Happy September! With it come more announcements than one should ever be permitted to make at once, and yet sometimes that’s exactly what happens when you’ve got so many good pots that come to a boil at the same time. So let’s hop to it:

• Introducing Siren: Starting Monday Sept 7, Wanderful will be launching a brand new publication called Siren on Substack! This pub shares weekly dispatches from a world shaped by women: reportage on women-led initiatives, thoughtful reflections on women’s experiences around the globe, and more. You’re going to love it! Make sure you subscribe here: .

• Hello to She Was Here: As of Sept 1, my friend Nikki and I have relaunched our women’s history walking tour company to a new brand called She Was Here! This brand includes women’s history walking tours in New York (and more cities coming soon!), plus an amazing Substack that Nikki publishes regularly, private feminist events and gatherings, and more. If you happen to be in NYC, we’re hosting a launch party at Blazer’s, a women’s sports bar in Greenpoint, on September 17th.

• WITS Call for Speakers & Bessie Award Nominations Open: Sept 1 also means the launch of our open call for speakers and Bessie Award nominations for WITS! If you’d like to speak at WITS Ann Arbor, our annual travel creator event, apply here. And if you know someone who’s made an incredible accomplishment in the past year, nominate them for a Bessie Award!

As you can see, you can expect a pretty busy month over here. The kids go back to school on September 10 (I know, so late), and with it — freedom! (just kidding, I love my kids. But also, freedom!). Things over at Wanderful are picking up pace.

But before we do that, let’s slow down again.

Hope you like today’s read.

Warmly,

Beth

What is a border to a horseshoe crab?

The travel industry as we know it gives us access. Or does it limit us?

This morning I am sitting at a patio table covered by an exquisite pergola. It’s chilly this morning, one of those summers that remind you that fall is around the corner. The garden around me is in full bloom: perfectly manicured beach grass, fragrant pink roses, and other shrubs I can’t name surround the perimeter. On the left, my ear captures the hum of an infrequent passing car. And on the right, the perfect, unending soundtrack of ocean waves just beyond the tree line.

We’re staying at a beach house on the north shore of Long Island; far enough east that we’re surrounded by ocean and marshland, but close enough that I wonder if there are people who live here and commute into New York City everyday. If you huff it, you can get there in an hour and a half. Of course, that’s early on a Saturday morning. I wouldn’t be surprised if a weekday commute were twice as long, or more. But for the balance of immersive city life and a sanctuary of quiet, perhaps it’s worth it.

Just off the backyard there is a stone path to the ocean front. It takes exactly 60 seconds to walk there; which is basically the distance of the house behind us’ front yard. Everyday, we take the kids down the stone path and walk to the beach. Maybe once on every beach walk we’ll encounter the shell of a horseshoe crab, perfect shells that look like the crab (which, sorry, is actually more related to a spider) just walked off one day without it.

Living Fossils

“Did you know that horseshoe crabs are as old as the dinosaurs?” my mom marveled on one of our beach walks. Turns out they’re even older than that, predating the dinosaurs by 200 million years. And they pretty much haven’t changed since then. When you look at a horseshoe crab, you’re basically looking at a living fossil. I think about something created so perfect that it hasn’t evolved at all in that incomprehensible amount of time. Something that has coexisted with the earth so seamlessly that it survived millions of years of great-grandchildren.

On our walk back, we pass a few “private — no trespassing” signs. It turns out, the owner of our house and the owner of the house behind her are locked in a legal dispute. The other owner says the beach land in front of him is private (ie, private belonging to him); our owner says she has a landscaped path to the ocean and deeded access to it. She tells us, with a glint in her eye, that we are welcome to use it.

Private coastline is a big issue here in the United States. The Atlantic wrote about it in 2023. In the state of New York, coastline up to the high tide point is considered public property; but if you have to pass through someone’s privately owned backyard to get there, how do you access it? At one point during our beach vacation, my mother-in-law, a cancer survivor with knee problems, took a breather on an oceanside bench. The owner came out to remind her that the bench was private. She never visited the beach with us after that.

When you’re standing at the foot of a massive ocean, the world feels so much bigger than you. And the rules of private property feel comparatively petty. In fact, calling “dibs” in general on land — land that was here for hundreds of millions of years, when we ourselves are alive for perhaps 100 of them — feels both wildly unnecessary and humorously human. I imagine myself as the horseshoe crab, watching these irrational humans try to claim the earth I’m living on, like something they can put into their pocket. And then, in the blink of a horseshoe crab’s eye, the humans are gone.

Everyman's Right

Did you know that Sweden declared their entire country publicly accessible? “In Sweden, you can walk, ride, cycle, ski and camp on any land you like, without the landowner’s permission,” writes Charlotte Beale in this article published by the World Economic Forum. “You can also forage, picking flowers, berries and mushrooms (excluding protected species and those in conservation areas). And you can drive on private land, unless there is a sign that says otherwise.”

In Sweden, this is law, locked in by Parliament in 1974 but existing as a cultural ethos for centuries before that under the concept of Allemansrätt - ‘everyman’s right’. While you can still own private property, you have to allow people to access it (with some restrictions of course, like if it’s a cultivated garden).

I like to remind myself that travel and the travel industry are two related, but separate, things. Travel is, essentially, the way we experience our world. You don’t need anything to travel except your body, your mind, and a space to occupy.

The travel industry, however, is human-created. It is a human-built economy centered around facilitating travel. Ironically, it has also limited travel.

Having hotels and airlines and highways and TSA Precheck have expanded our access and made travel more possible. They’ve unlocked new ways of traversing our world, and made things more accessible to us. But they’ve also curated our world, too, choosing for us what to put on our plate like a school cafeteria lunch program. We have commercialized the very place we live in. We pay for access to a place that the earth itself does not necessarily charge us for.

The travel industry partially exists because it facilitates travel in a human-created world of borders and institutions. It helps us navigate the limitations of borders and private property. Our passports give us access to the world, but they also limit us, indicating which places we aren’t allowed access to. We’ve created barriers that exist only socially, and then commercialized our access.

Borders have created institutions and systems that we subscribe to (willingly or not). They have both saved and destroyed families. They have reinforced culture, which is beautiful, and they have created division, which is tragic. A quiet beach on the north shore of Long Island, where the “haves” and the “have nots” are separated by a literal line in the sand (ie, the wavering high tide line of the Atlantic ocean, redrawn twice a day) is a perfect example of that.

Perhaps this is more relevant than ever, as America becomes more polarized everyday, not just within its own borders but along the ones that we share with our neighbors.

What would America look like with allemansrätt?

What would America look like with allemansrätt? Certainly, this lasting debate over a few dozen meters of beach pathway would be fully defunct. Anyone would be able to walk it at any time.

Perhaps we as a country could never get there; I can already see my mother-in-law, a Haitian immigrant who’s lived in the US for longer than I’ve been alive and who is always appalled if I ever leave my door open on a breezy day, bristling at the suggestion, not out of property elitism but out of a fear of her safety.

I see others, shouldered with an egocentric individualism that has been served to us like baby food from birth, having trouble loosening their natural distrust.

But perhaps in that way, it could also help us be more united as a community and a country. Perhaps we would learn compromise and collaboration in favor of the many things it would bring us: freedom to camp, or walk, or “beach” anywhere.

Maybe, with access to traverse everywhere, we’d raise our children to be the earth’s generation of thoughtful caretakers, rather than conquerors and dividers.

Maybe we’d become better at working with others, not just across the street but over international borders and cultural gaps. Maybe people would one day say, “The United States is a perfect example of one country being made up of many different states that all work together for common peace and unity.” Maybe they’d say, “because they’ve learned to collaborate so well with each other, they’ve become an example for so many other countries of how to work together and find common ground.”

Maybe we’d realize the land isn’t ours to claim, but ours to borrow. Maybe we’d see our role less as dominators and more as caregivers.

I think the horseshoe crabs would approve of it. They’d say, “duh — that was what the world was like for the first 494,995,000 years. We know because we were there.” Perhaps in that way, the concept isn’t so radical after all.

This morning I’m dropping another episode of the 85 Percent Podcast, where we’re telling stories of people rebuilding our travel industry for women worldwide. But before we get started, some fun updates as we approach the end of August:

• You may have seen our big announcement on our Travel Creator Gigs Substack about a new direction that Wanderful is taking in our written content. We had an absolutely incredible response, with hundreds of pitches (I mean, it was…outstanding). It made us rethink our whole entire strategy — and with it, the launch of a brand new Substack coming very soon! I know you’re going to love it, and we’re just days away from launch. Sign up below to get the earliest access before we launch:

  Siren by Wanderful

  Dispatches from a world shaped by women, brought to you by leading women's travel community Wanderful.

  By Beth Santos

Also, huge thank you to for the shout-out the other day. Love that I’ve made it onto your Sunday morning coffee reading list.

• And finally, last chance on Wanderful’s Global Meetup to Albuquerque this Oct 8-11! Signups end by Sept 1. We’re hitting up the famous Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta together, and supporting woman-owned businesses as we go, like the indigenous/woman-owned Bow + Arrow Brewing Co and the Black woman-owned Hotel Zazz. Plus, a number of us are headed to Santa Fe for an extended visit to experience their annual powwow on Santa Fe plaza for Indigenous People’s Day. Learn more about our Global Meetup here. You can also check out our special preview with the Visit Albuquerque team on YouTube below:

And now, onto the episode.

Episode 2: “The Sun Is Bright Enough” with Amanda Kessy and Asnath Kessy

Did you know that only 10% of safari companies worldwide are led by women, and just 15% are Black-owned?

When I first met Amanda Kessy and her sister Asnath, I couldn’t believe that statistic — and yet it’s true.

I met Amanda when she signed on to be an exhibitor at our annual creator summit, WITS. That in itself was surprising to me. We don’t usually get a lot of small businesses at WITS (since it’s a B2B summit, an exhibitor table will run you nearly $4K), and even fewer that have to navigate complex visa requirements and international travel. Yet here was Amanda, ready to invest. It was then that I knew she was doing things differently.

But I didn’t know how different until I started doing the research.

Travel Noire reported in 2024 that only 15% of safari companies were Black-owned, a topic picked up the next year by National Geographic. A much earlier 2019 article in Conde Nast painted an even grimmer landscape for Tanzanian women. It turns out, most safari companies are owned by white male expats. That fact in and of itself shocked me.

Amanda and Asnath are co-founders of Still Waters Safaris, a woman-owned, family-led luxury safari company based in Arusha. They started the business after seeing how successful safari companies had become, and wondering why they couldn’t be a part of that. Through their father, who had been in the safari industry his entire career, they learned the tricks of the trade and started their own business. Of course they did this while facing immense pushback and this heavily male-dominated industry. But we’ll let them tell that story.

Still Waters was the winner of our 2026 Travel Startup of the Year award at the Bessies, and well worth it. They’re redefining an industry that for too long hasn’t been locally controlled, and they’re rebuilding the rules so more women can get involved.

In this episode, we get into what makes their tours different, why investing in women transforms local economies, and what it will actually take to get more women into the safari industry from the ground up. It’s a conversation about family, resilience, and the belief that “the sun is big enough to shine on everybody” (I still absolutely love that she said that).

Connect with Still Waters Safaris

• Website: stillwaterssafaris.co.tz

• Instagram: @stillwatersafari

• Facebook: facebook.com/stillwaterssafaris

• LinkedIn: Still Waters Safaris

Chapter Index

• 00:06 — Intro: Beth introduces Amanda & Asnath Kessy and the Bessie Award win

• 01:29 — Interview begins, congratulating the sisters on Travel Startup of the Year

• 02:12 — The story of finding out they’d won — a 3am phone call and a household of screaming

• 06:36 — The Still Waters Safaris origin story

• 07:02 — The stats: 10% of safari companies are women-led, 90% are run by men, 15% are Black-owned

• 08:00 — Growing up watching their father run tours in a male-dominated industry

• 09:07 — Three sisters, one family name, and the idea for Still Waters

• 10:52 — Amanda’s leap of faith — leaving banking to build the business full-time

• 12:46 — Facing “you can’t do this” — early pushback as women in the industry

• 13:32 — Their dad’s reaction: “you’ve got my back”

• 15:34 — Mom’s tough-love philosophy on believing in yourself

• 16:58 — Having an industry-insider dad as their “cheat code”

• 18:00 — The pricing challenges of being new — and getting taken advantage of

• 19:23 — What sets Still Waters apart: fully customized, client-first itineraries

• 21:14 — Cultural immersion and the clean water projects woven into every trip

• 22:34 — Why investing in women transforms local economies

• 24:00 — What it will take to get more women into the safari industry

• 28:03 — Their advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: “Just start”

• 28:28 — Wrap-up — Wanderful’s upcoming group trips to Tanzania

  ---

Don’t Forget to Catch Episode 1 with Anela Malik

Season 3 kicked off with author, entrepreneur, and now TV host Anela Malik with a conversation about what it actually takes to turn a creator career into an entrepreneurial one, the financial instability of the early years, why she crowdfunded Our Block instead of waiting on a brand to say yes, the pay gap she’s experienced as a Black woman creator in an industry where women dominate the space but men still capture most of the revenue, and, of course, what the travel industry keeps getting wrong when it treats creators like marketing instead of business partners. Watch that here.

What to Expect From Season 3 of 85 Percent

You’re going to see a bit of a different spin on Season 3. It’s much less polished (Season 2 was the absolute most polished. It was so beautiful. It was also, to be honest, expensive and time-consuming).

It’s also on video, which is pretty fun.

You can subscribe via your platform of choice: Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or now YouTube.

In it, we’re meeting our 2026 Bessie Award winners; people who received our community’s greatest honor in making the travel industry better for women worldwide. We’ll be releasing episodes every ~2 weeks, so keep your eyes peeled here, subscribe in one of your chosen channels above (or all of them) or you can also click here to join the 85 Percent email list so you know when new episodes are out.

Hope you enjoy Season 3. More really great stories to come.

Until then, be well and keep adventuring.

Beth

I hope you’re ready for another reflective read this morning. It’s been so fun writing these (which, if you didn’t know, are usually written between the hours of 6 and 7am, before my husband and kids wake up). Perhaps you read these during your morning too. In which case, let’s do mornings together, shall we?

A few updates before we dive in:

• I’ve been overwhelmed (in a good way) by the response to Wanderful’s recent call for pitches. It’s like we care about human writing again. Thank you to everyone who has read, shared, and even submitted something! If you have your own story to tell that would fit an audience of thoughtful women travelers, I’d love for you to pitch something.

• Don’t forget that we’re closing registrations for our Global Meetup to Albuquerque on September 1! We’re headed to the International Balloon Fiesta on October 8-11, staying at the woman-owned Hotel Zazz, and organizing all sorts of fun activities celebrating women while we’re there. Join us!

Ok, now onto the story!

It’s a Weed, Or You Can Choose It

Our gardens teach us a lot more about travel than we realize

Have you ever come home from a trip and wondered why time didn’t stop while you were gone?

From a logical standpoint, we all get it. The world keeps moving when we are away. And yet there have been a handful of times even over the past few days when I have caught myself thinking, “how is it already August? I haven’t even done anything summery yet!”

“Summery” of course for me is a mental checklist of 40 years’ worth of summers that in my mind all fit into a single summer every year: visits to the Cape, berry picking and the best smoothies you’ll ever have at Ward’s Berry Farm, catching the fireworks over the Esplanade, lobster rolls and humid nights dancing at City Hall Plaza, picnics and walks to the zoo and lazy days when it’s so hot that the only thing you can do is lay on the couch and periodically peel your leg off the faux leather upholstery.

It’s true, I haven’t done most of those things yet. Then I remind myself of what has taken its place: a trip to Italy and Croatia and Montenegro and Greece, followed by a week of camping. I mean, it’s not like I have absolutely anything to complain about. But that desire to be both home and on the road at once is real (I wrote about it a few weeks back if you remember).

The delta between these two experiences, of course, is the art of coming home. And the real way to know that you’ve been away, and that time has shifted while you were gone, is to have a garden.

When we first bought our house, a small purple house in Boston built in the 19th century and surrounded by raspberry bushes, I thought I had found the most perfect little mix of urban and nature. What I didn’t know (because before moving in I hadn’t bothered walking the full length of our street) is that three houses down at the foot of our dead-end there is a community garden.

I didn’t think I was a gardener at that point, but that quickly changed. The community garden is a rectangle of mowed grass for picnicking and play, surrounded by a perimeter of vegetable garden plots. It’s managed by a non-profit called The Trustees that purchases land to protect it from development. For $20 a year I have my own plot and am provided with fresh compost, free seeds, and the in-house counsel of a handful of gardening experts (read: the mature women that live on my block).

Now few things matter more to me than the tiny 6’x6’ plot that is my vegetable garden. She is my view of the world. She slows me down when life feels too hectic. She reminds me, when the entire packet of lettuce seeds only produces one plant, or when the cucumber finally grows with so much vigor you’d think it was making up for all the years its ancestors failed me, that I am not, at all, in control. That the universe is so much bigger than I am. And that I now join a history of shared experiences with my own ancestors: joy at that first green bean, despair when the rabbits eat my kale. Feelings that are rooted in thousands of years of humanity.

When I return from a trip, I discover that my garden has flourished (or died, depending on if I’ve convinced a neighbor to help water it — this year I have) without me. The tomato plants, which were small when I left, are now spilling onto the ground, forcing me to run for tomato cages in the back shed. The squash is covered in giant yellow flowers, sending out shoots as it grasps for something — anything — to climb onto. And then, there is a giant white flower standing at least four feet tall that at first I thought was a particularly three-dimensional bloom of Queen Anne’s Lace, only to discover that actually, it’s the flower of an old and mature carrot. Yup, even carrots make flowers. Who knew?

I wasn’t always a gardening expert (nor am I now) but Google’s AI features have certainly (and paradoxically, considering what AI does to our environment) made it easier to become one. If there’s something I don’t recognize, I’ve learned to take a picture of it and do an image search before pulling it up. There have been many times when something that looked important (is this finally going to be eggplant?) was actually a weed. And, more dishearteningly, something that I ripped up in a frenzy was actually something I’d planted.

