Curated Travel Experiences,

Not Tours.

Every spare minute — and dollar — I get my hands on goes to travel. As soon as my good friend Donna moved to Paris, I started hanging out there a lot. Soon we were organizing group trips, first for friends, and now for people who would soon be our friends (like you).

I love getting to know a city beyond the usual tourist venues — the unknown and quirky museums, the grand parks, the places where only the locals eat, the cafés where cats share your table (not for the allergic, of course), the little streets with the trendy shops or just where to get a spectacular cup of coffee.

My travels in the last few years have taken me to France over and over again. Some of my other favorite trips have been to Italy, South Africa, Morocco, Spain, Ethiopia, England, Namibia, India, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Thailand, Algeria, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Germany — and lots more. I walked across England by myself twice, and I’ve hiked in the Sahara, the Amazon and all over Europe.

Gary and I work together in our talent development company, and I’ve been designing and facilitating group experiences for ages. But my first love has always been travel — and making sure that everybody on the trip is having a great time.

Sheila and I met at Johns Hopkins where she was teaching a marketing class (she’s worn many hats) and I was working on a MBA. She needed an assistant and I needed a job. Turned out to be a good match and lasting friendship. I helped her organise the hiking trips she was doing at the time and eventually joined her for a few. Those were good times and she kept journals that are sure fun to read today.

After I moved to Paris and created Best Friend in Paris, (actually, it was Sheila who came up with the name for my business and helped me get it up and running), Sheila came up with the concept of doing small group trips together. We pitched our idea to Politics & Prose and were off and running. I am so grateful to all the people who have trusted us with their time and money over the years. We’ve had so many wonderful people join us and I hope that if you’re reading this, we will be meeting soon!

Vacation planning is just part of my DNA. Even as a child you could find me consulting with my parents on our family trips (Disney World was first up, of course).

I got my first taste of international travel when I signed up for a high school trip to France and Switzerland. I can still remember the feeling of my heart racing as we landed in Paris, knowing that a whole new world of travel exploration was about to open up. Since then I've had an insatiable appetite for travel and love exploring new cultures, cuisines, and making new friends along the way.

So far I've trekked to about twenty countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. And I'll be adding more to that list as we conduct research for new Wild Blue Yonder trips around the globe (not a bad gig, is it?)

I love creating new experiences for family and friends, whether we're exploring an exotic destination or just sipping a delicious bottle of wine in front of a spectacular sunset somewhere in the world.