About Me and My Journey to Becoming a Certified Travel Advisor!

I have to be honest, if you had asked me only three years ago, if I would be running my own travel business....full time, I would have said that you were crazy!

But here we are and here's how I got here...

• I spent the last 30 years in corporate jobs, working for some of the most recognizable companies in the worlds of finance and the heavy equipment industry

• those roles involved corporate travel. When my girls were in preschool, I worked in Montreal two days a week but most recently I covered all of Canada, the US eastern and western seaboards and have been taking 30+ flights a year for the last 8 years (hello airline status!)

• my most recent corporate roles also involved working on corporate growth and profitability strategies, improving their customer experience as well as sales and marketing competencies. I can confirm that it is indeed easier to teach than to do (lol) but it sure gave me a great foundation

• my personal travel started at the age of 5, when I took my first transatlantic flight as we relocated from England to Canada. Then we went though a period of mainly Caribbean all-inclusive vacations

• our travels now are more international, more adventurous and more customized......so many bucket list places have been seen and so many to go

• As our travels became bigger and more complicated, I started thinking that perhaps becoming a Travel Advisor might be "fun" when I retire. It was a momentary thought and before I knew it, I had looked into what that involved, obtained my TICO certification and was interviewing host agencies! A few months later, I had started my own business and was working it in the evenings and on weekends, booking trips for mainly family and close friends.

• A year ago, my corporate team did some restructuring and I was handed the opportunity to do this full time! To be honest, the more that I learned in this industry and the more that I started helping people put together fabulous trips, the more it called to me. I saw the opportunities that it could bring, not only for more travel (lol!!) but more importantly, to help others create the kind of travel memories that my family has been blessed to have. I jumped at the opportunity and have never looked back! It's been almost a year of working this business full time and it's been a dream.

• Earlier this year, a colleague and friend who operated her own travel business in Kelowna, BC, reached out to me to tell me that she had made the difficult decision to retire. We had spent a week together travelling in Jordan in May 2023 and had really gotten to know each other, but I was both surprised and deeply touched by her next question - she asked me if I would take over her business, taking care of clients who had trips booked but hadn't traveled yet and her clients without active trips, who would need someone to support them when it came time for their next trip. I already had a few clients in Western Canada and the Western US, so this made perfect sense and just over a month ago, I took over her business.

So, it's been quite the journey but I feel strongly that things were meant to be and my past travels, contacts and business knowledge had all come together to prepare me for this new chapter in my life.  I am so grateful and I see the transition from my corporate role to having my own business as being exactly what was supposed to happen, when it was supposed to happen.