Though my favorite way to discover what’s important is to ask my elders. One quiet morning, I find my neighbor, Nancy, weeding one of the communal gardening areas. I beckon her over and point to a particularly scrubby patch of something I don’t know. “Is this a weed?” I ask her.

She stops for a moment, her silver hair catching the light of the rising sun. “Well, it’s a weed if you don’t want it there,” she says, cryptically. “But it’s not one if you do want it.”

She follows this surprisingly poetic prose with a little explanation: “It’s bee balm,” she continues. “Pollinators love it, and it makes pretty flowers. But it spreads fast, so if you don’t want it there, then you can pull it out.”

I’ve discovered that so much of a garden is actually this. Is mint a weed? It spreads quickly, and has a tendency to take over. But it also makes for the most wonderful smells, and keeps the mosquitoes away, and is of course essential for mojitos, so I guess it’s not. My favorite “weed” becomes Queen Anne’s Lace. I can think of no better plant name. Her broad, lacy white flowers dominate the garden, and when you try to pull her up, she releases thousands of tiny seeds, promising to return in vengeance. I let her grow wildly, then pull handfuls of bouquets up by the root, and cut them for a vase in my kitchen. My kitchen table is covered with seeds. I don’t care because it’s pretty. In this tiny part of the world, I let nature run wild.

I saw a meme once that our small gardens produce vegetables that are wildly more expensive than the ones we buy at the supermarket. When it comes down to it, we give them so much time and energy, invest money in soil and tools and seeds, tend to it with hours of our life. That cucumber cost $1 at the grocery store but $40 in time and investment in our garden. It’s a joke that’s extra funny because it’s true. I’ll spend hours in my garden, and get three squash at the end of the season. I guess I’m not starting a regenerative farm anytime soon with my 36 square feet of farmland.

But perhaps gardens give us more than we realize. They are instant classrooms, providing me with all sorts of lessons to teach my children (even they have come to notice the distinct taste difference between a garden and a grocery store tomato, and that singular discovery has led to many unexpected conversations about biology, supply chain, population, urban farming, and a host of other subjects you wouldn’t think could come from a tomato).

They are quiet spaces of reflection, forcing me to slow down and notice the tiny, unstoppable changes in our world that are completely unbothered by the question of if I have back-to-back meetings that day or not.

They are the anti-supermarkets, telling us what to eat (this is ripe, if you don’t eat it now it will go bad and you can’t have it anymore) rather than giving us an overabundance of variety and letting us think we have choices.

They give us our history, reminding us that progress can be beautiful (the result of learning, and growth, and empathy), but progress can also be destructive (the grow-at-all-costs mentality of human design without consideration for the long term implications for future generations, our animal neighbors, and the very earth we live on). That sometimes when we choose the faster and easier solution, we also lose the hard-won lessons that come with taking the slow and more arduous path.

This is the same complaint that some of the travel industry’s most devoted advocates have been sharing lately. In it, a low-grade sense of alarm about the over-commercialization of travel, manifested in the many available gadgets and connections that strip travel of its essence. So many of us celebrate travel as a way to experience a type of discomfort that makes us better people, as a way to immerse ourselves in and engage with parts of the world that are unknown to us.

But when you use Google Maps for all your directions, Uber so you never have to negotiate a cab ride, and have your groceries delivered to you via Amazon even when in a new place, one might argue: have you traveled at all?

Perhaps in making travel “easy”, we lose its heart. The opportunity to, rather than changing travel, let travel change us.

I have heard more moderate perspectives agree with the theory of this, while struggling with its implications. They say, “we shouldn’t walk around with phones in our hands, but after a long day of travel, having an easy way to get to your hotel makes a huge difference.” I’m not inclined to disagree with that, but both things can be true. At the end of the day, it’s a trade-off. In this particular negotiation, you’ve protected your time and energy for a little convenience. But it is also true that you’ve sacrificed an immersive travel experience that could have taught you a valuable lesson. It’s okay to make space for both realizations.

To me, this is why it’s even more important that we talk about the nuance; that we allow for the conversations. If we can live presently in this decision, perhaps it can influence us better. The technology and the tools will not be leaving us anytime soon. We are not, as far as I know, retreating into an anti-tech utopia (though I do dream about that, frequently, and most especially when I am in my garden).

But it is also up to us to rewrite our social contract and to allow for the acceptance or rejection of technology in moments that are right for us.

We must give ourselves, and each other, grace to choose the analog, even and most especially when it’s harder. To allow ourselves moments of stillness, of reliance on each other (rather than our devices), and the opportunity to grow as people rather than forcing the rest of the world to grow around us. We are not, nor will we ever be, stagnant beings. Our ability to adapt, to learn, and to hold many competing truths in one thought is, in fact, our very superpower. It is okay to honor that.

Maybe this has been my garden’s greatest lesson. To experience the world moving around, and through me, and not to see myself as the guardian of it, but the collaborator within it. My tomatoes may grow without me; but they are particularly abundant when I care for them, giving them cages to climb on and spread out among. I cannot tell it precisely what to do, or force it to fit into a perfect vision in my mind. I will return to it and it will have run wild in the other direction.

Perhaps we should give travel, or should I say, the way we experience our world, the same freedom to exist wildly. We understand that there are some things we can do to try to tame her, but constraining her too much with our gadgets, and our expectations, kills her spirit. Some lessons must be learned slowly for them to have the best effect. We must choose travel wisely if we want her to grow in abundance, consuming and cultivating her carefully so that the world has plenty to offer the next generation. And we should know that whether or not we travel it, the world has its own existence without us. We must be satisfied with never dominating her. Otherwise, her wonder may be lost.

Season 2 wrapped up in October 2024. I’m starting to really have trouble with dates here, because I could have sworn that October 2024 was just last week, and yet my children (the true barometer of time) keep growing.

Besides the bonus episode we dropped last month, it’s been over a year since an 85 Percent season came out. And yet despite a few remarkable outliers (Christine Winebrenner’s Soul of Travel podcast is one of them; Conde Nast’s Women Who Travel podcast is another — though they also haven’t released an episode in what is now nearly a year), there are not a lot of places that are telling the stories of women changing the travel landscape.

That wasn’t why I decided to strike up a round of episodes again, but it certainly played into it. To be honest, the actual reason was much more personal. I simply missed it.

I missed, in many ways, the art of creating the long-form. It’s part of the reason this Substack was born, and why Wanderful is moving back into telling deeply researched stories on our blog.

And there are so many good stories to tell. Women building a better travel industry. Women reframing the way we see our world. Women who are telling history differently. These perspectives deserve the spotlight.

So…here’s Season 3.

What to Expect From Season 3 of 85 Percent

You’re going to see a bit of a different spin on Season 3. It’s much less polished (Season 2 was the absolute most polished. It was so beautiful. It was also, to be honest, expensive and time-consuming).

It’s also on video, which is pretty fun.

You can subscribe via your platform of choice: Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or now YouTube.

In it, we’re meeting our 2026 Bessie Award winners; people who received our community’s greatest honor in making the travel industry better for women worldwide. We’ll be releasing episodes every ~2 weeks, so keep your eyes peeled here, subscribe in one of your chosen channels above (or all of them) or you can also click here to join the 85 Percent email list so you know when new episodes are out.

Episode 1: “My Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams” with Anela Malik

First to hit Season 3 is Anela Malik, our Creator of the Year. Anela traded a career as a U.S. diplomat for a blog, and in the years since she’s built something much bigger than a platform: a newsletter and member community called , sold-out boutique trips through the Middle East and North Africa, a National Geographic book, and now Our Block, a crowdfunded docuseries celebrating Black-owned businesses across the country, which was officially released just a couple of days ago!

In this episode, “My Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams,” we talk about a number of things like what it actually takes to turn a creator career into an entrepreneurial one, the financial instability of the early years, why she crowdfunded Our Block instead of waiting on a brand to say yes, the pay gap she’s experienced as a Black woman creator in an industry where women dominate the space but men still capture most of the revenue, and, of course, what the travel industry keeps getting wrong when it treats creators like marketing instead of business partners.

It’s a great conversation, so make sure you give it a listen above. I’m particularly proud of my choice of sound effects in the first part of the interview.

Wait, there’s more! (I always wanted to do that)

One more thing: I’m giving away a copy of Anela’s book, American Soul: The Black History of Food in the United States (←affiliate link), to one lucky subscriber to the 85 Percent podcast email list!

«Click here to sign up and be entered to win.»

Hope you enjoy Season 3. More really great stories to come.

While I have you…

A few bits of news on the Wanderful front!

• We have one last-minute spot that opened on our immersive Wanderful Oaxaca trip during Dia de los Muertos! This woman-forward trip has been specially curated by our Chief Travel Planner, Pam Garcia, who is Mexican, in partnership with a woman-run tour operator on the ground in Oaxaca. You won’t find a more thoughtfully curated Dia de Muertos experience. Check out the itinerary and send an email to pam@sheswanderful.com if you’re interested in learning more.
  

• If you’re planning to come on our Global Meetup to Albuquerque with us this Oct 8-11, signups end by Sept 1 so don’t miss it! Learn more about our Global Meetup here. Wanderful members, we’re doing a special preview with the Visit Albuquerque team this afternoon (Thurs Aug 13!) at 1pm ET. It should be very fun, and they’re gifting us media passes for all of our creators attending the global meetup!
  

Our next 85 Percent episode will be with Amanda and Asnath Kessy, sisters and founders of Still Waters Safaris and winners of our 2026 Travel Startup of the Year. Can’t wait for you to see it!

Until then, be well and keep adventuring.

Beth

“Blueberry island!”

My children sing with delight as we approach a small island by kayak. Five-year-old Zoey is in the front seat, I’m in the back, and two-year-old Beau is sitting happily in a middle section that seems to be created precisely for him. Nora, now nine, paddles her own kayak, getting ahead and falling behind at various intervals.

It’s the most perfect day, except not at all. Two hours ago it was thunderstorming. We were sitting inside a screen tent, wrapped in towels and already-damp rain jackets from on again, off again rains over the past few days, counting between thunder rumbles and waiting for the weather to pass. It came, rained torrentially for 15 minutes, and then disappeared as if it were all a joke. The sun began to peek out and we ran to the waterfront looking for rainbows. We thought maybe on Grammy’s birthday she would send one to us from heaven. If she did though, we didn’t see it.

The sky cleared and suddenly it was bright and blue, which of course sent us straight to the water. We clambered into our kayaks and set off on an adventure. Which brings us here.

As we approach the island, the children’s shouts are validated. Wild blueberry bushes line the perimeter, beckoning us toward shore. We sidle alongside them, close enough to grab bunches of berries and stuff them into our mouths, and far enough away to not get caught under the extensive overgrowth. The berries taste sweet and warmed by the sun.

This, I think to myself, as I watch my children fill their bellies with blueberries, is heaven on earth.

My family, if you don’t know us, is a reasonably outdoorsy bunch. I say reasonably outdoorsy because a truly outdoorsy person would probably not call us outdoorsy at all.

I’ve never climbed a rock face with a baby strapped to me, as one of my friends told me about his own parents (yes, like they would literally sleep with the baby, my friend, on a rock ledge on multi-day climbing expeditions).

I’ve never taken my kids to Patagonia or Kilimanjaro or Alaska.

We go camping about twice a year. And we have loads of equipment (as people who go camping, even if just a couple of times a year, do) that we’re constantly lending out to others. When you open our camping bin (a giant Sterilite filled with everything from headlamps to extra trash bags to my precious coffee pot) it smells like the perfect combination of citronella and sunscreen and forest, no matter how much we wash it all.

I grew up backpacking, and mostly hated it. We would climb complicated peaks like Katahdin and eat dehydrated lasagna and oatmeal packets with my dad and uncle Mike. I definitely wouldn’t have called myself outdoorsy then. When my dad met my stepmom, we were introduced to what I like to call “DIY glamping,” a slippery slope that slowly cultivated my love of the outdoors through my most vulnerable asset, my stomach. We’d go on multi-day kayak trips where we’d fit everything into dry bags and make camp wherever we could find a spot. And yet each night Astrid would prepare literal feasts: homemade pesto, perfectly marinated steak cooked over an open fire, and crisp green salads. It was hard not to love the outdoors after that.

When our generation of kids started to have our own children, those multi-day kayak trips turned into a week-long summer residency on Pawtuckaway Lake, a 784-acre reservoir in New Hampshire with a sandy beach, extensive camping and endless perfect spots to take boats and paddleboards out to the lake’s many small islands. There’s even a fully furnished camp store that sells ice cream bars. We’d bring our cars, pitch our tents (and not take them down the next day!) and paddle our kayaks out on the lake for lunch. When my husband joined the family, we added air mattresses with foam toppers and solar fairy lights to hang in the tent at night. Sometimes, the best nights of sleep I ever get are when we are at Pawtuckaway, lulled to sleep by nature’s soundtrack and cool air drifting through the window mesh of our eight-person tent.

Our family camping trip, much like our annual river trip, always coincided with my stepmom Astrid’s birthday on July 22nd. Often it was the hottest week of the year, so spending that week on a shady lake or river was never a bad idea. She would prepare giant pitchers of homemade cocktails to accompany her heroic feasts, and on her birthday, instead of cooking, we’d buy lobsters from the grocery store 15 minutes away, steamed and ready to eat. My kids have memories of sucking on lobster legs while surrounded by forest, their juices dripping down their arms onto the earth below (luckily there are also no bears at Pawtuckaway, or none that we’ve seen anyway). The facilities were rustic at best. Yet every year we felt like kings.

When we return our kayaks back to our campsite, I look at my children. Their bodies are painted like little outdoor masterpieces: kissed by the sun, smeared with dirt. Pine needles hang from my son’s swim diaper. He strips it off and pees freely onto the soil. It’s been at least four days since anyone has uttered the word “YouTube”, and that makes me inordinately happy. Instead we are finding roasting sticks and building fairy houses and going on nature walks.

Working in the travel industry, I’m aware of the fact that travel and the outdoors are marketed as different industries. And in the way we’ve created them socially, they are. They both require wildly different gear. In one you eat at restaurants and probably visit shops; in the other you do neither of those things. Accommodations look different across a wide spectrum. At the outdoor expos we talk about tools and gadgets; at the travel expos we talk about destinations and flights.

And yet to me, the segmentation of these into industries irks me beyond belief. To me, they are needed sides of the same coin, different manifestations of the beautiful experience of encountering, and experiencing, our world. Separating them allows us to forget the important nuances. The “outdoors” are a much greener and more sustainable industry, which perhaps allows us to accept the “ungreenness” of travel and tourism. The tourism industry has a monopoly on culture and human connection, which deprives our outdoorsiest people of the symbiosis that can happen between thoughtful cultivators and our native land (a topic that is beautifully explained in Braiding Sweetgrass (←affiliate link) by Robin Wall Kimmerer — this concept of embracing humanity’s connection to our earth, rather than wholly shunning our negative impacts). Adventure travel is the closest we get to combining the two, and that itself is categorized as niche. Yet when I am camping with my kids, I feel more connected to our world than ever. We are living in the earth, being of the earth, nourishing ourselves with the harvest of the earth. Is there anything closer to travel than this fully immersive experience with our world’s geography?

It’s our third year now since Astrid got sick; our second camping outing since she passed away. Each year that goes by now, I marvel at her strategy, seen through the eyes of my own experience in motherhood. In her wisdom, she created a tradition of being one with the earth, together, as a family. A tradition that always falls on her birthday. Every year for as long as we will remember, we will gather here, at this same place, a blended family united together. My sister-in-law will prep the gallon of rum cocktails. I’ll make the pesto. We’ll toast a beautiful legacy left behind for us to handle with care. Meanwhile, our children will run wild, marveling at the little fish that tease their ankles, hearing the characteristic calls of the loons at night, taking flashlights over the bridge after sunset for the best stargazing. Perhaps the worldly perspective that we seek in travel is right here in front of us; galaxies of beauty dancing in a natural pool, a whole lesson in life sustained in the discovery of a wild blueberry. She was a smart woman, I think to myself often when reflecting on this tradition that my stepmom created for us.

The legacies we leave behind are sometimes material, sometimes mental. Perhaps the people who have touched our lives have given us new perspectives, deeper relationships, or a killer crab dip recipe. But I sit and wonder if perhaps one of the very greatest legacies we can leave our children is the love of a place. Not just a pristine earth herself, but a deep love for her beauty and care, safely tucked away in the hearts of those who are living, and cultivated through years of wild wonder. Perhaps the very future of our earth depends on nurturing this love in our children, helping them care for and defend her bounties. And doing it in wholesome community with others. A travel that doesn’t divide our geology and our humanity, but inspires awe in them both.

Futher reading:

If you liked this read, you’ll love:

• The book Braiding Sweetgrass (←affiliate link) by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a gentle reflection on the intersection of humanity and our land, which feels like a balm for some of us who may be feeling a bit apocalyptic about our earth right now

• My recent musings on overtourism and Venice, published a couple of weeks ago on Substack

• What other reading would you recommend? Comment below and share favorite articles, posts, books, even videos to continue the conversation:
  

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A few things worth knowing before you go…

• Huge thank you to Bloom Magazine, a lifestyle magazine for women entrepreneurs, for the 2026 Icon Award in the Community & Education category! I first heard about this opportunity in ’s newsletter (who is a fellow Icon Award recipient). I’ll also be featured in their Fall/Winter 2026 print issue in case you want a copy for your Beth altar (that means you, Mom!)

• In case you missed it, Wanderful is teaming up with Pinterest to launch a free 2-day bootcamp starting Friday, July 31st and ending on Friday, August 7 (just two sessions over two weeks). It’s going to be absolutely incredible, with never-before-seen insights on Pinterest data in the travel segment. We have over 300 people registered, so make sure you sign up and join us. Did I mention it’s free?

• And of course, if you know someone who might enjoy these reads as much as you are, go ahead and give this publication a share:
  

  Share En Route

Thanks for reading along and letting these stories enter your heart.

