‘You want to kind of get your whole travel group clicking together, exchanging.’

Dale Ambler begins every day on the road with a joke. This is followed by a rousing rendition of “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” from the musical, “Oklahoma!” And no day would be complete without that Scandinavian favorite, “The Smile Song.” Ambler, 36, is vice president of tours for Ambler Tours & Travel Service, a family business started in 1953 by his father, Frank. One of the oldest travel agencies in San Diego, Ambler Tours has remained a well-kept secret, flourishing solely by word of mouth. Ambler has led tour groups worldwide, but he is most familiar with the 1,059-mile stretch of the Baja Peninsula, a bus trip he has made 35 times in the last 14 years. His southward travels have earned him the nickname “The Baja Kid.” Times staff writer Caroline Lemke interviewed him in his office, and Vince Compagnone photographed him.

On March 6, 1974, I was the very first person ever to take a bus tour down the Baja Peninsula. The highway had just opened in December of ’73 and my dad had the foresight to send my wife and I down in our own private car right after it opened to see if it was ready. We had heard the hotels were open, but we wanted to see if it was ready for a tour group. Just two months later, we took the very first tour group down.

It’s a very, very fascinating trip because every day that you go out, there is something completely different. The first time was very interesting because the hotels were completed, but some of them didn’t have their full kitchen equipment. We’d get there and they’d be cooking on a Coleman stove. And sometimes one of the hotel’s plumbing didn’t work, or the lights didn’t work. But we had a place to lay our heads, we had a safe shelter.

I have a special feeling for Baja because I was the first person ever to go down. I’ll never lose my enthusiasm for it. . . . I know what lies ahead around every corner, but there’s a great sense of anticipation for me to be able to share that knowledge and to see the people interested in what’s coming up and to look forward to what’s coming up the next day or later that afternoon.

On a good tour, there’s going to be some degree of a learning experience for everyone involved, and I take along my books. I get material. I won’t use the word research because I think that’s too scholarly for me to use, but whenever I’m on a trip--and I travel 120 days a year some years--after the people have adjourned for the night, I’m likely to be in my room with my books and my yellow highlight pen, highlighting things and writing things down so the next day I can tell them. It’s not important to have a textbook knowledge of where you’re going, but to be able to drop a few bits of information and insights. That’s what the people are looking for.

There’s a lot of psychology in the whole business of group dynamics which you find in tours. There’s a chemistry within every group. You want to kind of get your whole group clicking together, exchanging. You want some degree of harmony, because if that harmony exists within your group, the pleasures that are to be derived are going to be enhanced. It’s going to be funner to see this attraction . . . each day is going to be a little brighter. My dad and mom, who built the business, decided a long time ago, and we still adhere to this, is that we would rather have empty seats on our bus than to have the wrong kind of people in those seats.

I do so much traveling that I’d prefer to stay home for vacation, but my wife and children are big supporters of what I do . . . so when it’s their time for vacation, we have to find a place to go. We may just take off for a couple weeks and get away from it all. But as far as conducting tours goes, I have no particular desire to see any particular destination as much as I have to go to that destination and make it work for my group. That’s the thrill of travel for me.