Would-be entrepreneur takes the test with touring tapes.

• Author: Hill, Robin Mackey
• Position: Emily Davies and Shelli Vacca created Blue Highways: Audio Tour Productions, a company which sells audiotapes which narrate Alaskan sights

Would-Be Entrepreneur Takes The Test With Touring Tapes

Emily Davies was determined not to let another business idea die for lack of effort. In the last 15 years, the former university researcher and family therapist figures she's come up with her share of marketable ideas, only to be thwarted by skeptical friends or like-minded competitors.

First it was books on tape, an idea friends dismissed. The tapes would be too long, they said. Nobody would listen to them in their entirety.

Next came small activity boards to occupy restless tiny-tot commuters. A string with a crayon at the end for drawing. An indentation for a bottle or cup of juice. Davies made prototypes and gave them to friends with children, only to learn that someone else already was marketing a similar, more affordable product.

Davies hopes her third business idea will be a charm: audio cassette tapes that point out sites of interest along Alaska's highways and byways. Through their company, Blue Highways: Audio Tour Productions, Davies and partner Shelli Vacca in April began marketing their first production, "Alaska Audio Tours: Turnagain Arm," which covers Anchorage to Portage Glacier.

Listeners pop the first tape of the two-tape set into the car's cassette player, set the cruise control at 55 miles per hour and head down the Seward Highway with their own tour guide. The package, complete with map, is available at visitor centers and retail outlets throughout the state at a suggested retail price of $19.95.

The first hour-long tape is site specific, pointing out where to look for beluga whales or where to stop for a hike. The second tape, which can be played on the return trip to Anchorage or later at home, includes 30 stories that Davies says describe "the animals and people, places and events that give Turnagain Arm its unique character."

Recalls Davies, "The hardest thing for me was to figure out what to include and what not to include." Particularly challenging was the start of the trip, with so many interesting places: McHugh Creek, Beluga Point, Indian, Bird.

A 39-year-old mother of two pre-schoolers, Davies first came up with the idea of audio touring tapes 10 years ago, while working as a teaching assistant at the University of Washington. Much of her time was spent on field trips, listening to ecology students point out the natural wonders of the Pacific Northwest.

The students would identify glacier moraines, explain why certain trees grew in certain places, or...