Warmly,

Beth

A man’s sweaty hand grips mine. I can feel the heat pulsating out of his garments — a long-sleeved, thick white shirt paired with a black vest. A wool cap adorns his head. It’s at least 85 degrees here in Corfu, Greece and the sun is at that point in the sky when it’s giving out one final, bright, golden glow before settling down for the evening. It’s a light that you feel radiating on your skin, hot and focused.

The man’s face is beaded with perspiration, and I can’t help but feel empathy for him. He’d probably be more comfortable in weather that’s 20 or even 30 degrees cooler. But my attention doesn’t stay there long, because before I know it, I’m sweeping through a line of dancers, trailing the person to my right in a long snake. The snake suddenly morphs into a series of human arches, hands reaching high into the air while another line of people parades through.

The man grips my hand again and we move into a circle. He teaches us to step our feet in sync with the music, which is coming from a live band playing traditional Greek tunes. Then we step aside and watch as he and another man do more exciting dances. He dances on top of a water glass. He puts the same water glass on a woman’s head, and kicks his feet over her. The crowd cheers in fear and delight. When a glass accidentally smashes, someone yells “opa!” and they continue to dance energetically around the shards. Only after a few minutes does a staff member attempt to sweep it up with a broom, working swiftly around the dancers who dance so fervently it’s like they don’t even notice she’s there.

We’re in a town called Danilia Village. It’s described online as a recreation of a 1930s Corfiot village. What that means is that basically, someone in the 1970s decided to build an entire village that mimicked what a 1930s village in Corfu, Greece would look like, and then kept it that way.

The tiny town acts as a living museum. There are period-appropriate houses with old signage. There’s a restaurant, a church, a giant olive press. You can walk through the street, cross over a small footbridge and step into any number of buildings to discover what’s inside. And it’s not just structures, either, that make it particularly stirring. You can gaze at someone’s chickens grazing around their property. You can walk through an old winery and then traipse outside the double doors to a real vineyard.

And of course, there are people: people sitting on benches, people sewing and reading the newspaper and chatting with each other, all dressed in traditional Greek garments of the time: long skirts and tops with gentle scarves tied over their shoulders, wide-brimmed straw hats and vests. You can visit the church, sit in the town square, and even, as we did, participate in a little traditional Greek dancing. It’s completely enrapturing to be so lost in time.

Marvin and I discovered this place through a curated “AzAmazing Evening", an event that’s customary on Azamara cruises. For one night during the cruise the Azamara team organizes a special cultural event on shore and guests can participate for free. In one cruise, they organize a concert with an 18-piece string ensemble in a cave. In another they host a flamenco and horse show at a historic hacienda. Danilia is their stop whenever they make it over to Greece.

But Danilia is used for a number of other purposes, too, from weddings, to corporate events, to even movies and TV shoots (the current popular show The Durrells is filmed in Danilia). Independent visitors can plan a trip there if they book a stay at one of the two nearby Grecotel properties.

We’ve spent the entire day a few miles away in the actual Corfu, walking up and down the Adriatic coast, grabbing the most delicious gelato with honey and walnuts, posing for pictures by the Palace of St. Michael and St. George. It was delightful. And we understand, logically, that what we’re experiencing over in Danilia is, effectively, fabricated. The houses are not 19th century palaces or 16th century fortresses (both of which do exist in Corfu). The people sitting alongside the town, no matter how realistic, are actors who will at some point go home and eat dinner and maybe even watch Netflix. They don’t really live there.

And yet the feeling of being there, of walking these streets and suddenly understanding, perhaps in a very small way, but also in a deeply immersive way, what it was like to be a person there — that feeling is real. It is the beautiful, magical art of storytelling. It is what storytellers absolutely live for.

I’ve reflected on this a lot since returning home. The power of storytelling to ignite feelings in us that are less accessible anywhere else. The power of these stories as a way to build mutual understanding and to unite one another. How an immersive experience, even a fabricated one, might create a real and meaningful effect for a person. Because it certainly did for me.

I have always said that travel can be the solution to world peace.

It is a tool like any other: it can be used for good or for evil. The key is how we deploy it, and how we manage it. Tourism has brought down entire empires when left unchecked. But it can also create empathy and trust, which leads to cross-cultural understanding, diplomacy, and partnership.

These feelings of empathy can come from different ways: maybe you feel it when marveling at the artisanship of an ancient ruin from 2,000 years ago, realizing that the people who lived here, so far removed in time, cared deeply about beauty just like you do. Or maybe you feel it while taking a cooking class, getting a chance to meet a local family and hear their story. Maybe you feel it while visiting a small business, or listening to music at a concert. This feeling that we are all here, together.

I feel this connection when I travel to a new place, but here in Danilia, mixed with wonder and fascination, I also feel it because of the power of story. The story these actors have created together feels closer to truth than anything else.

I have been to Greece twice, and twice I have been swept into the joyful art of Greek folk dancing. The feeling is sublime. My favorite part is that it unites a group of people as one unit, dancing together. We dance in a circle; we hold hands; we form a snake; we build a bridge; we celebrate one another. We take shots of ouzo and in the morning we eat the most sumptuous Greek yogurt drizzled with local honey (I have tried to find an accurate substitute everywhere in the United States; I cannot). We marvel at thousands of years of architecture while we dip into flower-covered cafes; we believe that good wine is an art. I say “we” because for a moment while in Greece I feel Greek. I feel instantly invited into the chaos and the beauty and the music. It is as if there were no other option than to become one with each other.

I have to believe that world peace could be achieved with one festive night of Greek dancing.

The sun has finally dipped beyond a building; its tentacles lose some of the zing that has been hitting us during our European heat wave. It is growing quite late and I know that our evening of dance is coming to a close.

One of the dancers approaches me. She’s wearing a long, colorful skirt that’s olive in the back and chartreuse in the front. Her burgundy vest is tailored with gold detail along the bottom. Atop her head is a red and black head wrap, interwoven with flowers. A white lace veil flows out the back. She’s holding a pile of quickly formed plaster plates, which we scramble for like kids spotting candy at a parade.

We know exactly what to do with these.

We smile at each other, travelers from the US and Canada and Australia and New Zealand and many other places. We’ve come from different corners of the earth, different stories and experiences. And in unison we throw our plates with all of our might onto the ground, watching them smash. We yell and cheer in unison, dancing among the fragments.

Tonight, for a moment, we are all Greek.

Thank you for reading along!

I’ve been enjoying writing these Substack posts over the last few weeks as a way to open up deeper conversations and richer topics through thoughtful writing. Each of these posts takes me nearly a week to write. I take my time with them, because sometimes the most important conversations simply can’t be rushed.

Thanks for taking the time (or, as Oliver Burkeman would say, moments of your life) to read along.

If you enjoyed this read, come join some of my other favorite posts, like:

• If “The Giving Tree” Were a Place, It Would Be Venice: heartbreaking and beautiful musings about our collective overconsumption of Venice, and how we might bring her back

• Becoming the Godmother of a Cruise Ship Was a Lesson in Inclusion I Never Expected: a lesson I’ll never forget about how inclusion isn’t a one-size-fits-all policy

• You Can Have Both Roots and Branches: coming to terms with what it means to be a traveler who also loves to be home

A few quick life updates this week:

• Pre-booking for three Wanderful trips: We just put out a final call for three upcoming small group trips that are in pre-booking: a women-led safari in Tanzania, a celebration of Holi in India, and an expedition to Antarctica. The first two have already sold out for their upcoming trips so we’re exploring adding a second booking. If you’re interested in traveling with us to any of those places, let us know sooner than later and we’ll open them up for the dates that align for everyone!
  

• We officially have over 20 people registered for our Global Meetup to Albuquerque for the International Balloon Fiesta this October! At our Global Meetups we visit a new place together, plan a bunch of community-led activities and leave ample time for solo exploring. If you’re planning to stay with us at our room block at Hotel ZAZZ (a Black woman-owned hotel right on Route 66!), make sure to book now before they’re all sold out. There are just a handful of rooms left. Learn more here.

It’s 6am and I’m sitting on a quiet veranda. I’m in a satin summer robe that I brought with me to feel elegant, tucked over a very short nightgown. Across from me and with no warning, green shutters fly open and I dive into the corner of my balcony, just out of sight behind a large bushy tree. I watch as a man’s hands push the shutters to the side to steady them. He peeks his head out, greeting the day.

Suddenly, I feel supremely self-conscious. I realize that my turquoise robe and I are in grave danger of invading this Venetian’s peaceful morning. Knowing what I know about the tourism industry and Venice, being an invader is pretty much the last thing I want to do. And yet, here I am.

My husband, Marvin, and I are staying at a small locally owned hotel called Apostoli Palace. It’s a family-run hotel in Venice’s Cannaregio neighborhood, an area so quiet that you can hear the water fountain down the street that someone accidentally left running. The house itself was built in 1450, a typical nobleman’s palace of the time, and is decorated with period-appropriate furnishings: damask wallpaper, Murano glass chandeliers, thick gold curtains, sweeping high ceilings, and dark exposed beams.

When researching hotels to stay at, I knew I wanted to economically support the city, and not a chain, so I spent a lot of time researching locally owned hotels. When I found a website that looked homemade, I knew I had hit the spot. I booked direct through their site (turns out that earned me a bonus: €10 cash in an envelope when I arrived. Jackpot!).

For a traveler that craves getting lost and suddenly finding herself in someone’s kitchen, or Indian wedding, or olive grove, finding Apostoli’s website was a treat. Finding the actual Apostoli itself was a labyrinth. If I thought Boston’s winding roads and one-way streets were confusing, try navigating Venice without a map.

And yet somehow it worked out anyway. Just when we were deliberating directions in a plaza, loaded with suitcases and poking our heads around corners, an older woman approached us.

“Apostoli?” she inquired.

“Si!” We replied enthusiastically, wiping our foreheads in 95-degree heat, still wearing our overnight plane attire. She turned right around, guided us to the hotel, opened the door, and got us checked in (not without plenty of hand gestures, me blabbering my way through something that sounded vaguely Italian, and a call to the manager when our name was initially not there). Turns out we had just caught the housekeeper heading out for her afternoon break. Lucky for her, this feeling of being off the grid is basically my love language. Take me to a quirky, local hotel with people who don’t speak my language any day of the week. That’s where we find the human in all of us.

I’ve wanted to visit Venice since I made a watercolor of it in a middle school art class. I must have been looking at a picture (one that I’ve long forgotten) because my painting shows intricately painted gondolas, the characteristic striped canal poles, and a large basilica. I wonder how I knew so much about what Venice would look like, because now that I’m here it feels pretty spot on.

Except for one thing, of course. My painting doesn’t have any tourists in it.

Now, they’re practically part of the geography.

Being in the travel industry, hearing the word “Venice” is pretty much akin to “off-limits”. I never thought I would come here, ever. I know a lot about Venice, the way a person might know so many things about a place they studied in school or work. I knew that Venice is heavily overtouristed. I knew that the city was built many years ago (1600 years ago, in fact!) and that its fragile infrastructure is overloaded with travelers who are literally breaking it down.

Sources like Responsible Travel cite that nearly 25-30 million tourists visit Venice every year, yet the number of people who live in the historic center numbers over 45,000. For every one local in Venice, there are roughly 667 visitors.

There are a few other things I knew about Venice before arriving. I knew that during COVID, the pause in water movement along the canals allowed sediment to settle, and water was clear for the first time. People could see fish and even dolphins.

I knew that in an attempt to slow down Venice’s degradation, the city banned large cruise ships in 2021 and introduced a tourist tax in 2023.

But despite my killer skills painting a Venetian landscape, my proud 25% Italian ancestry, and my knowledge about the perils of Venice’s tourism industry, there was so much I didn’t know about Venice itself.

I didn’t know that it was an island off Italy’s mainland. In fact, the City of Venice itself is made up of over 118 islands, and it’s connected by 400 bridges. To fly to Venice, you fly into an airport on the mainland and then take a bus or water taxi. Buses (and trains from other cities) only go to the outskirts of Venice. After that, you’re traveling by water, or by foot. There are no city buses, no bicycles, and no motorcycles. Once you’re downtown, you better be wearing a solid pair of footwear because you’re mostly walking.

Being here, I understand that Venice is a city planner’s urban transit fantasy (or nightmare, depending on who you are I suppose). Coming from a place like Boston that is accustomed to a lot of vehicle and bus traffic, it’s an entirely different experience to see four-lane highways transformed to large waterways.

Vaporetti are fully packed water buses that take straight courses much like a city bus would do.

Gondole (the Italian plural for “gondola”) operate like horses and carriages in Central Park, coasting slowly, one after another, along the sides (and much like a Central Park carriage driver, consist of mostly men who have been doing this line of work for decades and know everything about the city that there is to know).

Motoscafi are the taxis, which are motorboats — many of which are gorgeously wood-paneled.

And then of course there are the private boats, mostly small motorboats and sometimes a bright orange speedboat driven by a young man that gives us a “Baby’s first hot rod” vibe.

Even the utilities are run by boat: a daily green garbage boat that picks up trash; long, wide boats that hold construction equipment and pallets. This is a city that has run a maritime economy for two millennia.

I didn’t know that Venice looked the same as the Venice of 2,000 years ago because it pretty much was the same. In fact, the entire city had been built on thousands of inverted tree trunks, creating a structural foundation that long outlasted the steel beam foundations that we create today. Literally the perfect manifestation of that phrase we all know, “they just don’t build things the way they used to.”

But the other thing I didn’t know — the thing that makes travel so beautiful, so unique, the thing that makes travel so valuable and important — is the one thing that I could never have known without being there myself. I didn’t know Venice’s heart.

I didn’t know what it would feel like to literally walk into Canaletto’s View of the Molo, a painting I had studied in college and which I had just seen a few weeks prior at an art museum in Texas. To show up and suddenly recognize that you are inside of a place, almost exactly as it looked when it was painted 300 years ago.

Yet walking through streets so full it felt like Times Square, catching glimpses of hastily printed bags and signs that used AI for Venice-inspired landscapes, experiencing a place with so many people from other places that it had started to lose the movement and pace of its own self (crowds that I was actively contributing to in the moment), I felt a deep, almost animal pain. I felt, all around me, the profound recognition of a mother losing herself.

Months ago, I sat in my children’s bedroom and read them Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. I remember loving this book as a child; it’s a story about a beautiful relationship between a young boy and the tree that shelters and supports him throughout his life.

In the first part of the book, he is young and hungry so the tree gives him her juicy apples. But soon there are no apples left, so she gives him her shade. Eventually she gives him every part of herself, including her wood so he can build a home. I remember reading this book thirty years later from when I first read it, expecting a happy ending but, as each page turned, feeling a low-grade anxiety. Wasn’t the tree supposed to teach him a lesson at some point? Like “you can’t take my wood or I won’t be a tree anymore?” And yet she degrades herself, over and over, for his happiness. In the end, she has nothing left.

In the book, they are both happy with this outcome; a tree that is now nothing but a stump. But now a mother with three children of my own, I recognize the desperate desire to give all of oneself to one’s children, and the crushing loss that comes when we give too much of ourselves to someone else. The loss of personhood. The loss of spark. I have seen it in other women; I have myself felt it. It is a lesson I hope to pass onto my girls as they get older. The importance of cherishing yourself as much as that tree cherished that little boy.

Walking through the streets of Venice, a city that was built on two-thousand-year-old trees, I find myself in a real-life version of The Giving Tree. A city that was so beautiful that everyone wanted a little piece of her. A city that was so strong that it could withstand so much taking for so long. A city so plentiful that it felt like her apples would never run out. Until they started to.

I believe, generally, that tourism can have a restorative effect. That sometimes, going to a place and knowing its heart can bring about positive change: a renewed focus on a beautiful environment; a support and care for small business; a reinforcement of local cuisine and culture. But the tragedy of the commons is an all-too-clear example of how unchecked tourism can run awry. Examples like Venice show us how important it is for city, regional, and national policies to protect our places, because free markets don’t always work the way we want them to.

We’re checking out of our hotel just one day after we checked in: we’re en route to a cruise with my goddaughter, the Azamara Onward cruise ship (yes, I became a cruise ship godmother in 2021 and it is my #1 favorite party fact, at least when people don’t think I’m joking).

The day prior we clocked 25,000 steps exploring every part of Venice in the short time we had there. We walked over the Rialto bridge probably 355 times. We tried (and failed) to catch a cross-canal transfer to save us 20 minutes of walking time. We gushed over a lemon gelato, bought a leather? (question mark is intentional) purse, and drank bright red Venetian Select spritzes. We took a gondola ride and watched fish swim in the canal’s salt water (yes, the canal is ocean water; our gondolier, Riccardo, said he even saw a shark in the canal once). We marveled inside churches, stopped at too many souvenir shops, and shared the best prosciutto-burrata-arugula salad we’ve ever eaten.

We poured as much back into Venice as we could.

As we departed, a young woman was working at the reception desk. “Oh!” she said to me just as we were about to leave. “I forgot, we still need you to pay your tourist fee.”

Ah yes, the tourist fee that Venice implemented a few years ago.

When I asked her how much it was, she said, “well, it’s two people, so that’s…”

At first I thought she said €40. I started to pull out two twenties, grateful I had cash in that moment and happy to give something that I knew would go straight to Venice’s efforts to…well, stay Venice.

“No,” she laughed. “Not €40! €4!” I pulled out a twenty, and she gave me €16 back in change.

Walking towards the water taxi station, we passed through our quiet neighborhood with the running water fountain. We passed the cute restaurant where we joked with the waiter at 10pm last night while we drank wine and ate homemade tagliatelle al ragu. We passed through the winding, narrow sections of town filled with gelaterias and pastry shops and souvenir shops and an occasional phone store. We gave one last look at the massive Rialto bridge, packed full with visitors, with lines of gondole passing underneath. We hopped onto the water taxi, squeezing ourselves in with a hundred other people in sweltering heat as we watched a small garbage crane load trash into a wide boat. And as we passed the majestic, opulent opera houses and casinos and hotels and even the Uruguayan consulate, these stunning Gothic, Byzantine, and Moorish architectural marvels shaped by Venice’s history as a global gathering place and trading hub, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if we asked tourists to pay this city of giving trees ten times the amount we’re asking them to pay now in tourist tax.

