WHERE IT ALL BEGAN:
THE STORY BEHIND GALS ABROAD GETAWAYS
Gals Abroad Getaways started as a way to solve a common problem: BIG travel dreams but no one to go with.
I feel like we’ve all been there at some point in our lives (right?!).
You and your friends reach the stage in life when you’re all living in different cities, your lives are at different stages & you can barely find time to get together for drinks/coffee/dinner let alone a 7-day international adventure. But nevertheless, you float the idea of a great escape to [insert dreamy destination], and thus the Group Text of Doom begins.
Why is it called the Group Text of Doom? Well this is where you learn that NONE of your schedules sync up, your budgets are WILDLY different, your travel styles don’t align & you can’t seem to even agree on if you want to go island hopping in Greece or backpacking in Patagonia.
As the months fly by you find yourself wondering if anyone is ever going to take charge and plan this trip or find a date & destination that appeals to everyone…
Next, two years have gone by and at this point, some of your friends are no longer able to go on any trip because [insert common & totally valid life excuse].
Now you’re sitting there bummed that you wasted your time waiting on your friends to go on this epic trip and wondering if you will ever make it to all of the places you want to travel to in your lifetime.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Yeah, I thought so. Here’s the thing - that situation I just described - THAT WAS ME.
And then I had this moment of realization - I cannot be the only gal experiencing this and maybe I could be the one to solve that problem of planning & hosting trips that actually make it past the Group Text of Doom.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND FOR YA
Before I tell you about launching Gals Abroad Getaways, let me share how I’m qualified to plan, advise & bring groups of women halfway around the world with me.
Travel is part of my DNA, literally. My mom, Linda (everyone loves Linda) has been a luxury travel advisor for the last 15+ years and has always been my travel partner in crime. I inherited her adventurous soul, curious mind & passion for diving deep into new cultures. In college, I had the privilege to study abroad in London and after bouncing from one country to the next during my six months in Europe, I never quite shook the urge to explore.
I have traveled to 40 countries, many of them with Linda, and we share a goal of visiting 100 countries together in the next 10 years. Some of my favorite travel memories range from spotting cheetah cubs on safari in South Africa, creating our own blend of wine in Mendoza, Argentina, and learning how to Bollywood dance in Delhi, India (yes there are videos).
Here’s the plot twist:
I never studied to be a travel advisor, in fact, I went to school for Broadcast Journalism at one of the most prestigious journalism schools in the country (Mizzou - GO TIGERS!). After graduating I packed my bags and headed to California to work as a local TV news anchor/reporter in stations across the state eventually landing in Palm Springs.
While my time in Palm Springs was without a doubt one of the most important & foundational moments of my career (both as an on-camera host but also as I would later learn an entrepreneur) it was also where I realized my job was soul-crushing & not at all what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
Thank goodness I had that epiphany at 25…
I remember sitting at the anchor desk at 6 a.m. every Saturday & Sunday morning (after having my alarm go off at 3:30 a.m. to start the morning) thinking “What the hell am I doing?”. All the while Linda was traveling to places like India, Uganda & Bhutan and I was stuck reporting on the latest mass shooting…this was not at all what I imagined for my life (and don’t even get me started on how much I was making, your jaw would hit the floor and not in a good way).
I knew there needed to be some SERIOUS life & career re-evaluation. And if you want to read more about the journey of launching Alle Abroad & growing my hosting & digital creator business - click here.
FAST FORWARD TO GALS ABROAD GETAWAYS
I decided to leave my TV news career in 2018 to create my own career path. And after years of traveling the world & sharing my adventures online, I’d built a pretty amazing community of like-minded travel-loving humans.
It was at this point in time when I started receiving messages like this one:
I was getting so many messages just like this.
And funny enough - this one was from one of the gals that joined us on our inaugural trip to Paris and has since traveled with us to Morocco! Elizabeth we adore you & you were one of the many gals who sparked the idea for what Gals Abroad Getaways is today. We are forever grateful.
Between traveling non-stop and my on-camera hosting gigs, I never had the opportunity to really sit down an come up with a business idea for this group travel business until 2020…And we all know what happened that year.
I knew that once we emerged from the pandemic the demand for travel would be greater than ever but some people might need a little bit of help navigating these new uncharted travel waters. Not only that but I had been hearing from counltess people how they were craving connection and adult friendships but didn’t know where to find them post 2020.
And so, Gals Abroad Getaways was born.
HOW IT STARTED VS HOW IT’S GOING
I’ll spare you the intimate details about what it takes to launch a group travel business & jump right into the fun stuff.
2022 was our first year hosting group trips. We brought 10 women to Paris & the Loire Valley & took 17 women island hopping around Greece. Oh boy, I learned SO much on those first trips, but what stuck with me the most was just how meaningful it was to watch women of all different ages and backgrounds connect & experience these remarkable travel moments together.
“I watched as lifelong friendships formed, unforgettable memories were made & travel dreams were turned into reality.”
This was truly the year when I discovered what my life’s purpose was: helping women see & experience the world on their terms.
2023 marks our second year of running Gals Abroad Getaways trips and we were INCREDIBLY honored to have 13 women who traveled with us in 2022 join us on 2 of our 2023 trips. To me as a small business owner, this is one of the BIGGEST compliments I could have ever received.
Through almost exclusively word of mouth, our little travel business has flourished in less than 2 years.
At the beginning of 2023, we started hosting small group events in Chicago known as Gals Abroad Gatherings as a way to bring together past and future travelers in our home city (with hopes to grow these events elsewhere). We also hired our first team member Brea to help with client communication & all things marketing (you’ll be chatting with her a lot if you join us on a future trip).
We have BIG plans for what’s to come in 2024 and beyond. So if you want to make sure that you never miss when a new trip is announced the best place you can be is on our newsletter (ps - we’ll even send you a survey where you can let us know where you want to travel most which is what we check first before offering a new destination)
