Speaking Engagements
Author · Speaker · Host of the Good Grief Travel podcast
Get out the door.
Derrik Dyka speaks on travel, reinvention, and connection — and the surprising things that happen when you stop standing still.
Not a grief talk. A travel talk that happens to know something about loss — warm, honest, and unexpectedly funny.
Travel memoir
Weekly podcast
65 countries
IATA-credentialed
Founder, Hockey Finder
Who's speaking
Derrik Dyka
Derrik spent 24 years building a life with his wife Sunn — raising twin boys, growing Hockey Finder into one of the largest adult recreational hockey leagues in the country, and learning, slowly, that the best things come from showing up. When Sunn passed away in 2023, he did the only thing that made sense. He got on a plane.
What followed became Good Grief Travel — a memoir, then a weekly podcast, about movement, reinvention, and the unexpected things that happen when you stop standing still. He first spoke about it the day he stood up at Sunn's celebration of life and somehow made a room full of mourners laugh. He's been doing it ever since.
He's now based in Bangkok, travels through the year to the U.S. and beyond to see family, and has been to 65 countries. He still doesn't have a plan. It's working out.
"The best things come from showing up — and most of them start with getting out the door."
What Derrik speaks about
Six signature talks
Each stands alone as a keynote, or runs as a themed series across a voyage or a conference — adaptable to the room, the length, and the audience.
Get Out the Door
The core keynote. Why the smallest step is the whole game — how showing up, again and again, quietly builds the life you meant to have.
Best for: general and opening keynotes.
Don't Wait for Someday
"Someday" is where good lives go to wait. On refusing to defer the trip, the change, the chapter — and what it costs to keep postponing the one life you actually get.
Best for: reinvention, midlife, lifestyle audiences.
The Accidental Solo Traveler
Going alone wasn't the plan — it became the point. What solo travel across 65 countries teaches you about self-reliance, attention, and the strange freedom of nobody knowing your name.
Best for: travel and personal-growth programs.
Strangers Who Became Family
The most durable thing travel gives you isn't the places — it's the people. How real connection actually happens on the road, and why most of us badly underestimate it.
Best for: connection, community, and leadership audiences.
Grief Isn't a Destination
Grief doesn't stay home while you travel — it comes along. What Derrik learned carrying loss through airports and unfamiliar cities: that moving forward isn't leaving someone behind. Tender, never bleak, often unexpectedly funny.
Best for: anyone carrying a loss — offered as a quieter, optional session.
The Second Half
What do you do with the years you've got left? After fifty, and after loss, Derrik rebuilt with less pressure and more intention. Part memoir, part practical playbook — points, miles, expat life, the one-way flight.
Best for: retirees and near-retirees planning what's next.
Who books Derrik
Two rooms, one story
Conferences, companies & associations
Resilience · reinvention · community
- A keynote that isn't cannedA real story does the work — built a company, lost his wife, rebuilt a life abroad — instead of a lesson in search of one.
- He's actually built communityHockey Finder went from a parking lot to 6,500 players. He knows how connection scales, not just that it matters.
- Low-maintenance and preparedThe six talks adapt to your theme, your room, and your run of show. Shows up ready.
Cruise & enrichment programs
Guest lecturer · themed series · Asia departures
- Travels light, no handlingSolo, no entourage, no rider. An economy seat and a standard cabin are fine.
- Brings his own audienceA book, a weekly podcast, and an engaged following — he helps fill the room, and the sailing.
- A series, not a single slotThe six talks run as an arc across sea days, with book signings and open Q&A.
- Strong on Asia departuresBased in Bangkok — easy and inexpensive to place out of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Bangkok.
Availability: based in Bangkok, and in the U.S. and elsewhere through the year to see family — so Asia dates are the easy ones, and U.S. and other dates are very doable.
How booking works
No runaround.
Tell me the date, the audience, and the setting, and you'll have a straight answer on fee and fit within a day.
Conferences & corporate
From $5,000, plus travel. Keynote or workshop.
Cruise & enrichment
Complimentary passage plus a modest honorarium — or a hosted sailing where Derrik helps bring the passengers. A single sea-day talk or a themed series.
Nonprofit, community & grief organizations
Reduced mission rate — ask.
45–60 min keynote
Breakout / workshop
Cruise enrichment series
Fireside & Q&A
Onboard book signing
See him work
Watch him in conversation
An hour of real, unscripted talk
A dedicated speaking reel is in the works. In the meantime, every week of the Good Grief Travel podcast is the closest thing to seeing Derrik live — full, on-camera conversations, no script, on YouTube.
Booking
Check a date.
Tell me the sailing, the stage, or the room — and the date you're holding.