Perhaps some people would no longer come. But perhaps it would also change the ways of the ones who did. Perhaps asking for more now, at the time she needs it most, would be good for her.

Perhaps she could grow her apples back.

Recorded just at the tail end of Pride Month, I loved joining to talk about their new book, (Out) On The Road: The Radical Joy of Queer Travel (Ig Publishing; and yes that’s an affiliate link).

Lindsey is a queer writer whose work has appeared in AFAR, Fodor’s, Condé Nast Traveler, Longreads, Eater, and more, and this book is the kind of thing the travel world has genuinely needed. We talk about what it took to write it, what they learned from years of reporting on LGBTQ+ travel around the world, and why queer joy on the road is, in itself, a radical act.

To me, this book felt like an extension to Wander Woman for a queer audience: I loved how Lindsey articulated the deep nuance of traveling the world as a queer person. They interwove statistics with stories to paint a powerful picture of what it means to be to navigate the world while queer while simultaneously making the argument that, from an industry perspective alone, the queer travel segment needs to be taken a lot more seriously.

And they do that with a beautiful voice that makes space for different realities, offers tips to help you think through your own unique scenarios, and navigate a path forward that feels right.

Queer travelers looking for guidance and allies in the industry alike should read this book. Or, pro tip: order it from your library! If they don’t have it, they’ll usually buy it for you, which is an even better way to pay it forward.

Check out the video above, read the transcript below, and enjoy the conversation.

Chapter List

00:00 Introduction

01:12 Celebrating the Launch of ‘Out on the Road’

02:21 Exploring the Content of the Book

06:22 The Evolution of Writing the Book

10:00 Understanding the Queer Travel Demographic

13:28 The Importance of Joy in Queer Travel

18:44 Navigating Personal Identity While Traveling

23:51 Personal Stories and Their Impact

27:51 Empowerment Through Travel

29:14 Looking Ahead: Future Plans

Full Transcript

Beth (00:00)

Hello everyone. Welcome, welcome. Come on and get situated and come in. however you made it in.

Welcome. We’re so glad to have you. my name is Beth Santos. I’m founder and CEO of an international women’s travel community called Wanderful. ⁓ I am the author of a solo travel book called Wander Woman, which is hiding behind me. And I love, as an author, the chance to be able to read other books that have come out into the world. I am intimately familiar with like the experience of.

getting these books. I want to say like birthing the books into the world because that’s like how it felt for me. But but it is such a process. And so when new books come out, it’s just such a great opportunity to celebrate them. And I am really, really excited to dig in with all of you and to celebrate a new book that’s out into the world. It’s Lindsey Danis’s book called Out on the Road The Radical Joy of Queer Travel. And we have Lindsey here to talk about it. Welcome Lindsey. Thanks for being here.

Yeah.

Lindsey (01:03)

Thank you for having me. I’m super excited to chat.

Beth (01:06)

I can’t wait to dig in.

So Lindsey, the book is out. When did when was it published?

Lindsey (01:12)

it came out the first week of May. So it’s almost two months old.

Beth (01:18)

How does it feel to have a newborn baby book in the world?

Lindsey (01:23)

⁓ I mean, it was just something I had been working on for so long, kind of by myself, right? And then widening the circle a little bit, sharing chapters with trusted readers and the manuscript with my editor. And then all of a sudden, like having something that anybody die at the bookstore. You know, shout out to my mom, she did. And she’s like, dying, mom. But you know.

It just felt different.

Beth (01:54)

You know what? I feel like you need those superheroes though. Like having a mom who can be the one who like walks into that Barnes and Noble and is like, by the way, this is my kid. Come here. We’re gonna sign the book. Like I I make my husband do that sometimes because I don’t want to be that person being like, Hello, this is my book. May I for you? Yeah.

Lindsey (02:14)

Yeah, no, it’s okay then

yeah, cheers for those boosters.

Beth (02:21)

So tell us a little bit more about the book itself. Like what’s inside? What can you expect? And let’s start there. What is it? It’s tips. It’s a little bit of everything.

Lindsey (02:30)

And yeah.

I know it’s a bit of a hybrid to describe. ⁓ so I say that it’s an affirming and joyful guide to queer travel. ⁓ and then I always end up kind of explaining to people like it isn’t a guidebook. You’re not gonna find like lists of the best places to go inside. It’s gonna tell you everything that the guidebooks don’t cover. ⁓ so like it goes from, you know, things like personal safety to paying for travel and the realities of that, given the economic disparities that queer people face.

And it talks about, you know, coming out and gender identity and how that impacts travel and moves, you know, and builds toward all of the transformation of travel and the fun and pleasure of travel and joy for this audience that really hasn’t been given that. And I know that’s a topic that you feel passionate about and you speak about in your book as well.

Beth (03:23)

I’m giving people a little visual as you talk because I just want to look. Even though I can’t hold up the book cover, I’m just gonna like present it like this to show you all. But I love that. And you’re right. I think it’s funny this this new genre of book that’s like not quite a memoir, but also not a guidebook, like you said. Like it it’s not like here’s the, you know, here’s my packing list, or like here’s you know the top places to go. And ⁓ but you’re really talking about something that’s a little bit more evergreen.

Why did you decide to do that? Why not do like a guidebook?

Lindsey (03:58)

I just think, well, A, some of those exist. So like Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, all those traditional guidebook houses have kind of put out LGBT travel books curating the best and safest places to go around the world. Or I know for Rough Guides, they have one for Europe. ⁓ and I just feel like as much as like I’m old fashioned, I turn to guidebooks every time I travel, like I don’t use social media to plan travel at all.

Beth (04:25)

You use guidebooks every time you travel? Like paper one?

Lindsey (04:27)

Yeah, heck yeah.

I get them out of my library. ⁓ my go buy what they have and an ebook format.

Beth (04:36)

I love that. Good for you. You know what though? It’s funny. Like, I’m like giving you such a hard time, but actually, I’m like about to leave for a trip this afternoon. And my first thought was like, I actually want a guidebook. Like, this is a whole other conversation, but it’s like, I feel like guidebooks are having a renaissance for their purpose, which is different, but like there’s a very specific purpose. And I’m like, I don’t want to look online anymore. I just want to have like a book, even if it’s

Lindsey (05:02)

⁓ I think that like, and we could talk about this all day and we won’t, but just for a comment, I think that everything going on with Google and the AL AI overviews and everything has really disrupted our sense of trust. Yeah. And when information is coming to us that we find online, we’re like newly critical of it. Like, well, whose perspective is this? And like what experience do they have? And you know, there’s time and place for everything. Like there’s a time and place for me to read an update from a blogger who’s been somewhere once about the toy that they want and why they loved it.

You know, because sometimes I want like that first person perspective of like this is the best tour to do in this region and like here’s what to expect. And sometimes I just want something more authoritative.

Beth (05:41)

No, I think that’s fair. I think that’s fair. And then also I think you’re identifying a really cool opportunity here with the book that you wrote, which again is not a guidebook, but really is more of like the like emotional journey and like the identity journey and some of these things that are more of like

Like a lifetime experience, you know, it’s not just like what am I doing for this trip and where am I going? It’s like it’s so much more than like that transactional experience of just what am I getting out of this, but also really kind of encouraging you to think about your own identity in the world. And tell me about the process of writing this. Like, was that always your vision or how did it evolve over time?

Lindsey (06:22)

gosh, it evolved over time. So period. So much, you know, moment of realizing in a writing workshop, based on how interested people were in the stories I was sharing on this, like that this wasn’t just something that was an essay, it kind of needed to be a book length form. Yeah. And so for like several years, it was kind of a back burner project where when I had the spare time, I would kind of think about ideas or what interested me.

But it didn’t get a lot of attention and focus from me. ⁓ and then I think I got to the point where I was ready to to bring it kind of center stage and really intensely worked on like the book proposal and the sample chapters, which for anyone listening who who hasn’t gone through this experience with a book like this, you kind of write a couple of chapters, write like a business plan for the book, come up with an outline and then shop that around. And like if somebody buys it, you get to write the book, and if they don’t, you don’t.

Yeah. Right. So like that’s a lengthy high-stakes process because you only get one shot. So from the proposal that I had, I ended up cutting a few chapters because every chapter of the book that I was writing like went longer because I found that I had like so much to say.

Beth (07:39)

Did

that like happen by surprise for you at all? Cause it did for me sometimes. You’re like you start writing and you’re like, Do I have a lot? And then you’re like, ⁓ actually I have a lot.

Lindsey (07:48)

at once. Yeah, I think it was like being able to write without the constraints of like a a freelance assignment word count, you know, whereas before this I had been fitting, you know, a topic like coming out while traveling into like a 1200 word brief, right? Which is just like not even possible. Right. And so I hear I got like kind of unlimited space, right? Like the book had a word count, but I didn’t have a per chapter word count. ⁓ so I found I had a lot more to say.

Beth (08:14)

Yeah.

Lindsey (08:17)

I also wound up incorporating into the book kind of like tips, questions, imprompts at the end of every chapter. And if you take all those together, those are like over 50 pages of the book. So I wasn’t necessarily planning to have them in there at the outset, but they I love them now. So I’m glad that they’re part of the book, but they also took up a lot of space.

Beth (08:38)

Yeah, that’s fair. Yeah. But then it also it really enriches the book. You know, I think it gives the reader like so many different ways to interact with it, right? It’s not, it can be storytelling, which just helps people be seen and kind of like show some of the examples of this. And then it also has, I really appreciated, you know, as a as a queer ally, like the there are a lot of like hard stats that you put in there. Like, let’s talk about this in terms of.

the buying power of the LGBTQ plus community, you know, and like why this shouldn’t be left. And and because of that, I think the and again, like I’m always thinking about this in the context of my book. And when I wrote my book, I feel like the audience is very clearly like one person. It is like the solo female traveler who like wants to go or solo woman traveler who wants to go out and kind of see the world. But I think for you, you have so many different audiences because of the way you’ve written this.

You have the audience of a queer person who is trying to go out into the world and maybe has reservations. But then I also think that you have like a really strong audience of just industry, sort of better understanding this demographic and why it’s important and why it shouldn’t be left behind. Can you talk about like what historically has brought you to this point of being like, guys, you are not paying attention to like this huge consumer base?

Lindsey (09:59)

Yeah, I think, you know, what first brought me into this topic was the personal experiences that I had. And I I share many of those moments in the book, but just, you know, the ways that my experience was shaped by my identity and how other people perceived me. So that’s what got me, you know, sort of looking for these stories and paying attention to these stories. But what I found fascinating as I began to really follow the topic and follow what else other people were saying were these data points.

You know, where these surveys on how often queer people travel. ⁓ and you know, we are more likely to have passports than the general population, right? So why is that? Like, I don’t know, because so often on these surveys, they’re not asking the qualitative questions. Yeah, they’re only asking the quantitative ones, but I have theories on that, right? I have theories on like, you know, this inherent.

You know, nervousness that we have based on queer history, based on how we’ve been treated, even just in my lifetime, that’s changed so much that we feel the need to have like an escape hatch if we need to use it. Right. And so I think that like the data points to me became a way to speak to those industry people or to arm our allies in the industry with information they could turn around and take to maybe the reluctant higher up or the higher up who thinks like, this is way too niche. Like, why should I?

Bother, right? Why should I hang a rainbow flag on my hotel in June or offer like a Pride Month package? Or like, why is it important for me to show images of same-sex couples, you know, getting married at my wedding resort? Like, marriage is legal and everyone is welcome here. And it’s like, no, you actually need to go deeper. ⁓ yeah. And I was really inspired by, you know, the work that you have done in Wander Woman and the work of the Black Travel Alliance in really bringing the data and making the cases to.

for travel to be more inclusive. And so it was great for me to have these examples that have been successful in the past to like inspire me and know that I wasn’t like just shouting alone into a void, but joining this chorus of voices.

Beth (12:03)

No, but I I think that’s I think that’s a great point. And by the way, thank you for the compliment. I will mail you your five dollars after this. ⁓ but the, you know, it’s it’s one of those things where it’s like, do we want do we do we want to have to, you know, share this, like do we have to make a business case out of this? You know, like is this the direction that we have to go in order to make this? But I think like that stuff cannot be understated. And and sometimes it does fall back to, you know.

presenting to somebody who who may not be so inclined to like read this whole book and say, hey, Mr. Boss White Man, like this is actually a really important thing to pay attention to. And that’s how change happens. You know, it’s like really kind of focusing on like, let’s look at each individual consumer and what they can bring to this table. And ⁓ and there’s like real, real money at stake. And I think in like in in some of the things that we talk about at Wonder Bowl of like

85% of travel decisions are made by women. Like literally your consumer base is women. So you may as well just, you know, like may as well just focus on them. And so ⁓ so I think that that’s it’s really nice how you’ve kind of put that together. I want to talk a little bit more about the content of the book itself. Because one other thing that I really loved about it was first of all, like let’s just talk about the title for a minute.

Like the title is called The Radical Joy of Queer Travel. Like that is such a beautiful and positive, you know, view on queer travel, which I don’t know if we’re always given like that kind of nuance when we’re talking about it. I think similar to like women traveling solo, it tends to be more like here’s how you avoid danger, here’s how you, you know, whatever, fit in or don’t fit in. Like, can you talk about

Why you decided to position it that way?

Lindsey (14:03)

Yes. So like you were saying, you know, so much of the information that we get, you know, and I think I compare in the book that it’s very similar for women and queer people, you know, we get constantly information and questions and concerns over our safety. You know, and the impact of this of having everybody in our life say, you’re going there. Is it safe to go there? ⁓ you’re like.

You know, how are you taking care of yourself or what are the risks? Like being constantly questioned in this way can be really demoralizing. It can create like a lot of anxiety where, you know, there doesn’t need to be so much anxiety. And I wanted to strike a balance between taking seriously the risks and the fears because they’re there, you know, and I didn’t want to bypass them. But what’s missing from like the way that we talk about those risks and fears is really a strategy.

It’s like so cool, you know, it’s not legal to be queer in this country. Well, what do I need to know if I’m gonna go there? Right. And we usually get sidetracked into like questions of why would you possibly want to go there? Or like, you know, is it morally right or wrong to do that? You know, and I I spend a lot of time in the book in a very nuanced way, like getting into those topics, but just to like connect it back to Joy, I wanted to arm people with like the information and tools they need to sort of understand and evaluate risks.

based on their identity because it’s different. You know, it’s different if you’re traveling around as part of a couple versus solo versus if you’re transgender or non-binary. You know, all of those are different experiences and yet the concerns are similar and overlapping. ⁓ and so I I really wanted to kind of cover that groundwork I just

Beth (15:49)

No, I love this. I’m like, no, shut up. I’m just gonna like

Lindsey (15:51)

Like the tools, the tools that they need to sort of build that confidence, build those travel skills for people who maybe right, like the economic barriers are real and the anxiety and fears are real. And so recognizing that, you know, not all queer people ha come to travel, feeling like they have a place there, feeling like they can be there, feeling like they can even be themselves. Right. And so building and moving toward, you know, travel is pleasure. It’s

fun. We build memories with people that we love when we travel with them. Like, you know, and we can do it in ways that positively transform us, uplift us, like bring us joy. And so building through, you know, like the narrative arc of the book was moving through the tough stuff, through the concerns toward that place of joy.

Beth (16:37)

I think it’s like a very holistic way of looking at it too, which is just, you know, yeah, all of these things can exist in this universe, you know, like the dangers and the the harm and the safety and the joy and the freedom and and like many contradictions. And that’s just what it is to be a human, you know, is to live in contradictions. And I think

Lindsey (16:58)

Life

in the same five minutes to feel like afraid and then resilient or like afraid and then empowered.

Beth (17:05)

Right. No, absolutely. Well, and and I think it also it changes, you know. I think ⁓ I think it is so easy to fall, you know, kind of putting my Wonder Woman hat on again, like it’s so easy to fall into these generalizations, even about travel, like, ⁓ you know, and and I’ve I’ve complained so much about like top 10 safest places for women to travel alone, type list, for example, because for for many, many reasons, but like if we take like one of those reasons, it is that.

Your experience in a place is never the same twice. You know, your experience changes based on many things. It changes on the environment, it changes on the political situation, it changes on the neighborhood that you’re in. It also changes on you and like how you feel and how experienced you are, and maybe how much you’ve planned for this or not planned for this, and what you look like and what you look like that day, you know, and like so many different things. And so

I it becomes this gross generalization just to be like, this place is safe, this place is unsafe. And I think, ⁓ I think even more so when you are managing multiple intersections that then may be affecting your experience in many nuanced ways at once. And it’s like extremely hard to just kind of put that into a top 10 list, you know? Yeah.

Lindsey (18:25)

Yeah. And then of course if you go there and you didn’t feel safe or you didn’t feel welcomed, then you must have done something wrong. Right. I think that’s the other thing that that framing invites into the conversation is like, well, you know, Massachusetts is very safe. So if you went to Massachusetts and you didn’t feel safe, like what were you doing?

Beth (18:44)

Right. Yeah, you did something wrong. So so let’s lean into some of that advice a little bit because, you know, especially talking about queer travel in in the context of like going on vacation. I think a lot of the advice, you know, there’s there’s a lot of questions of like, do you out yourself, do you not out yourself, do you make yourself smaller? Do you hide like what are what are your best recommendations for not necessarily every single thing people should do in those moments, but

how they should be approaching these questions for themselves and kind of making the right questions for themselves.

Lindsey (19:20)

Yeah. So I’m a big fan of research. and I like to look at the laws in every place that I’m going and then just understand like based on what I’m finding and also say like social attitudes, right? Because like the laws are one thing and a place may be more welcoming than its laws suggest or less welcoming than its laws suggest. Right. But kind of doing my due diligence to understands like

You know, when I land in this place or when I get out of my car at the rest stop, like what environment am I walking into? And that’s just like being prepared, right? ⁓ And then so based on what I learn, ⁓ and I have exercises in out on the road on this, you know, thinking about well, what situations am I likely to encounter? Right. And if I’m in, let’s say, a very like gender typical society.

