The Advisor Who Has Actually Been There

Trevi Fountain

Most people come to me knowing they want to travel. Where exactly, how it should feel, and what they are actually willing to spend their time on. That part we work out together.

My path here was not conventional. I built a real career in nursing first, and studied philosophy, world literature, religion, psychology, and theatre along the way. Nursing teaches you to listen past what someone is saying to what they actually need. To ask the question beneath the question. I do that every day in this work, and I am convinced it is the most useful skill a travel advisor can have. I hold the highest certification from CLIA (Cruise Lines International Association), the CTA from the Travel Institute, and the VTA from ASTA (American Society of Travel Advisors). Not because I had to. Because I wanted to.

I travel extensively, and I plan from what I know firsthand. I have sailed Windstar through the Mediterranean in winter, with a James Beard Foundation chef in the galley and Barcelona's Carnival filling the streets on the morning we docked. I have been aboard Seabourn during Covid, 120 guests on a ship built for hundreds, with a police escort across St. Lucia that remains one of the more remarkable afternoons of my life. I have stood at the top of the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland and understood immediately why people plan entire trips around a single morning. I have walked the walled streets of Mdina in Malta, sat in the Hypogeum, and watched clients experience something that has no equivalent anywhere else on earth. Florence in February, with almost no one at the Accademia and the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore entirely to yourself at eight in the morning, is among the finest travel experiences I have ever had. I say that having been almost everywhere.

The work I do is genuinely wide. Luxury and expedition cruising, across the spectrum. Land journeys across Europe, where I have planned private chauffeured routes, small group tours, rail adventures through Italy, and river cruises through the Christmas markets of Germany. Mexico's exceptional resorts, where I know the difference between what photographs beautifully and what actually delivers. Culinary travel, which finds its way into nearly every itinerary I build, because I have learned that the table is where a destination stops performing and starts being honest. I have eaten my way through Trastevere, stood at a Palermo market at noon, discovered what socca actually tastes like fresh off the griddle in Nice, and had dinner at Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence, which remains a standard very few restaurants in the world meet.

The question I start every planning conversation with is not where do you want to go. It is how do you want to feel when you get there. That shift changes everything. Which hotel earns its place. Which day gets a full schedule and which one gets left deliberately open. Whether a private guide is the right call, or whether a well-chosen small group puts you at a table with people who will become part of the memory. Whether you want to wake up somewhere new every morning on a river ship, or stay long enough in one place to feel like you actually lived there for a week.

There is no virtue in an exhausting trip. The most remarkable travel I have seen my clients experience has almost always involved doing less than they originally planned, and going considerably deeper into what remained. If that philosophy resonates with you, I would enjoy the conversation.

Mershawn