind Jungle Lodge, the ecoresort she runs in the jungle above San Pancho, a sleepy town an hour north of the bustling resort hub of Puerto Vallarta, on Mexico’s Pacific coast.

Tamara was the one who had the vision for an adventure-oriented, back-to-the-land retreat nestled into a grove of palm trees on the five-acre property her parents had bought in Mexico in 2005 as a retirement investment. During J-term of her senior year at Middlebury, Tamara took a course called Entrepreneurship 101, where she was tasked with writing a make-believe business plan.

She’d studied sustainable development abroad in Australia and had fallen in love with the idea of ecolodges. So, instead of writing a pretend business plan, she wrote a real one. “The inspiration started to flow,” Tamara says. “We had this land. It was the beginning of the ecotourism movement in Mexico. I figured, why don’t I write my own business plan?”

During graduation weekend in February 2007, she presented the plan to her parents, Tigre and Judi Jacobi, in a PowerPoint slideshow in her dorm room. They were in. But first, to celebrate Tigre’s 60th birthday and Tamara’s college graduation, Tamara, brother Rhett, and their dad set out to paddle sea kayaks 800 miles along the coast of Baja. Because that’s what the Jacobi family does for fun.

Raised on a lake on the Quebec-Vermont border, Tamara grew up with wandering, adventurous parents. Her dad worked as a builder; her mom was a teacher. As a kid, she lived in Mexico for a year, studying Mayan ruins and climbing the country’s highest peak. Her family backpacked California’s 220-mile John Muir Trail and Vermont’s 270-mile Long Trail, and the summer after her first year at Middlebury, she and her family mountain biked 2,000 miles along the Continental Divide.

So starting a family-run ecolodge in a country that wasn’t their own didn’t seem too ambitious. Tamara spent much of their two-month-long paddle through the Sea of Cortez daydreaming to fine-tune the plan for the lodge. That’s where she came up with the name, Tailwind: “Life is always much more enjoyable with the wind at your back,” she says.

Back on land, the family hand-built palapas and wooden platforms for rustic canvas safari tents that overlooked the ocean. In December 2007, they welcomed their first guests. Later, they installed a yoga deck and began hosting yoga retreats, and the business expanded.

Tigre and Judi work side-by-side at the lodge, but from the start, Tamara took on the role of CEO and manager. She says it’s been a lesson in flexibility. “You don’t know how things are going to unfold,” Tamara says. “It’s been a challenge, but it’s also made me adapt.”

Tamara has held every job at the lodge: host, kayak and surf guide, housecleaner, nutrition coach, cook, yoga teacher, gardener. Lately, though, she’s adopted a couple of new roles she’s quite enjoying: author and mother.

This February, Tamara is publishing her first book, Wildpreneurs, which describes her journey to open her family business. “Guests at the lodge kept asking me, ‘What advice would you give to someone who wants to do this?’ So I started writing it down. But I realized it wasn’t just my story. There are all these people who are doing businesses outside the box without a recipe whose advice I added.”

In October, Tamara and her partner, Walter, a marine biologist, welcomed their son, Zephyr. Zephyr will grow up much the way his mother did: wandering the world with active, curious parents. His home base, however, will be a treehouse lodge deep in the jungles of Mexico.

Parallels

Pendant

Tamara gives these glass hearts, made in Mexico, as gifts to inspiring people who stay at the lodge. “They represent a jungle love that unites us—a love of the natural world and a community of mindful adventurers,” she says. “These hearts are also a reminder of the tremendous lessons that the jungle has taught me.”

 

Running Shoes

Running has always been therapeutic for Tamara. It’s where she finds herself most at home, no matter where in the world she is. “My life has been about blazing my own trail,” she says. “I am most inspired and happy when I’m on the trail, literally, and my running shoes come with me everywhere, from the jungle to the Colorado Rockies to Vermont’s Green Mountains. Whether I’m walking, running, or hiking, these shoes bring me tremendous joy and clarity.”

 

Earrings

These earrings were a Christmas gift from her father in 2009, a couple of years after Tailwind Jungle Lodge opened. They were custom made by a jeweler in San Pancho, Mexico, into the shape of their lodge’s logo. “For me, this is so much more than just a logo. It represents our journey as a family business,” Tamara says. “Though we are grateful for the tailwind that guides us along, it’s been a challenging journey that has repeatedly tested us and made us stronger.”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent Stories

Features

More Than a Game

In a critically acclaimed work of nonfiction, Abe Streep '04 introduces readers to the Arlee Warriors, a high school basketball team on a Native American reservation in Montana, where life's challenges are abundant.

By Alexander Wolff
Photograph by Devin Yalkin
October 21, 2022

Munya Munyati Has A Few Stories to Tell

Catching up with a young filmmaker who is rapidly making a name for himself at Vice.

By Mara Dolan
Film stills by Munya Munyati
September 16, 2022

Reverberations

A transcontinental move, a career discovered, a landmark speech studied and translated—and an identity reshaped.

By Clara Clymer, MA Translation '22
Illustration by Anna Gusella
April 2, 2022

The Road(s)

A little over a year ago, a writing student headed south to Florida for no other reason than J-Term was forced to go remote. She soon found herself reporting on an environmental justice battle that was roiling the state.