Right, whether that’s here in the US or overseas, like I often get misgendered, right? And so that’s something that I know from experience is probably gonna happen to me. Right. And so what are the situations where I might be misgendered? And based on the culture that I’m in and like who I’m traveling with and you know, how much I wanna take on versus how much I just wanna be on vacation and rest, like what am I gonna say? What am I gonna do?

When am I gonna let things go? And when am I gonna advocate for myself? Right. And these questions are in the book because like the answers are so context dependent. Yeah. You know, and there are times when it’s like you just want to rest, you don’t want to challenge, and that’s totally valid. And other times when the priority is like, I wanna be me, right? And so if someone’s not perceiving me correctly, I wanna, you know, educate them or advocate for myself or like insist that I’m seen as who I am. Right. And so I think all of this is hinting at like a level of complexity.

You know, like it’s not as easy as just going on vacation. ⁓ but that really gives you back as the individual like some of that power that like the constant framing around safety or, you know, evoking of like scary things and anxieties really takes from you.

Beth (21:22)

Well and I think also you’re maybe giving freedom to people to

make their own choice in the moment that’s right for them, you know, and to kind of not I I appreciate how you’re really kind of exploring these topics, not by saying like, this is what you should do. You should always, you know, you should always self-advocate or like you should always whatever, out yourself and be who you are. You should like always hide, you know, or whatever. Like I think, I think really giving people like a deeper understanding of how these things do change.

In the moment and with time. And you might just be having like a crappy day that day, and you just don’t want to have to put yourself out there. And like those are all perfectly adequate things to do. It is your choice, like how you’re going to handle those things. And and I think like having questions to kind of work through so that you’re at least going in with awareness.

of of what could happen. So maybe you’ve mentally prepared yourself for like, okay, you know, this ultimately is my choice, but maybe here’s some things that I’m going to think about as I do it. And that’s gonna kind of help me make that decision and give myself grace.

Lindsey (22:40)

Yeah. And I think when you kind of give yourself the time to think through this in advance, anything that feels really fearful or scary becomes much more manageable because you’ve thought about it. You’ve thought about, well, like if these things come up, you know, here’s what I’m gonna do, here’s what I’m not gonna do, right? Like and so you’re not just like walking around the whole time in fear. ⁓ you know and

There’s also like in the book, there’s so many personal stories. And so, you know, even just around coming out, there are stories shared around people who, you know, pretended to be friends with their partner and traveled kind of incognito and where they were traveling and why that felt like the right decision for them and how they did that, as well as stories from people who came out, right? And who felt like, no, I’m gonna be me, or like, you know, I’m gonna try to explain in this situation, like.

who I am and what my identity is. Right. So like there are lots of stories I think that readers can relate to and understand, you know, not just the theoretical like, you know, constraints that we’re talking about, but like, these are actual people having these experiences. And this one really stuck out to me and like take from that what they will.

Beth (23:51)

Yeah. I still remember one of my favorite stories that I wrote about in my book was was a friend of mine who was talking about how when she and her wife would travel together, they were always just like, whatever, we’re friends, you know, like cool, we’ll just kind of let it be like that. And then when she started traveling with their children, she realized how things changed for her, as like she never wanted her children to sort of like, you know.

kind of internalize like that we’re ashamed or so like she would then start much more outwardly correcting people because she was like I want my kids to be proud of this and I don’t want them to feel like I’m hiding something. And I thought that was like a really good example of two like perfectly adequate choices, but maybe presented a different context. It became like very clear to her like, no, no, I I want to make sure my kids feel like they belong in this world, you know, just like we belong in this world. And so I thought that was cool. Tell me like

your favorite travel story from your book? What’s like what was like the one that you loved writing the most?

Lindsey (24:53)

man, there were so many good ones. I think one of my favorite chapters to write was the digital nomads chapter because that chapter starts with like an anecdote of me at like the last, you know, real job I ever had where I like had to show up in an office and work for somebody else, being like so bored and just like turning to travel blogs as a way to escape and like reading my favorite blogs and dreaming of like.

a different kind of life than I had. And so for that chapter, I got to interview people who were living that life. You know, and I had this really fun interview with this woman who like was one of those late to life lesbians, figured out, you know, after she was married, you know, when her kid was going off to college, that she was queer. And so like got a divorce, totally changed her life.

You know, left her job, took money out of a retirement account, and just gave herself like this really beautiful sabbatical to like get to know her identity, to travel and see the world. And, you know, before that point, she’d only ever been to like all inclusive resorts. So she really had to like figure out, you know, how to travel alone, how to meet other people in the queer community, all of this stuff for the first time. And like

know she was really open with me about what that changed in her life and what that opened up for her. And I think that there were so many beautiful lessons in that story, you know, that anyone can relate to around like her feeling freedom and permission that she had never felt before. That, you know, even though she’s back and she has a job again in traditional life, you know, she’s not nomadic right now, but she still carries that freedom around.

Beth (26:35)

Love that. I think it’s such a good example too of how travel is such a two-way street, you know, and it’s like, I don’t think we talk about that enough. How yes, you go and explore and experience a place, but that place also experiences you and has an impact on you. And I think like sometimes it’s like the more you can give to it, the more you can get from it, right? These can be really incredible self-growth moments.

And so I can only imagine like what it must have felt for her to be in this context of like feeling like she was fully in tune with herself. You know, and what that kind of experience would have done for her. And maybe even how people would have been like interacted with her differently than, you know, because she felt like she was more comfortable just kind of like being being that whole self. Right.

Lindsey (27:24)

Right.

You know, and as someone who’s very femme presenting, like she found herself in the position of often having to come out because people would just presume if she walked in the gay bar that she didn’t belong there. Right. And so like having that experience, ⁓ you know, of having it out herself or, you know, affirm that she belonged in that part of the community like constantly.

Beth (27:48)

What do you hope that people will take away from this book?

Lindsey (27:51)

my gosh. I hope people will feel empowered. I hope people will feel excited. And I hope people will like

understand that travel is about so much more than fear when you’re LGBTQ+ plus and that you don’t have to be afraid of the world. And that doesn’t mean, you know, like as we’ve been discussing, striding through the world, you know, with a rainbow flying on your backpack, ⁓ you know, coming out to everyone you meet, you can do it in a manner that feels comfortable to yourself. And that can also change over time.

Beth (28:26)

I love that. I think that’s beautiful. By the way, everyone, if you haven’t gotten a copy of this book yet, you absolutely need to. It is such a great read. I think I devoured it in like two days. I just chugged through it. Like so many good stories, good advice, and some very, very compelling stats. This is like a fun hack, by the way, everyone. If you don’t

Lindsey (28:35)

Yeah.

Beth (28:46)

feel like you can buy a book for yourself. If you call, or a lot of times it’s an app now, your local library and request it, they often look for what people are asking for. So they will buy what their clientele is asking for. So you can just call up your local library and be like, can you please get a copy of Out on the Road? I would like to read it. And then you’re basically buying a book without having to pay for it. And you’re getting access to other people too. So ⁓ so definitely do that.

What’s next for you, Lindsey? Travels, another book?

Lindsey (29:19)

I mean, I hope another book. I am giving myself a break and I am going on vacation. Yes.

Beth (29:28)

I think that sounds like the exact right way to celebrate a book launch. And I hope that you you’re like, yeah. my God. It’s so much work. Well, and it’s like it is it’s it’s so much work, but it’s also, I mean, I hope you feel so proud of yourself because it is it it is a really big and and I think people only those those few of us

Lindsey (29:37)

You know what it’s like. It’s so important.

Beth (29:57)

Those few of us were so elite who have like gone through this journey. But but I think I think writing, and and as everyone knows, Lindsey is like an extremely accomplished writer who’s done a lot of of writing for all sorts of publications. But you alluded to the fact that writing a book is different. And it is, and I think, I think the there is like a like an emotional process that you go through in writing a book because you do have the freedom to just kind of

keep going until you stop. Right. And then you go and edit it later. But I think because of that, you sort of reach these levels, these like deeper levels of thought than I think we’re honestly able to do on like regular life nowadays, you know, because it’s not, I have 140 characters to work with or I have twenty two hundred characters or whatever it is. It’s really, it’s kind of giving yourself the freedom to just investigate

feelings and questions and thoughts in writing. And we don’t get a lot of that opportunity. So ⁓ so I always found it to be so fulfilling, but also so much work because you are really exposing like every inner feeling of yourself. And then you are just making it available publicly.

Lindsey (31:12)

⁓ yeah, there were definitely some times where where I felt vulnerable while I was writing the book.

For sure.

Beth (31:22)

⁓ but but you know what, I know it’s making a big impact for people. And I think when you get to those moments of like deep vulnerability, that’s where people feel like they’re being spoken to, you know. And so so I think I hope that this book has already started doing that for you and that it just keeps living on and on for for people who need it, because that is just the best medicine that that someone could have.

Lindsey (31:48)

Yeah, for sure. And you know, this is like my final public-facing book event. And I’ve been doing these since the book came out in May. And like every single time I’ve gotten to talk to readers, you know, chat about the book, like, you know, people are just telling me how they feel touched, how they feel inspired, like which is it’s so fulfilling, especially after, you know, this long withdrawn writing time to kind of have that exchange with people.

Beth (32:14)

Lindsey, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate you taking the time, especially during Pride Month, which is probably a very busy.

Lindsey (32:20)

I know, very busy. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much.

Beth (32:25)

You’re so welcome. Best of luck. Have an amazing vacation. And everyone else, thanks for being here today. We appreciate you coming along. Bye for now.

CRASH!

A 15-liter bottle of champagne smashes to pieces, scattering thousands of tiny shards, plus an impressive spew of bubbles, into the Mediterranean Sea below it.

A line of champagne foam hesitates on the hull of the massive ship. It was an enormous bottle of champagne, but on the bow of the Azamara Onward it leaves only the tiniest, most momentary champagne mustache. The crowd erupts in cheers.

I’m standing on a stage with a giant pair of golden scissors. Not ten seconds ago I delivered a speech to dozens of press, then proceeded to use the scissors to cut a large ribbon. That ribbon released a meticulously constructed chain of events that allowed the champagne bottle to swing, not unlike Kevin McCallister at possibly the most epic moment of Home Alone, straight overhead and [now very much unlike Kevin’s fate] straight to its explosive death into two thousand tons of steel.

I adjust my dress, a deep blue satin gown that hugs my body a little too tightly, and look past the crowd to the elegant city of Monaco behind it, its buildings clustered on a hill like an opulent necklace of sun-kissed pearls draped over a chaise longue.

I wonder for perhaps the 50th time since I’ve arrived: how in the world did I get here?

It’s January 2022 and I have an email in my inbox from a PR firm in New York. In the email, the firm asks for a few minutes of my time to talk about an opportunity. A small cruise line wants me to be its godmother.

Despite having been in the travel industry for over 10 years at that point, there are words in this email that I’m not quite understanding. I don’t know what a godmother is, and I haven’t taken a cruise since I was two years old. Part of me wonders who they think they’re reaching out to.

On a call with my mom that afternoon, I mention the strange email. “It’s a scam,” she insists. “Delete it.”

I’m pretty sure the email isn’t a scam in the traditional sense — I don’t get the feeling I’m about to faithfully hand over my bank account details for it to be emptied while I’m sleeping — but I do wonder if I’ve been caught in some scheme I’m not aware of. It reminds me of those “awards” that you get in your inbox, that you can receive for the low price of $3,000. Am I just receiving an ad of some kind? But the offer to hop on a zoom is intriguing. I suppose I might as well accept the invitation and see what they have to say.

A few days later I’m on a video call with Kirsten Magen of Hue & Cry, a New York-based PR firm. Almost immediately upon entering the Zoom room I realize that this is very much not a scam at all. Kirsten knows a lot about me and my work. In fact, she’s been researching my efforts for some time. She talks about Wanderful, and what I’m doing to elevate women in travel. She talks about the role of a cruise ship godmother.

The tradition of cruise ship godmothers

The tradition of christening a ship goes back thousands of years, to as early as the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. Sailors would host traditional naming ceremonies and call upon their deities to bless the ship and keep sailors safe during their future voyages.

Sometime in the 1900s, the tradition of doing this in partnership with a “godmother” was born. In 1846, a member of the Philadelphia elite named Miss Lavinia Fanning Watson was known to have broken a bottle of champagne over a new ship to “christen” it. Over a century later, in 1969, Queen Elizabeth II christened Cunard's QE2 and is often cited as the first known godmother. But when Audrey Hepburn christened the Star Princess on March 23, 1989, the official godmother tradition was born.

The idea of the godmother is to identify a person who can serve as the ship’s moral compass. The title is mostly honorary, but it lasts a lifetime: a ship only has one godmother, and her portrait is displayed in the interior of the ship forever. Today, most of the opportunity in picking a godmother is promotional: many famous people have been named godmothers, from celebrities like Jennifer Hudson and Whoopi Goldberg to royalty like Princess Diana and Kate Middleton. Sophia Loren has been a godmother 20 times. It’s a great press moment, if anything.

Which led me to wonder; why me?

Kirsten shares her version of the story above, but she adds a twist. When talking with the Azamara team, a small ship cruise line that focuses on meaningful in-destination experiences, they realized that they didn’t just want a godmother that would be a good press opportunity. They wanted to recognize someone who was really doing the work. They found me because of what I had created, and they wanted to honor that.

They wanted me to be the godmother of the Azamara Onward, and christen the ship at their official ceremony in Monaco.

I would need to be available for some press beforehand, of course, and I’d be offered a generous honorarium for my time. I’d then travel to Europe for a brief voyage. I’d stay on the ship for a few days, and then we’d arrive together in Monaco for its official naming ceremony.

Kirsten asked me the most important part of this question: Are you free on April 29th, 2022?

It turns out, I wasn’t.

This may seem completely unexpected to you, but I simply wasn’t free that day, so I declined. I gave Kirsten my most appreciative thanks. What a special honor to be considered. But I simply couldn’t do it.

The truth is, for the first time in over 30 years, I had another cruise to be on that same day.

It was March 2020, and our family cruise (on a Royal Caribbean) was scheduled for later that month. It would involve the meticulous planning of the schedules of 13 people: not just me and my growing family (my husband, Marvin, our 4 year-old, Nora, and her one-year-old sister, Zoey), but my two brothers, my stepbrothers and their families, and my dad and stepmom. It was a blended family trip that we were taking to the Caribbean together — our first time doing it — and it took us absolutely forever to find a date that worked.

Well, you know what happened next. It’s the story of every person who loves to travel and had travel plans in 2020. They went straight out the window.

When travel came around again, we rescheduled our family vacation for April 2022. At that point we had been waiting well over two years for this trip to happen. So when I was asked to be on a ship in Monaco, it would be simply impossible. I would be on a ship in the Caribbean instead. And having gone through COVID, and having lost people, and having seen how precious life was: I just couldn’t justify leaving my once-in-a-lifetime family vacation for a work gig. I simply couldn’t do it.

To top it off, it was my daughter Nora’s 5th birthday the day prior, on April 28th. Not only would I be missing our family vacation; I would be missing one of the most important days of my daughter’s life up until that point. At a time when lives felt more precious than ever.

Perhaps you understand me better now.

I ended the call with Kirsten, graciously thanking her for thinking of me. When I hung up, my husband peeked his head in the doorway.

“Call her back right now,” he said.

Turns out, Marvin had been listening to the whole conversation. He heard them offer me this position; he heard me turn it down. When I hung up, he told me I was out of my mind.

But what choice did I have, I asked him.

Easy, he said. You can tell your family to reschedule their trip.

I emailed Kirsten and asked her to give me 24 hours.

As Marvin expected, when I called my dad to tell him about my conundrum, he was overjoyed. Of course we’d reschedule the vacation, he said. The rest of the family would definitely understand.

I went back to my notes. Kirsten had mentioned that Azamara would pay for me to bring one guest with me. I wondered, would they consider letting me bring not just my husband but my daughters, too? I sent her an email asking. I suppose those would be my acceptance terms.

Kirsten took a while to reply. First, she asked me to give her a couple of days. Then, she needed a couple of more days.

What started as a simple question seemed to get more and more complicated. The vaccination policy on the ship was that anyone 5 or older needed to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to board the ship.

But my daughter was turning 5 while on the ship. And if you remember, vaccinations took two weeks to take. So it was a scientific impossibility for my 5-year-old child to be vaccinated. And therefore, impossible for her to board.

The policy was more than just something that could be waved away with a magic wand, no matter how godmotherly I was. It was a question of public health at a time when the industry had been ripped to pieces. I understood, and appreciated, the cruise line’s commitment to safety, despite how personally affected I may have been by this rule, no matter how arbitrary it seemed.

What was the difference between four years and 364 days and five years and 2 days? Apparently, everything.

This is what inclusion looks like

Perhaps it’s been a big build-up, but I wanted to give you important context about a story about inclusion that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Because here’s what happened next.

Kirsten took my problem straight to Azamara’s C-Suite. Their highest level executives, in partnership with their President (the amazing Carol Cabezas at the time), took empathy with my issue. Many of them were parents themselves. On the one hand, they could have said, “well, we gave it a shot, and she said no, so we’ll just pick the next person in line.”

What was interesting was that they didn’t.

Instead, what they identified was not a mom who wanted to be with her family, but a systemic issue that prevented me from saying yes. The question became not just about creating equal opportunities, but adjusting the playing field so that each person offered an opportunity had the equal ability to accept it. Instead of saying, “well, we offered her the gig, and she declined,” they said, “what are the barriers that are keeping her from saying yes, and what role can we play in helping to remove them?”

That, my friends, is what real equity and inclusion are about.

Kirsten reached back to to me a week later with a master plan:

• My family, including my husband, two kids, and my mother-in-law, Gladyse, would fly with me to Nice, France.

• We would take a private car to Monaco, where my family would be put up at the Fairmont Monte Carlo and be given free tickets to the E-Prix happening that weekend.

