So What Is It You Actually Do?
The six things that happen between "we're thinking maybe Italy?" and the morning you land with a phone that already knows where dinner is.
I get this question a lot. Usually at a dinner party, usually from a friend who plans her own trips and is very good at it. She's not being rude. She's curious, and a little skeptical, and it totally makes sense.
Before I started doing this, I didn't know travel agents were still a thing. I loved planning my own trips. I had the spreadsheets, the saved posts, the color-coded confirmations. If you had told me back then that I'd pay someone to do the part I enjoyed most, I would have laughed. So when a planner asks me what I actually do, I'm really answering the version of me from a few years ago.
Let me answer it with the morning that explains it best.
7am on a dock in Positano
The private boat is booked. Lunch on Capri is booked. It's the one day of the trip built around the Amalfi Coast, and at 7am the sky turns the color of a bruise.
What my client sees: a text before she's had coffee. "Change of plans today, and I think you'll like this one better." Boat moves to Thursday. Lunch becomes a long afternoon in Ravello looking out over the water she was supposed to be on.
What she doesn't see: the texts back and forth, with the captain, the restaurant, the driver, and the hotel all on different threads while she decides what to wear.
That's the dramatic version. Most of it is quieter and happens months earlier. Six things, in order:
1. The conversation that isn't about the trip. How you travel, what you dread, whether you're a 7am hike person or a 10am cappuccino person. (Dan's answer: indoors, air conditioned, and he'd like to know where dinner ahead of time.)
2. Your research, upgraded. Send me the Pinterest board, screenshots and lists. I keep what's right for you and guide you away from what isn't. The hotel your friend loved might be 40 minutes from everything you actually want.
3. The right week, not the obvious one. Every destination has a week when it's full, loud and three times as much, and then a week right next to it when the town is back to being itself. I call them the quiet corners. It's the reason I'm home this Labor Day.
4. The backup plan nobody sees. The boat is booked with a weather hold. The driver can flex. A storm is coming and whole day needs to be rearranged. The last thing you should be doing is standing on a dock making phone calls while the day slips away. When something shifts, I'm the one rearranging the pieces so you get to stay in it.
5. The perks you didn't know to ask for. The upgrade, the early check-in, the table by the window. These come from relationships, not booking sites. You could book the same room for the same price. You just wouldn't get the same room.
6. The itinerary that thinks for you. Every confirmation, address, and pickup time in one place on your phone. The only decisions left are red or white, and whether to go back for the second gelato. (Always yes.)
So, what do I actually do?
The parts you'd do if you had the time and the relationships, plus a few you wouldn't know to do at all. If you're a planner, you'll see exactly how much of your list I take off your hands. If you're not, you'll like it even more.
Ready to hand someone the logistics?