By Alexandra Burns '21.5
Illustrations by Yevgenia Nayberg
March 2, 2022

Dispatches

The Repatriation

The Leopard Head Hip Ornament returns to Africa.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Courtesy Middlebury Museum of Art
February 16, 2023

Adventures in Filmmaking

Two professors and an alum have embarked on a journey to take a screenplay from its creation to the end product of a full-length feature film.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Still Photograph from The Swim Lesson Proof of Concept
February 14, 2023

A Night Out

For one evening in December, Atwater dining hall hosted a student-dining experience unlike any other.

By Caroline Crawford
Photographs by Paul Dahm
January 20, 2023

Finding His Way

What happens when your identity is stolen—not by another person but by your own body?

By Sara Thurber Marshall
December 15, 2022

A Natural Selection

For more than a quarter century, Stephen Trombulak— now an emeritus professor of biology and environmental studies—guided students in avian research on a parcel of College land hard by Otter Creek. This preserved area now bears his name.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photography by Paul Dahm
November 18, 2022

The Utterly Fascinating Life of Howie McCausland

He saves lives. He brought the Internet to Middlebury. He has a degree in astrophysics. And he loves to fish. Yes, this is a true story.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Illustration by John S. Dykes
September 16, 2022

It’s a New Day at the Museum of Art

Reimagining what an art museum can and should be.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Art courtesy of the Middlebury College Museum of Art
June 30, 2022

First Aid

Their projects span the globe—from Kenya to Haiti to the United States. As the 2021-22 academic year came to a close, a cohort of students gathered to discuss what having a social impact really means.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Illustration by Brian Stauffer
June 28, 2022

The Case of the Purloined Onions

Onions have been disappearing from Middlebury's garden. Now, a team of undergraduate sleuths are honing in on a lineup of suspects.

By Andrew Cassel
Illustration by Naomi Ann Clarke
June 21, 2022
View All

Pursuits

Public Defender

On becoming one of the country's foremost cybersecurity experts.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Illustration by Neil Webb
April 14, 2022

Q&A

The Making of a Teacher

Hebrew Professor Michal Strier reflects on her life an education—in Israel and the States—a journey that led the Language School instructor to the undergraduate College for the first time this year.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Paul Dahm
May 19, 2022

Editor’s Note

A Brilliant Fogg

Saying goodbye to a dear colleague and friend.

By Matt Jennings
Illustration by Jody Hewgill
February 25, 2020

Old Chapel

Making Democracy Real

An Update on Our Conflict Transformation Initiative

By Laurie L. Patton
Illustration by Montse Bernal
January 20, 2023

Road Taken

What to Wear Now

Through accrued life experiences, a writer discovers that a common question has become a statement of identity.

By Samantha Hubbard Shanley ’99
Illustration by Naomi Clarke
March 11, 2021

Quotation

A summer immersed in a language can do wonders, as veterans of Middlebury College’s famous language-learning program can attest. The lockdown is clearly going to amount to the equivalent of about two summers, and there are mini-Middleburys happening in millions of houses worldwide.”

—John McWhorter, writing “The Coronavirus Generation Will Use Language Differently” in the Atlantic.

Podcasts

Alone Together, Ep. 9 with Jessica St. Clair ’98 and Dan O’Brien ’96

Dan O'Brien ’96, a playwright and poet, and Jessica St. Clair ’98, a comedian and writer, join President Patton for our final check in with the community during COVID-19 self-isolation. Dan and Jessica are a true power couple in the arts that met in a Middlebury improv group. They discuss Dan's magazine essay "Life Shrinks: Lessons from Chemo Quarantine," how reopening the country feels a lot like remission, and how their art is evolving to reflect the pandemic.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
June 15, 2020

Alone Together, Ep. 8 with Dick Clay, Covid-19 Survivor

In this episode, Dick Clay, a student at the Bread Loaf School of English, shares his story of recovering from COVID-19. Dick discusses when the seriousness of the virus hit him, the "wilderness path to recovery," and how he will process this experience through writing.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
June 8, 2020

Alone Together, Ep. 7 with Jodie Keith and Jacque Bergevin, Essential Workers

In this episode, we hear from Jodie Keith and Jacque Bergevin, who have been working with custodial services to keep our Vermont campus safe and clean. Jodie and Jacque share what campus has been like since the students left: what it's like to schedule hourly sanitation of buildings, how every day feels like an empty Saturday morning, and that the infamous Middlebury squirrels have lost a bit of weight.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
Photography by Bob Handelman
June 1, 2020

Review

Editors’ Picks for January and February

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
February 5, 2023

How Did You Get Here?

Megan Job

By Alexandra Burns '21
February 15, 2021

Leif Taranta

By Alexandra Burns '21
February 15, 2021

Mikayla Haefele

By Alexandra Burns '21
February 15, 2021

Videos

Pomp and Unusual Circumstances

As viewed from above.

By Chris Spencer
June 1, 2021

Davis the Owl Returns Home

Having recovered from life-threatening injuries, a beautiful winged creature is released to its natural habitat.

By Andrew Cassell
April 22, 2021

In the Blink of an Eye

Gone in less than a minute—the middle of June 2019 to the middle of June 2020, as viewed from the rooftop of the Mittelman Observatory.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
Video by Jonathan Kemp/Mittelman Observatory
June 10, 2020
Middlebury College
  • Alumni
  • Newsroom
  • Contact Us
  • icon-instagram

The views presented are not necessarily those of the editors or the official policies of the College.

© 2023 Middlebury College Publications.