• Meanwhile, I would get them settled, celebrate Nora’s 5th birthday with her, and the next day take a separate car to Marseille.

• The ship — my future goddaughter, the Azamara Onward — would reroute her journey to pick me up in Marseille — the sole person boarding the ship — then proceed with me onto a pre-christening cruise around Italy, then return to Monte Carlo for the christening.

• At that point, my family would be seated outside where they’d be able to watch the christening ceremony with the other guests.

They had literally rebuilt an itinerary and rerouted a cruise ship so that I could be there. They gave my family the vacation of their lifetime. And the Fairmont Monte Carlo even surprised Nora with an elegant chocolate ganache cake for her birthday.

The question, “how in the world did I get here?,” wasn’t just a stroke of imposter syndrome (though that certainly played into it, I mean, I’m definitely no Sophia Loren!). But it was also a feeling of complete awe.

It wasn’t just about saying yes to an opportunity. It was about working hand-in-hand with a team of people who made it possible to say yes in the first place.

I may have been the godmother that day, but in a lot of ways, after cruising around coastal Italy, sipping wine while gazing at a hillside covered in vines, and swimming at a rooftop pool with Monte Carlo surrounding me, I felt like the one who had been godmothered.

It turns out that the Azamara Onward wasn’t a new ship, per se. The ship had been built in 2007, the same time that I was studying abroad in Portugal and meeting a new version of myself. The Onward’s 2022 christening celebrated her rebirth into a new cruise line, which came with a new name and a massive renovation.

But she wasn’t the only girl who had felt reborn.

With her, I learned so many lessons: the importance of asking for what you need. The importance of being flexible and riding the waves. The importance of finding our roles in lifting others’ barriers, and our responsibility to help.

Our commitment to lifting voices in travel, especially underrepresented voices, doesn’t always start with just offering up the opportunity. Inclusion is not a generic policy. It is personal, and specific. It may be adjusted, or customized. It is about honoring the whole person.

I’m having these reflections because later this week my goddaughter, the Onward, and I are reuniting.

One of the perks of being a godmother is that you get a free cruise to use sometime in the next ten years — in my case, two free cruises. Since christening her in 2022, I haven’t actually sailed with her. But in honor of my 40th birthday and my husband Marvin’s 40th birthday (both this year), we’re taking an intensive Croatia cruise together (these intensive cruises are something that Azamara does best: it’ll stop at many different ports within one country, so you get to have a deeper understanding of the place rather than other cruise lines that stop in one place and move onto the next destination).

It’ll be my first time boarding the ship since we met each other three years ago.

In between, she has traveled the world. I’ve evolved too. I wonder what lessons I will teach her when we are reunited again.

My friend’s group text reaches 15 of us; some names I recognize, others I don’t. Within hours, we meander to her front porch to pick out fresh cartons of colorful eggs.

And when I say colorful I mean — you would think these were dyed for Easter. They’re robin’s egg blue and dusty rose and mint green and chestnut brown and a golden speckled taupe. They came out of my friend’s friend’s 60 chickens that he raises himself in a farm outside Boston. We urban dwellers reap the benefits, descending to her front porch like hungry children hearing the word “cake” at a birthday party.

Then I ask myself: Whenever did I become a person who cared so much about eggs?

In the earliest years of my professional life, I wondered if I would travel forever.

I couldn’t get enough of it. My family had never been a luxurious travel family, so a career in international development worked well for me in my 20s. It turns out, sleeping underneath a dining table with 15 cousins on Cape Cod would perfectly prepare me for a career of sleeping in creaky houses by the ocean and on cement floors with tin roofs and in cars that bounced over potholes on 9-hour drives.

I wasn’t aware of a type of travel that would involve hotels and hospitality. For me, travel was riding motorcycles through Sao Tome and Principe, eating fresh jackfruit sold from a woman sitting on a blanket, hunting for a Thanksgiving turkey on a tropical island, and learning how to eat a mango the “clean” way by biting off a corner and sucking the sweet juice out. These were the things that shaped my earliest years of adulthood. When I started to build an audience with my travel blog, I came to identify myself through the eyes of my community and my readers. Someone who was here to see and engage in and be part of the world. A girl who never had both feet on the ground. The one with whom a phone call would always begin with, “so, where are you these days?”

I think many travel creators find themselves in a struggle between internal self and projected brand.

We’re known as “the travelers,” so who are we to be attending school board meetings and buying tortilla chips at a Stop & Shop? The Instagram algorithm doesn’t want to see me taking my car to get registered and sitting in the DMV for three hours. So I curate my feed to present the person and the professional persona that can be succinctly digested and understood. This isn’t something that the algorithm invented. Instagram wasn’t the first time someone was shocked to see a celebrity at the grocery store. It just escalated it. Now even non-celebrities have public personas to keep up.

So when a traveler decides she wants to put down roots, it doesn’t feel like Tuesday. It feels like a professional declaration.

Just like a plant, growing roots happens slowly. Maybe in the beginning they’re tiny little things that can be pulled out of the ground at a moment’s notice. But maybe over time they get a little bit stronger. And the more you water them, the more they grow.

My roots grew a little bit with each watering I gave them.

Meeting my husband. Having our first child. Buying a house. Each of these happened slowly, over 15 years. I still loved to travel; that feeling never left me. But each return felt sweeter. With each return, I had more to return to.

In 2021, at the tail end of the pandemic, I found myself planting my biggest roots yet: I became the owner of a local coffee shop. Up until then I had had no experience in restaurant management. But something pulled at me. Something deep in my bones. I wanted to create a space of deep, rich, belonging. Not just online like with Wanderful, but in person.

As a community builder and a restaurant owner, I came to understand the importance of physical presence; of being in the same space as another person. During the pandemic, it was what us travelers missed the most. And afterward, it was what brought people into our doors at the cafe. A desire not just to be seen, but to be felt.

I don’t think I’m even close to the only person who feels this way. I think we as a society are coming to a tipping point where we genuinely miss each other. We miss simply being with each other.

I’ve seen a narrative lately among some of the other “OG travel bloggers” — people buying houses, “settling down” as their next big adventure. For so long, settling felt like the thing we avoided, rather than wanted. Perhaps we believed that when we stopped moving we would stop growing. But in a funny way, it’s been the opposite. Sometimes, when I stop moving, I’m able to actually take a look around.

Maybe you’ve felt this way at some point. You thought that settling down was a giving up.

But as much as I love to move, I also love to return home.

I love to create cozy spaces, grow vegetables, bake fresh bread in my kitchen. I love meeting new people and new cultures and exploring the world and I also love creating deeply embedded community and a connective tissue that can only happen when you invest in a place with your time, energy, and love. I realized I have become a lover of places, especially places with heart. Places that people put their heart into.

Have you ever thought about the fact that travel and home don’t have to be at odds with each other?

Actually, they can work together quite beautifully. In fact, they can make each other richer. When I am traveling non-stop, nothing feels better than coming home. When I have had enough of the stillness and quiet, booking a trip feels exhilarating. And even on these journeys, moments of the other will season my experience like sea salt on a chocolate chip cookie.

My favorite travels are the ones where I live a day in someone else’s life, staying in a real home, or eating a home-cooked meal, immersing myself in a day of regular life in a new place. And some of my favorite moments at home happen when I explore new neighborhoods or discover something different about a place I thought I knew.

You see? Maybe travel and home are more interconnected than we thought.

Perhaps it’s not about growing roots and wings, but roots and branches.

Parts of ourselves that reach deeply into the earth, seeking nourishment and stability and community with the thousands of organisms underneath. And the other parts reaching into the sky, seeing and creating new things, extending ourselves into new experiences we’ve never seen before.

The thing that gardeners know about roots and branches is that they actually work together in secret. The bigger your branches are up in the air, the bigger your roots are underground. Perhaps seeking deep roots isn’t at odds with a traveling life at all. Perhaps it makes it richer.

Perhaps my delight at receiving colorful eggs isn’t just because I’ve succumbed to the fate of the average American housewife. Perhaps it’s exactly the opposite.

Maybe I love them because I’ve tasted an egg straight from a farm in Portugal, its yolk shockingly orange and glistening. Maybe I delight in my vegetable garden because I’ve walked a cacao farm in Puerto Rico, and picked pineapple in Sao Miguel. Maybe my wonder at home is enhanced by my wonder of the world. And maybe, knowing first-hand the work it takes to create community and to build culture allows me to marvel at the many thousands of ways culture has been built and rebuilt over time on this earth.

Let’s keep the conversation going.

Drop a comment and tell me how you feel: roots, branches, or both?

Leave a comment

Last week I sat around a table with 18 other passionate, thoughtful women who had been nominated for a Bessie Award, a prestigious award honoring a person or brand contributing to elevating women in travel, named after Bessie Coleman. We sat in front of gorgeous plates of duck and halibut and told our life stories: the things we were proud of, the things we feared. We cried at least twice. Some multiple times. When we finished, we walked to the award show together.

Later one of the finalists commented to me that when she was getting ready for dinner, she was secretly praying that she’d win an award. But after dinner, she secretly prayed that another finalist would. What had happened in between was a chance to see each other honestly, to know what we had struggled through, and the development of a beautiful empathy that I often see with women. the very thing we'd been told throughout our careers was our weakness turned out, at that dinner table, to be our greatest strength.

The Bessies finalist dinner is part of the annual WITS Creator Summit (or the Women in Travel Summit if you want to use the full acronym). Every year since 2014, 500+ travel content creators and entrepreneurs gather together to talk about the future of the travel industry, the developments of the creator economy, and the paths forward in entrepreneurship and business. What makes this different from any other creator event is that it’s about 99% women.

The reality is this: in travel and tourism, women make 85% of consumer purchasing decisions, and yet are in the strict minority when it comes to executive decision-making power. In the media, the women represented are young and white. In an era where women are only 22-30% of the AI workforce and just 12% of AI researchers, that also means that AI search is becoming more and more male-centric. When a consumer is pulling up a query about where to go or what to do there, that consumer is most likely to be a woman. But the advice they’re getting is being fed to them by a white man.

But for one weekend, that terrifying dichotomy is put on hold at an event that feels like Barbie land. And when I say that, I don’t mean hyper-feminine pink plastic. I mean the matriarchal, feminist utopia where the default culture is carved by women. Where women make up the majority of leadership and power, where the vibe is collaborative (versus the ‘fighting over the single seat at the table’ that women are often socialized to accept), and where women dress to impress…well…themselves (we once had a complaint that there were “too many florals” at our conference. That is my most favorite complaint I’ve ever received to date).

Why women’s spaces matter

I owe a lot of credit for my passion in creating women’s spaces to going to a women’s college. When I was accepted to Wellesley, I didn’t think that would change my life, but it did. But it didn’t hit me as much while I was there. It actually hit me when I left.

In college, I was on the crew team. I remember being asked to help with hard physical tasks — moving boxes around campus, for example — because we were known to be the physically strongest people around.

When I graduated and moved to DC, I was shocked when men would insist on helping me with things. They’d grab boxes out of my hands, or insist on helping me with doors or installing air conditioners. I know it came from a kind place, but I was shocked by the distinct difference. At Wellesley, we didn’t have men to suddenly default to. We just looked for the strongest person. When I moved to DC, it was as if something that I felt was part of my identity (being physically strong) was suddenly taken from me. The gendered expectations had been nearly nonexistent in college. Suddenly, they were everywhere.

I realized the power of women’s spaces — not just as a place where women are leaders and decision-makers, but where women are expected to do things that we often attribute to cis men. Where our gender doesn’t immediately categorize us into buckets of ability. Where we are considered people first. When that happens, we break down barriers. We create opportunities. And we give women spaces of belonging where they previously felt shut out.

At WITS, that feeling goes deep. At our recent WITS in Chattanooga, women floated on air, experiencing an event that was no less importantly about building businesses and making money, but also created a vibe that was collectively nurturing, supportive, and uplifting. We created spaces where women could be unequivocally themselves. The entire audience cried at least twice. In a world that tells us that emotion is weakening, we discovered that emotion is empathy and strength.

In the US, women’s spaces are under attack.

In February 2026, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Coca-Cola for hosting a women-only networking and career development event. The event was a two-day trip to the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut in September 2024, attended by about 250 employees. The EEOC marked it as sex discrimination.

This isn’t the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last time, that an organization gets targeted like this. I still remember when the organization Ladies Get Paid, which was founded to help close the gender wage gap, was sued for gender discrimination by a men’s rights group in 2018. They were forced to open their doors to men. When they did, men never even showed up.

While I conceptually understand the purpose of gender discrimination laws, this is a great example of how the reality is much more nuanced. Spaces that cater to marginalized identity groups are created in order to help correct broken and unjust systems. Women now earn $0.82 for every dollar earned by men. That gap is actually widening. Last year it was $0.83. Over a 40-year career, that’s $1 million in lost earnings.

A McKinsey study found that for the 11th consecutive year, women remain underrepresented at every level of the corporate pipeline. They hold just 29% of C-suite roles, which is unchanged from 2024. In tourism, women make up 54% of the travel and hospitality workforce, but hold only 33% of board positions.

Creating spaces for women isn’t about creating unfair advantages. It’s about setting systems right.

What you can do about it

The good news is that we have more power than we think. And a lot of it lives right in our thumbs.

Every time you scroll past a woman creator without engaging, the algorithm reads that as disinterest. Every time you click, save, share, or comment, you’re casting a vote for what gets surfaced next. In an era where AI is learning what travel looks like from the content we collectively engage with, that’s not a small thing. Women make up 85% of travel’s consumer base. We should be shaping what travel looks like on the internet, too.

So here’s where to start:

• Diversify your feed, intentionally. Follow women travel creators, especially women of color, older women, disabled women, queer women -- the ones the algorithm is least likely to surface on its own. Engage with their content meaningfully. This is one of the lowest-effort, highest-impact things you can do. A good place to start is our list of content creators to follow.

• Spend like it matters. Book women-owned tours. Stay at women-owned properties. Hire women photographers, guides, fixers. Every dollar is a signal. Use our woman-owned map to find and contribute woman-owned businesses to the directory.

• Defend women’s spaces when they come under attack. When you see stories like the Coca-Cola lawsuit, don’t scroll past. Write a letter. Share the story. Support the organizations being targeted. Staying silent is a choice too.

• Show up in women’s spaces yourself. Attend events. Join communities. Be present. The more we normalize these spaces, the harder they become to dismantle.

Last week, 18 women sat around a table and told each other the truth about their lives. By the end of the night, something had shifted. The woman who had been quietly hoping to win an award found herself hoping someone else would instead. That’s what happens when we actually see each other.

Imagine if every woman you know had a table like that.

That’s precisely the future we believe in.

13 years ago today, I took a little travel blog and turned it into a company. If you add to that the four years of life it lived before we incorporated, it means I’ve spent nearly two decades building something in an industry that didn’t have a name, a category, or a business model when I started it.

The creator economy didn’t exist. We were just bloggers: a scrappy crew of women writing first-person stories from around the world, making $2 PayPal deposits and thinking that was pretty exciting.

Today, that blog is my full-time job and, in many ways, my life’s work. It’s monetized through a major creator summit, brand collaborations and marketing campaigns, a membership community, and group trips. And it’s launched other projects of its own, from an award show, to a festival, to an interactive map of woman-owned businesses to find and visit around the world, and yes, even a book.

It’s hard for me sometimes to answer the question of how old this business is. It may be 13 today, but it existed for years before that — and changed shape for many years after. Like a lot of 13-year-olds (especially the human ones), it feels like it’s constantly evolving. Every time you turn around it’s become something else. Maybe that’s just being a teenager.

In honor of 13 years of figuring it out in public, I thought I’d share some of the lessons that I’ve picked up along the way, about entrepreneurship, about the creator economy, about our community, and about myself. I hope you can find them helpful, wherever you are on your journey.

1. The creator industry has grown from $0 to $32B in under 15 years. That kind of growth means a lot of things have evolved faster than we’ve been able to wrap our brains around them.

When Wanderful incorporated on May 22, 2013, the entire creator economy wasn’t tracked yet as an economic driver. Today I would tell you not to start a business without a business model, but the truth is, Wanderful had no business model. We were an online magazine (called Go Girl back then) that I had kicked off in 2009, sharing first-person stories of women’s experiences in the world. It was like a collaborative, online diary for 30 women living overseas that I literally found by posting a volunteer position on Craigslist.

Over time we began to monetize through the BlogHer Ad Network, which had been running since 2005 (how , and Lisa Stone even THOUGHT about this in 2005 goes beyond my comprehension, truly). Before you go “wow, monetization!” remember that monetization at that time looked like $2 payments that shot through my PayPal from time to time. But hey, that felt pretty good! It wasn’t everyday that you made money just for writing a blog. In fact, it had never happened before at all.

There’s not a lot of data about what the creator economy looked like in those early days. The term “creator economy” didn’t even exist. The earliest piece of data comes from Influencer Marketing Hub, which put the creator economy at about about $1.7B in 2016. Today, it’s about $32B. That’s some serious growth in a very short period of time. And a few places suggest that the travel creator industry is growing at about 12% per year.

I want to say all of this to illustrate a few things:

First of all, there’s a lot of spitballing and throwing spaghetti on the wall that happens in this industry. So if you feel like you’re spitballing too, don’t worry — that’s just the nature of the beast. Anyone who joins the creator industry today is hopping onto an accelerating train.

The second thing I want to illustrate is the fact that sometimes, when something grows and evolves as fast as the creator industry has grown and evolved, you lose the opportunity to grow with intention. An industry that was built on the principles of democratization and personal experience is in that same sentence often seen as over-transactionalized (yes I made up this word) and inauthentic. Is there a single other industry that can be seen as both completely disparate things at the exact same time? Welcome to the creator industry.

Sometimes, the way the creator industry has evolved is displeasing to me. It has become a place of binge consumption, fast content, unchecked “facts”, and a blurry line between what’s real and what’s sponsored. As a woman and a mom, I am concerned about the mental health implications of this industry: the trolling and bullying, the endless perfectionism (through tools like filters but also through broader principles like curation and selective storytelling), the performing, the fact that everyone now has a real-life presence as well as a “brand”.

