While some types of travel will involve a planning fee (detailed in the next question), our primary value comes from knowing which travel suppliers offer the best quality experiences at affordable prices. Rather than spending hours researching and comparing countless options, our clients benefit from our expertise in selecting the right tours, small ship cruises, and international travel experiences that match their style and budget. We help you avoid costly mistakes and ensure you're booking with reputable companies that deliver excellent value.

Quick answer is anything that's not a packaged tour or cruise. We charge a planning fee for trips in which we will not receive enough commission to cover the cost of our time and expertise. We do not earn commission for airfare or Airbnbs. Commission for hotels, car rental, day tours and transportation are often quite small (unless you're a luxury traveler). When we create a trip proposal for you, we factor all of this into our estimate. Often, we will compare the cost of a packaged tour (which gives us commission) with a custom tour (including our fee) and let you know which is a better deal for you. It may sound complicated, but all the work is on us -- you just say "yes" or "no."

Traditional travel agents ONLY plan travel in which they can get commission. If their site says "no fee travel planning," that's your clue. And there's nothing wrong with this, it's an easier way to make money. But we know there are many ways to travel that often involve a more custom approach AND are sometimes cheaper (even with the fee). We never want to limit our clients, we want you to experience the world on YOUR TERMS. Which is why we're willing to work with any supplier (so long as they meet our standards) and why we are happy to design fully independent tours (if that's your best option).

Yes, we love helping you see the world aboard a ship! We specialize in small ships such as river cruises, expedition cruises and small craft luxury lines. We do NOT work with mega cruise ships. Our preferred partners include:

• River Cruises: AmaWaterways, Avalon, Scenic, Tauck, Viking & Uniworld
• Expedition: Atlas Ocean Voyages, Aurora Expeditions, Backroads Active Cruises, Coral Expeditions, Hurtigruten & HX, Lindblad National Geographic, Quark, Uncruise
• Luxury Small Ship: Cunard, Paul Gauguin, Ponant, Regent Seven Seas, Seabourn, Seadream Yacht Club, Silversea, Viking Ocean & Windstar
• We work with small, locally owned vessels as well. Such as a 9-passenger wooden boat in the Northwest Passage or small vessels on the Brahmaputra and Ganges rivers. There are many options beyond just the major cruise lines!

LOVE train travel, and of course you probably already know that we love traveling on foot! Yes, we absolutely can help you with any kind of travel on land, both domestic and abroad. If it's a destination we know personally, we may offer to design a completely tailor-made itinerary. Otherwise, we'll work with trusted partners on the ground who are experts for that destination, to ensure every part of your journey is spectacular!

In our first year officially offering this service, we planned a gap year in Australia for a talented young woman wanting to meet new people and explore opportunities abroad. We designed a fully custom girls getaway to Santa Fe, with opera tickets on opening night. We worked with a local partner in Sardinia to design a custom pilgrimage route. And we tailored an ocean cruise to Spain and Greece for a couple celebrating a special anniversary. For ourselves, we have planned MANY trips domestically and abroad, including some truly unique experiences in the Faroe Islands, Japan, Greece, Ireland, Austria, and Canada.

We love a good challenge, so we're happy to receive requests for all sorts of trips. That being said, there are a few requests which we will most likely always refer you to some other agent or resource. These include Disney, large cruise ships such as Carnival/RC/NCL, and destination weddings. We're not experts on these and there are plenty of excellent agents who are. We may also turn down some requests for domestic travel, when we feel it's not in your best interest to pay our planning fee. In these cases we know you can plan the trip on your own, and so we will offer helpful resources to help you save your hard earned cash.

Please do, we want you to feel comfortable working with us and confident enough to make a decision. We are always happy to answer questions, just know at some point we cannot give our time and advice away for free. We will tell you when that point comes and give you a choice to become our client or refer you to another resource.

This depends on whether or not we are booking a packaged tour/cruise or designing a custom trip. If there's no planning fee involved, your first payment will most likely be a deposit required by the tour company. This may or may not be refundable and we will always make that clear to you. If we are designing a completely custom itinerary, we will require payment upfront to cover our planning time. You'll have time to work with us to adjust the itinerary but we do need a firm commitment before doing all the work.

No, travel insurance is a personal choice and only you can decide what level of risk you are comfortable with. We WILL help you in determining what aspects of your trip are refundable vs non-refundable, what may already be covered by credit cards, and what you may need coverage for. If we determine that you should purchase insurance, we'll shop around and suggest the best option that meets your needs and budget. Full disclosure, we do earn commission on most trip insurance, but that will never be a reason for us to suggest you purchase it.