But the person who hopped on this train 20 years ago (my very first blog was a Blogspot blog I started in 2006 while I was studying abroad in Portugal), I also feel at least partially responsible for helping this industry become what it was originally intended to be: a place where people of various intersections of identity could feel seen; a place where points of view that weren’t the dominant narrative could be given a platform; a place where we could elevate and highlight women and other people who, up until that point, had been more objects of the travel industry, rather than the main characters. That’s still worth fighting for.

I believe we still have the opportunity to steer this industry in the right direction, and I believe that happens with grace, heart, and having real discussions about the future that we want.

2. I thought getting an MBA would make me a better business person. It has, but not in the way I expected.

I never thought I’d end up in business school. I was an art history major who had suddenly found herself overseas working in international development. It felt about as far from business as one could get.

Somewhere along the way, my interest in social impact and improving our world made me wonder why so many non-profits seemed to struggle financially. I went to business school in 2009 to see if I could find an answer to that. I studied entrepreneurship and social enterprise at Kellogg, and one year in, I realized that the blog I had been working on as a side project was actually a growing business.

You may think that the finance and accounting classes did me a lot of good, but the truth is that my business (not to mention the entire creator industry, as referenced above) was so new that I mostly took away larger concepts and frameworks that I used later.

The thing I really took away, though, was confidence.

I think there had always been a little part of me that wondered if everyone knew more about business than I did. But when I found myself in situations where the business part got really hard, I had earned enough confidence to give myself grace. I could tell myself, “if I can’t figure this out, it’s not because I’m missing something — it’s because it’s actually really hard. And that’s okay.” That may seem like a funny thing to take away, but it was very “Everything is Figureoutable” for me. There’s so much power in realizing, “I’m smart enough and no, I’m not missing any key parts of this assignment.” There are others who might know more about some things than me, but there are other things that no one knows. And there’s a lot of learning we all have to do.

That singular piece of information, paired with the many hands-on lessons of entrepreneurship education, gave me the critical ingredients to brave an industry that was still evolving — and to give myself the permission along the way to evolve with it.

3. We are all literally making this up as we go

Becoming a cafe owner in 2021 cemented this for me more than the previous 10+ years, and an entire business school education, could have done.

First of all, cafes are hard, hard work. I still remember nights in the early years of Ula Cafe when I would wake up in a cold sweat wondering if I forgot to order eggs (if you forget to order eggs, there are not a ton of places where you can quickly pick up 30 dozen eggs at 6am, so this would be quite a tragic discovery).

But the thing that was refreshing about the restaurant industry was that we as a society had a social contract about how the restaurant would work. We all understood, to some degree, what we were buying, how it was being prepared, and what a fair cost would be. While some people still complain about a $7 latte (and yes, we can talk about the coffee industry, climate change, and supply and demand later), we all still understand that a latte is going to cost you somewhere in the space of $5-10. If someone charges you $100 for a latte, you simply won’t pay it, and they’ll go out of business.

The creator economy, though, is different.

I still remember a time when we had first started running creator campaigns, which we still often do for destinations that want to tell high-quality stories through a curated group of storytellers hand-picked by Wanderful.

I had asked for pricing from two different creators who had similar audiences and engagement rates. For the deliverables we were asking for, one creator quoted me $250. The other creator quoted me $7,500.

It was in that moment when I realized that we were (and still are, I believe) very much in the “wild west” of the creator industry.

While our social contracts are starting to firm up a bit more than before, there is still a lot of wiggle room in justifying your value. A lot of that is based on perceived ROI and gut feeling (the best sales prof I had in business school told me something that I’ll always remember: that everyone thinks they make decisions based on logic but they don’t. Everyone makes decisions based on emotion and they back it up with logic).

In many ways, creators have way more data to point to than, say, a billboard, which means that value should be easier to understand. But more information also seems to leave more questions. I remember getting on a call with a luxury island resort that charged upwards of $20,000/night for its guests. She said “Beth, if I sponsor your summit and give away a stay to one of your creators, can you guarantee that I’ll generate sales?” I gently replied that no, I couldn’t guarantee that. And neither could that billboard.

Being able to come to a clear ROI expectation feels like the holy grail of this industry. With the long-tail of travel and the many steps involved between inspiration and purchase (that simply don’t exist when you’re, say, buying a tube of toothpaste or a pack of diapers), I’m not sure how we’ll get there. But whoever can figure that out (or get the closest) will almost certainly win.

4. The businesses that last are the businesses that pivot. Products change, but community is forever.

Over the years I’ve been fortunate to teach business classes at Suffolk University and Wellesley College. One year I was asked to teach a family business class to undergrad students at Suffolk, and to be honest I didn’t know a whole lot about family business. I thought of them as old, crochety businesses with some dad as the head and the kids scrambling around them. A wise fellow professor told me that I only had to be one step ahead of my students, so I started to research.

The more I started learning about family business, the more I loved the lessons that some of the oldest family businesses can teach us. Despite the fact that they may be viewed as more traditional or old-fashioned, a family business that has been around for 100 years has had to pivot tremendously in order to stay relevant as markets evolved. The one thing you cannot do as a business is stay stagnant and keep offering the same thing (or at least in the same way), because customer preferences, market influences, and other factors change.

Did you know Marriott (yes, like the giant hotel chain) started as a root beer stand in 1927? Or that Wrigley gum actually was a freebie you got after you bought their baking powder (which, interestingly, started as a freebie when you bought their soap)?

For years when I started Wanderful, I struggled with the fact that we weren’t just one thing. What Wanderful was offering wasn’t an invention, or a SAAS product. We didn’t have one clearly defined product or service that we were selling. Instead we were a blog, which then evolved to a Facebook group and offline meetups. We started as a community of people that we started building products and services for, rather than a product or service that went looking for its market.

At the time I thought that was a weakness, but over the years I discovered that it was a strength. We always started with our people: kind, passionate women who wanted to see the world.

We had built a community when community business models didn’t really exist. What it allowed us to do, from a business perspective, was build a very diversified income portfolio that allowed market stability over the twists and turns of a very tumultuous travel industry. By being open, honest, and kind along the way, we were able to build a true community: an engaged and active group of people who wanted to buy what we sold, because we created things they valued and we trusted each other. It turns out that that was the best business “model” of all.

5. Mission-driven doesn’t mean you should ignore the money.

When we first incorporated, many people asked us if we were a non-profit. The concept of social enterprise has come a long way since then, but I do believe that we as a society are still pretty locked into this concept of for-profit: bad, non-profit: good.

So the natural deduction, when you see an organization that’s focused on uplifting women, reshaping the travel industry to be more equitable for women (that includes women who work in travel, women who are consumers of travel, and women who are affected by the travel and hospitality industries in their home cities and countries), you think, “oh okay, that’s a non-profit.”

But having worked in non-profits before, I was tired for the non-profit industry (yes I said “for” — I felt empathetically tired on behalf of the entire industry). It felt like it was always asking someone else for money. I wanted to create something that generated its own money, and was sustainable, and, with that strong foundation, do good things for people.

I will always feel that tension between doing good for this world and making sure our company is strong and profitable so it can continue to hire good people, pay them well, and have enough money left over to invest in impact. Rather than questioning a small business if it deserves to make a profit, I would like to see more businesses overall live in this tension. Because too much “profit at all costs” thinking and unchecked power is what has turned capitalism ugly. I believe in a world where profit and purpose can coexist.

6. As a creator, your identity will keep expanding, whether you’re ready or not.

Maybe you’re going to have an extremely long LinkedIn title. Maybe that’s because one definition won’t be enough for you anymore. But that’s the future of creation: you will create many things.

I know very few creators who do one thing anymore. I don’t know many people who are JUST on YouTube or JUST on Instagram or JUST writing books (if that’s you, congratulations — you’re really becoming unique!). So many of us are doing variations of multiple things.

Maybe you’re a content creator who primarily focuses on Instagram, but you’re also a travel advisor who can make bookings. Maybe you have an e-book, and a free course, which you use as a lead magnet, and paid course, which you monetize.

I’m a blogger, but I also run a community. I produce events. I’m an author. I own a cafe. I’m also a travel advisor (yep, sure am!). It reminds me of the Daniel Tiger song, “You Can Be More Than One Thing.” Maybe he was actually talking about travel creators. Or maybe Daniel Tiger just understood that we were entering a time in our world when doing more than one thing wouldn’t be the exception, but the norm. I always knew that little tiger was wise!

The key is not about taking on more and more. In fact, we should actively push against that, because every platform is another place vying for our attention. But equally important is letting yourself follow what you gravitate toward in the universe. When someone asks me if they should start something new, I am a very bad influence. I believe you have one life to live. So you might as well go all out.

7. Success and longevity are just about being stubborn enough to stick around.

If every decision point opened a different outcome for Wanderful (think the “Sliding Doors” of business if you will), then I believe there are many, many different outcomes where Wanderful is much more successful than it is. Maybe we figured something out faster, or marketed or priced it better. Maybe I went full-steam ahead on building a tech company like I thought I would in 2016. Maybe we raised a bunch of money.

I also believe there are an equally infinite number of outcomes where Wanderful is less successful as a business. Maybe it stayed a pet project and eventually succumbed to the gentle fade-out of blogging as more short-form content became the norm. Maybe it died during COVID, like many businesses did. Maybe I dropped it when I became a business owner, or had my first child, or when my husband left his job and I realized I needed to make more money.

People ask me sometimes how Wanderful has lasted as long as it did, and to me that feels like a trick question. I don’t think there’s any one thing I did “right” in order to keep Wanderful going. I believe there’s a lot I did wrong.

The key, then, has been more about being stubborn enough to stick around, even when the business was failing; to be creative enough to try something different when nothing like it had been done before; to be graceful enough with myself to know that I’d figure it out; and to be diversified enough to have a backup plan (and a backup to your backup, and a backup to that backup) so my risks were never my downfall.

To the Wanderful community who has followed along this journey and surfed this wave with me (whether you’ve been here since the beginning or only just joined recently), thank you.

To the few of you who signed up to be a paying member many years ago, in an era before online member communities even existed, but who paid anyway because they felt like maybe Beth would figure out what to do with it, it only took us about 10 years to get there, but the market righted itself. You are the real investors in the creator economy. Your willingness to take a leap is a lesson to the rest of us that where we put our attention and where we invest our dollars will lead us precisely to where the industry will go next. So let’s do it with thought, purpose, and an eye to a future we want.

Here’s to the next 13 years.

This year, ahead of WITS Chattanooga, I hosted a live panel with all three finalists in the Travel Startup of the Year category. We wanted to talk about the trends that were shaping the travel industry for the better. If I’m honest, I don’t always feel particularly good about the direction the travel industry is going. There’s a lot that seems overly transactional, extractive, and inauthentic about the way tourism is evolving.

Yet this conversation featured four intelligent women working on three really big businesses, and it was hard to not feel inspired, and maybe even a little bit excited, about an alternative future that’s within our grasp. One that’s about intentional growth, community-led initiatives, and people helping people. It was, in many ways, really beautiful.

Who was in the room

Tess Millhollon is the founder of HerHouse, a community of background-checked solo women travelers who host each other for free around the world. She’s also a published author and podcast host, and she started HerHouse with a Facebook group that “haunted her” for years before she finally built it.

Amanda and Asnath Kessy are sisters and co-founders of Still Waters Safaris in Tanzania. In an industry where the vast majority of safari companies are male-dominated or foreign-owned, they’re building something locally rooted, women-led, and deeply human. Their third sister works in operations. It’s a family affair in the best possible way.

Vanessa Karel is the founder of Greether, a marketplace that connects female travelers to local female guides in 130+ countries. The idea came from a scary solo experience in Morocco during the pandemic. When a local Moroccan woman helped her out, she thought: I wish I'd had this from the moment I landed. She went on to interview 500+ female travelers for a book she was writing, kept hearing the same story, and pivoted to building Greether instead.

The moments worth bookmarking

[00:01:40] — What the Bessies actually are For anyone new: I talk a little about the origin of the awards and why celebrating finalists matters just as much as announcing winners. “The people making this industry what it could and should be” deserve to be seen.

[00:05:34] — Tess introduces HerHouse HerHouse started as a Facebook group. It grew from there because the idea simply wouldn’t leave her alone. “God, just take this away from me. Give it to someone with more money. Give it to someone with more resources.” It didn’t go. She built it anyway.

[00:06:33] — Amanda & Asnath on Still Waters The safari industry in Tanzania is dominated by foreign and male-owned companies — and even growing up in a family of safari operators, the sisters saw the gap. They decided to fill it. (See also: the PIIE research below.)

[00:08:27] — Vanessa on founding Greether She didn’t set out to build a company. She was writing a book. Then she interviewed 500+ female travelers and kept hearing the same thing: I was alone, I didn’t know anyone, I was scared. She built what she needed. Now it’s in 130 countries.

[00:24:36] — The throughline none of them planned I noticed it mid-conversation and said it out loud: all three of these businesses are community-centered, not transaction-centered. They’re not selling flights and hotels. They’re selling belonging, safety, and real human connection. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think women are building a different kind of travel industry.

[00:27:03] — Greether as age-tech Vanessa mentioned something I hadn’t heard before: a growing segment of her users are women in their 60s and above who want companionship and a guide to help them navigate. She’s started calling the platform “age-tech” as a result. I love this framing.

[00:28:10] — Why women solo travel differently Tess said something I keep coming back to: “They’re wanting healing in their hearts.” Women aren’t just looking for a vacation. They’re often in a season of transition — post-divorce, post-loss, post-something — and they’re using travel as part of the work. That deserves to be built for.

[00:38:28] — Building while pregnant Tess shared that she’s five months pregnant while running HerHouse. And she named something real: being a founder in your childbearing years means carrying a mental load that most male founders never have to account for. “You’re a literal superhuman.” Yes. And also: we don’t talk about this enough.

[00:41:33] — “Slow growth is a much, much better business model” This is the moment I want to embroider on something. I went a little on a tangent here (classic me, I guess) but I meant every word of it. The “grow fast, raise VC, become a unicorn” model is a male-centric model. Slow, steady, intentional growth (and building something that fits your life, your resources, and your values) is not a consolation prize. It’s a strategy. Patagonia is an example I gave of a company with a founder who intentionally pushed back on fast growth. Why don’t we talk that more as the model, rather than the rule?

[00:44:21] — The advice round I asked each of them: what would you tell a woman who wants to start? Check out what they said.

The thing I keep thinking about

The “slow, steady, and intentional” framing came from the chat — someone in the audience said that’s how they’d describe their own approach, and the whole panel lit up around it. It’s the truth. And it runs so counter to how we teach entrepreneurship.

I went to business school. I was in the startup ecosystem. The message was always: grow fast, risk everything, or you’re not serious. That framing benefits people who have a safety net to fall back on. It benefits people who don’t have a baby coming in four months, or a family depending on them, or a community they refuse to exploit in the name of scale.

These founders are building differently. And the data backs them up.

BTW: During the webinar we talked about a landmark study from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. It covered 21,980 companies across 91 countries and found that moving from zero women in corporate leadership to a 30% female share is associated with a 15% increase in profitability for a typical firm. Yup, adding women to your team literally makes your company more profitable. How’s that for ROI?

Watch the 2026 Bessie Awards Live on YouTube

I meant what I said when I believe that each of these extraordinary women founders is already a winner in my book, but in case you want to experience the Bessies “live and in color,” we’ll be livestreaming the show on Instagram and YouTube. You can RSVP here on Eventbrite so you get a reminder and a livestream link when it’s time to watch. It’s all going down on Saturday, May 30th, 2026 at 8pm ET. RSVP here.

The Bessie Awards honor people and companies changing the landscape of travel for women worldwide. Learn more at bessieawards.org.

Yes, you — you sitting there at your desk with a steaming (or perhaps now lukewarm despite being microwaved three times) cup of coffee, you taking a moment before boarding your flight to scroll Substack, you checking your messages while riding the subway to a career that you like but don’t love (but is paying for your next trip to Central America so it’s all worth it). You’re a traveler in some definition of the word.

Maybe you’re constantly overseas so much that your closest friends have no idea where you are most of the time. Or maybe all you can afford is two meticulously planned weeks of time off that are strategically coordinated around three day weekends and major holidays.

Maybe you simply do that everyday when trying new restaurants or taking a new path home from work or encouraging your kids to say hi to the new neighbor. You’re a traveler too.

Well fellow traveler, it’s nice to meet you.

I’m new to Substack. Maybe you are, too (or maybe you’re an expert Substack user, in which case I’ll take all the help I can get).

Either way, I hope you find something new here that you haven’t found anywhere else. Maybe that’s a little grace with your journey. Maybe it’s some satisfaction that there are people out there who are even more scatterbrained than you are.

Or perhaps, if we’re lucky, it’s some new ways of thinking: about the travel industry, about how women are shaping our world, about entrepreneurship, social impact, and community building. You’d be surprised how much these seemingly dissimilar things are intertwined. And if you’re REALLY lucky, you might even get a recipe or two out of me.

So sorry, I must have forgotten myself. The first thing I should probably do is tell you a bit about who I am.

Meet Beth

In college, I was anointed with my lifelong nickname: Maximum Beth. I think it had something to do with the fact that I had my hands in basically everything: varsity crew, a cappella, the college radio station (shout out to WZLY 91.5 FM!), class council. I had a job at an investment management firm, an internship in public television, and still managed to make extremely creative and perfectly timed emails formatted with colors and images and music (you would press “play” on the soundtrack then hold down the scroll button and the contents of the email would progress in perfect sync with the song. I mean really, they were masterpieces).

I thought I would be a museum curator when I grew up. I did not think that I would be an entrepreneur, or that four years later I would find myself in business school, or that I would become a published author one day and spend large portions of my life encouraging people (especially women) to travel. I never thought I would own a coffee shop, or build a full-time career from a travel blog, or become really into sustainability and gardening (in fact, I hated the outdoors). But then life changed, as life does.

I wanted to start off with who I was rather than what I was, because I don’t know if we start our introductions that way enough as a society.

I remember studying abroad in Portugal (this was at a time when Americans didn’t really travel much to Portugal — my, how times have changed. But that’s another story!), and being so surprised that no one ever asked what anyone did for a living. Because what did they do? They were pig farmers. They made olive oil. They worked in offices.

It wasn’t their life exactly, not the way it is for Americans. It didn’t define them, the way “what do you do?” would come to define me.

And yet that small experience, of seeing life lived differently, was like a small acorn in my mind. Even as I moved on to study entrepreneurship and social enterprise in business school much later, even as I moved into the startup ecosystem where everyone’s vying to be the next unicorn, I was able to remember that not everyone thinks that way.

So here’s who I am: I’m the granddaughter of Maria and Margaret, two very similar and very different women. Maria grew up among the stone walls and olive groves of Portugal. She immigrated to the US alone, worked her ass off, and eventually brought her young family over to settle in Hartford, CT.

Margaret grew up in North Dakota farmland, worked overseas as a nurse before she met her husband in the “old maid” years of her 30s, and pursued a life of travel well into her mid-90s. She grew raspberries in her urban backyard (also in Hartford, where my parents met) and could not stay away from a Dollar Tree.

My grandmothers and I had a lot in common.

I couldn’t find a job out of college, so I moved on a whim to Washington, DC, interned at the Embassy of Portugal, and found myself on a flight to a small country called Sao Tome and Principe, a two-island Portuguese speaking nation off the west coast of Africa. That began a career in international development that I never expected but absolutely fell in love with, and a travel blog that I one day realized was actually a business that could become my life’s work.

Today I’m the founder of an international women’s travel community called Wanderful, which gathers women travelers, travel content creators, and entrepreneurs together in a virtual space as well as in local chapters around the world, on group trips, and to global conferences and festivals.

I’m the creator of the largest gathering of women travel creators, the WITS Creator Summit, which happens every year, and the annual Bessie Awards that honor the people and companies that are changing travel for women.

We’ve also started other cool projects like the world’s first interactive map of woman-owned businesses to find + visit (the Woman-Owned Map), and the 85 Percent Podcast, which highlights the stories of trailblazing women.

I most recently launched the NYC arm of She Shapes History with the brilliant and passionate Nikki Padilla Rivera; she publishes an awesome Substack featuring fascinating stories of women’s contributions to New York in a series called .

In my home city of Boston, my husband and I own a cafe called Ula Cafe, which gets to be the analog manifestation of so many of these values: community, dialogue, learning, and, of course, good food. I love being a business owner in travel and in hospitality.

In 2024, I published my first book: a solo travel guide and manifesto called Wander Woman: How to Reclaim Your Space, Find Your Voice, and Travel the World, Solo.

It was in publishing my book that I rediscovered my love of the long-form.

My entire career had started from blogging and long-form content, and yet social media had captured our attention spans and, as Oliver Burkeman explains so eloquently in his book, Four Thousand Weeks, moments of our lives.

In order to write my book with two kids at home and one on the way, I would get up before sun, because only then could I give myself the time it took to reach the deep level of thought I needed to write. But when I was doing it, I loved it. And knowing that people take the time to read what I wrote, just as I took time to write it, feels like the deepest level of respect.

That respect is what brings me to you.

En Route

En Route is a dispatch from someone who is always building — whether that’s exploring the deeper meaning of what it is to travel, questioning the impact of our businesses in an ever-changing world, or just trying to find a really good chocolate cake recipe (by the way, I found one. It’s excellent. I’ll share it soon.).

It’s not meant to be a transactional series. This isn’t fast food. This is slow content: musings of an ever-present travel founder, cafe owner, community cultivator, and mother who believes that travel is about so much more than just occupying space in the world — but our role in listening, learning, and helping our world become better in the process.

You can expect this series to share long-form musings and thoughts about trends in the travel industry and developments in my own entrepreneurial journey.

I’ll also use it for the other parts of our holistic lives: insights on work-life balance and growing while raising three children, favorite new books from a voracious reader, travel stories and more. While there’s a lot of “Beth talking” happening here, I want and expect you to show up in the comments section and to participate in polls. That’s how this gets really fun.

This newsletter is meant to be an ongoing conversation to discuss progress in an ongoing and unfinished way. That’s why it’s called en route — because we’re all still on the journey. Now, we can do it together.

For now, this is a free series that publishes when I can find a moment of focus. We’ll have to find out how often that ends up being.

Future Actions

If you like what you’re reading now, here’s what you can do next:

1. Hit “Subscribe” and make sure you’re getting updates when new posts come out.

   Subscribe now

2. Share this publication with someone else who you think would be interested in reading it. The more the merrier.

   Share En Route

3. Find me on my other channels for shorter, less rambly posts, like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and sometimes even YouTube.
   

4. Subscribe to Wanderful’s newsletter or join our member community for monthly entrepreneurship masterminds with me (at the Entrepreneur level)
   

5. Get a library card. I mean, this is really just life advice, because if you don’t have one yet you’re missing out so hard. Here are some of the books that I’ve read recently that I have absolutely loved and know you will too. I’ll share Bookshop link, which supports independent bookstores, but also you can just get these from the local library. In no particular order:
   

   1. The Future Is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon (currently reading now)

   2. The Overstory by Richard Powers (will change the way you think about trees for the rest of your life)

   3. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (unputdownable queer love story + space)

   4. Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman (so good I had to list it twice in this post)

   5. The Lioness of Boston by Emily Franklin (when people ask who I’d like to have dinner with dead or alive my answer is now Isabella Stewart Gardner)

   6. If you’ve gotten this far, comment with your favorite recent read so I can add it to my list and you’ll get a pony.*

Thanks so much for being here. Until next time.

*we are now sold out of ponies, sorry for the inconvenience

Hear Catarina Rivera's empowering solo adventure in Montreal, Alexa West's perspective on navigating travel fears with safety in mind, and Nikki Vargas' poignant revelation at Iguazu Falls.

We're also celebrating the impact of the Bessie Awards and women's influence in travel decisions. Join us as we explore these personal narratives, challenge perceptions of travel, and honor the voices shaping the industry.

So, grab a coffee, settle in, and let's embark on this journey together down memory lane to recap season 2!

Honorable Mentions

Wander Woman - Travel Book

Wanderful Community

B & H Photo Digital

85 Percent: A Wanderful Podcast

💼🚺♀️ 👵🏼👩🏽‍🦱✈️🚢🧳

This podcast is hosted by Beth Santos, founder and CEO of Wanderful and author of Wander Woman: How to Reclaim Your Space, Find Your Voice, and Travel the World, Solo. Beth has been recognized in Business Insider as one of 17 changemakers transforming the hospitality industry, and in Conde Nast Traveller as one of 12 inspiring people to follow. She's also the godmother to the Azamara Onward cruise ship, a cafe owner and a mom of three.

💼🚺♀️👩🏾👵🏼👩🏽‍🦱✈️🚢🧳

If you would love to connect with Beth, join her in these following spaces:

Website

LinkedIn

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

Have you been moved by what you heard in this week's episode of "85 Percent"? I invite you to leave an honest review of how this episode impacted you. Also, share this podcast with your travel buddy!

The 85 Percent Podcast intro, outro and transition music is named Nothing Just Happens by lemonmusicstudio and was found on Pixabay. Additional music and sound effects for this episode came from Soundstripe and/or Epidemic Sounds or is cited in the show notes. Crackers In Soup is the writer, audio editor and producer for this episode.

In this episode, I speak with Zina Bencheikh! Zina is a trailblazing executive from Intrepid Travel. Together, we delve into the transformative power of travel in empowering women and fostering cultural understanding. From Intrepid's innovative Women's Expeditions and the launch of Wanderful's Woman-Owned Map spotlighting women-owned businesses, to Zina's pioneering initiatives in Morocco and her evolving perspective on Saudi Arabia, this episode is packed with stories of inspiration and change.

With women making 85% of travel decisions, the potential for societal impact is immense. So, sit back and explore how travel can be a catalyst for challenging biases, supporting local communities, and amplifying women's voices across the globe. Join us in discussing how each travel decision can contribute to a more equitable world. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and follow us for more inspiring stories of changemakers in the travel industry.

Here are three key takeaways for you:

1. Empowering Women in Travel: With women making 85% of travel decisions, reinvesting in women-owned businesses can drive substantial social and economic impact. Initiatives like Intrepid's Women's Expeditions and Wanderful's Woman-Owned Map are pivotal steps in this direction.

2. Breaking Stereotypes: Travel allows us to challenge biases and explore cultures beyond perceptions. Zina's experiences in Saudi Arabia highlighted the changing dynamics for women, inspiring a fresh perspective on tourism in the region.

3. Community and Growth: Travel nurtures empathy and connection while empowering local communities. Zina's leadership in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region underscores the role of travel in fostering opportunities and uplifting communities.

Honorable Mentions

Wander Woman - Travel Book

Wanderful Community

B & H Photo Digital

85 Percent: A Wanderful Podcast

Follow Intrepid Travel in these spaces:

Website: https://www.intrepidtravel.com/us

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intrepidtravel/

💼🚺♀️ 👵🏼👩🏽‍🦱✈️🚢🧳

This podcast is hosted by Beth Santos, founder and CEO of Wanderful and author of Wander Woman: How to Reclaim Your Space, Find Your Voice, and Travel the World, Solo. Beth has been recognized in Business Insider as one of 17 changemakers transforming the hospitality industry, and in Conde Nast Traveller as one of 12 inspiring people to follow. She's also the godmother to the Azamara Onward cruise ship, a cafe owner and a mom of three.

💼🚺♀️👩🏾👵🏼👩🏽‍🦱✈️🚢🧳

If you would love to connect with Beth, join her in these following spaces:

Website

LinkedIn

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

Have you been moved by what you heard in this week's episode of "85 Percent"? I invite you to leave an honest review of how this episode impacted you. Also, share this podcast with your travel buddy!

The 85 Percent Podcast intro, outro and transition music is named Nothing Just Happens by lemonmusicstudio and was found on Pixabay. Additional music and sound effects for this episode came from Soundstripe and/or Epidemic Sounds or is cited in the show notes. Crackers In Soup is the writer, audio editor and producer for this episode.

In this episode, I speak with Kim Callender and Arabella Bowen, the co-founders of **SoloTrvlr**, a travel app designed to empower women by providing trusted, local advice for solo adventures. With backgrounds in tech and travel, they bring a wealth of experience to the platform. Arabella, formerly a leader at Fodor's Travel and AFAR, was inspired by her transformative solo journey through Southeast Asia. Kim, who previously worked at Google, founded SoloTrvlr to address the gap in solutions for solo women travelers. Together, they aim to make independent travel more accessible, confident, and bold for women worldwide.

Join me as we journey through Arabella's adventures of adapting to the bustling streets of Hanoi, discovering the joy in simple moments, and how these experiences inspired a career advocating for women travelers. Meanwhile, Kim shares her first trip to Belize, detailing how unexpected challenges taught her adaptability and self-trust, eventually leading her to create a startup that champions women traveling independently.

We also explore deeper topics like the role of solo travel in fostering cultural understanding and personal growth.

Finally, I invite you to support our community in Lebanon right now and donate to Tourleb. They will use the funds to:

1. Support their team members by continuing to pay them a small salary despite the lack of tourism right now;

2. Support families by buying locally and redistributing necessary products to those in need;

3. Help the NGOs, hospitals, and Red Cross (whom they trust) who are receiving displaced people;

4. Evaluate case by case to support families, children, and rescuers as needed.

Honorable Mentions

Wander Woman - Travel Book

Wanderful Community

B & H Photo Digital

85 Percent: A Wanderful Podcast

Respectful Tourism with Joelle Sfeir and Nada Raphael of Tourleb

TourLeb's PayPal: Paypal.me/aaychin

Follow Solo Trvlr App in these spaces:

Website: https://www.solotrvlr.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solotrvlrapp

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/solotrvlr/

💼🚺♀️ 👵🏼👩🏽‍🦱✈️🚢🧳

This podcast is hosted by Beth Santos, founder and CEO of Wanderful and author of Wander Woman: How to Reclaim Your Space, Find Your Voice, and Travel the World, Solo. Beth has been recognized in Business Insider as one of 17 changemakers transforming the hospitality industry, and in Conde Nast Traveller as one of 12 inspiring people to follow. She's also the godmother to the Azamara Onward cruise ship, a cafe owner and a mom of three.

💼🚺♀️👩🏾👵🏼👩🏽‍🦱✈️🚢🧳

If you would love to connect with Beth, join her in these following spaces:

Website

LinkedIn

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

Have you been moved by what you heard in this week's episode of "85 Percent"? I invite you to leave an honest review of how this episode impacted you. Also, share this podcast with your travel buddy!

The 85 Percent Podcast intro, outro and transition music is named Nothing Just Happens by lemonmusicstudio and was found on Pixabay. Additional music and sound effects for this episode came from Soundstripe and/or Epidemic Sounds or is cited in the show notes. Crackers In Soup is the writer, audio editor and producer for this episode.

Join us as we explore Vanessa's remarkable journey from her Dominican roots to trailblazing travel inclusivity for the Latine community through her initiatives, "Latino World Travelers" and the "Latino Travel Fest."

We'll also be hearing from Lisa Verbeck, founder of Verbeck Consulting, as she shares her insights on impactful tourism.

Plus, we're inviting you, our listeners, to share your profound travel tales that altered your worldview. So hit subscribe, and let's embark on this journey of discovery and empowerment together!

Honorable Mentions

Wander Woman - Travel Book

Wanderful Community

B & H Photo Digital

Lisa Verbeck

Follow Vanessa in these spaces:

Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessafondeuradams/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/latinaworldtraveler/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/latinoworldtravelers/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/latinotravelfest/

💼🚺♀️ 👵🏼👩🏽‍🦱✈️🚢🧳

This podcast is hosted by Beth Santos, founder and CEO of Wanderful and author of Wander Woman: How to Reclaim Your Space, Find Your Voice, and Travel the World, Solo. Beth has been recognized in Business Insider as one of 17 changemakers transforming the hospitality industry, and in Conde Nast Traveller as one of 12 inspiring people to follow. She's also the godmother to the Azamara Onward cruise ship, a cafe owner and a mom of three.

💼🚺♀️👩🏾👵🏼👩🏽‍🦱✈️🚢🧳

If you would love to connect with Beth, join her in these following spaces:

Website

LinkedIn

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

Have you been moved by what you heard in this week's episode of "85 Percent"? I invite you to leave an honest review of how this episode impacted you. Also, share this podcast with your travel buddy!

The 85 Percent Podcast intro, outro and transition music is named Nothing Just Happens by lemonmusicstudio and was found on Pixabay. Additional music and sound effects for this episode came from Soundstripe and/or Epidemic Sounds or is cited in the show notes. Crackers In Soup is the writer, audio editor and producer for this episode.

Don't miss it! Catch the full episode on your favorite podcast platform.

Honorable Mentions

Wander Woman - Travel Book

Wanderful Community

B & H Photo Digital

Kids Are a Trip

Groups Are a Trip

Follow Alexa in these spaces:

Website: https://alexa-west.com/

Alexa's new podcast: https://www.truecrimetravelers.com/quick-links

💼🚺♀️ 👵🏼👩🏽‍🦱✈️🚢🧳

This podcast is hosted by Beth Santos, founder and CEO of Wanderful and author of Wander Woman: How to Reclaim Your Space, Find Your Voice, and Travel the World, Solo. Beth has been recognized in Business Insider as one of 17 changemakers transforming the hospitality industry, and in Conde Nast Traveller as one of 12 inspiring people to follow. She's also the godmother to the Azamara Onward cruise ship, a cafe owner and a mom of three.

💼🚺♀️👩🏾👵🏼👩🏽‍🦱✈️🚢🧳

If you would love to connect with Beth, join her in these following spaces:

Website

LinkedIn

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

Have you been moved by what you heard in this week's episode of "85 Percent"? I invite you to leave an honest review of how this episode impacted you. Also, share this podcast with your travel buddy!

The 85 Percent Podcast intro, outro and transition music is named Nothing Just Happens by lemonmusicstudio and was found on Pixabay. Additional music and sound effects for this episode came from Soundstripe and/or Epidemic Sounds or is cited in the show notes. Crackers In Soup is the writer, audio editor and producer for this episode.

Join us as Catarina talks about her journey of acceptance, the significance of accessible travel, and her mission to make the world more inclusive for those with disabilities.

Honorable Mentions

Wander Woman - Travel Book

Wanderful Community

B & H Photo Digital

Margie Jordan

Follow Catarina in these spaces:

Website: https://www.catarinarivera.com/media-kit

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blindishlatina/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catarinarivera/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/catarinarivera

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blindishlatina

Website: https://www.catarinarivera.com/

Speaker Reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obt6CRq5VHw

TEDx Talk: https://youtu.be/wbXxhuraJsE

Download free accessibility eBook: https://www.catarinarivera.com/freeebook

Join my newsletter: https://catarinarivera.ck.page/newsletter

💼🚺♀️ 👵🏼👩🏽‍🦱✈️🚢🧳

This podcast is hosted by Beth Santos, founder and CEO of Wanderful and author of Wander Woman: How to Reclaim Your Space, Find Your Voice, and Travel the World, Solo. Beth has been recognized in Business Insider as one of 17 changemakers transforming the hospitality industry, and in Conde Nast Traveller as one of 12 inspiring people to follow. She's also the godmother to the Azamara Onward cruise ship, a cafe owner and a mom of three.

💼🚺♀️👩🏾👵🏼👩🏽‍🦱✈️🚢🧳

If you would love to connect with Beth, join her in these following spaces:

Website

LinkedIn

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

Have you been moved by what you heard in this week's episode of "85 Percent"? I invite you to leave an honest review of how this episode impacted you. Also, share this podcast with your travel buddy!

The 85 Percent Podcast intro, outro and transition music is named Nothing Just Happens by lemonmusicstudio and was found on Pixabay. Additional music and sound effects for this episode came from Soundstripe and/or Epidemic Sounds or is cited in the show notes. Crackers In Soup is the writer, audio editor and producer for this episode.