I started Travel-Well because I was tired of spending so much time on-line trying to find something better than the over-abundance of packaged, mediocre fare. I wanted somewhere and something distinctive and full of character, independent or at least not grotesque and garish. I find that travel, like much of our other pursuits has become commodified and big boxed, a race to the center, full of audacious, pseudo-luxury and whatever big, gaudy and conspicuous thing delights the masses at the time.
At Travel-Well we push against that tired construct and wish to do something interesting, sustainable and better for humanity. Our aim is to introduce our clients to the idea of Small Travel, a pursuit to pack more grace, romance, class and allure into each moment of ones travel experience. We lean toward boutique and wellness travel and immersive cultural exchange. We hope for time and space to check-in and possibly, if all goes well, to have a moment or maybe two or three where the clocks, the alarms, the inanity and insanity of home subsides and just for a brief second.....euphoria and transformation seeps over us.
It is, perhaps, a nostalgic look back through a sepia lining toward simpler times. For all that was wrong with Antebellum, Colonial and Manifest Destiny eras, and there was plenty- a simple nomenclature for travel was created that speaks to me. A writing desk, a badger hair brush, a whirring ceiling fan, pastel plantation shutters framing a teal sea. Graham Green and Paul Theroux, and for that matter, all great travel writers, were searching for something that resonates at my core. They sought, as I do, a simple moment and an elegant space to have a moment, however brief to feel something.... anything more than the anhedonic, grey commute, the punch of the clock and the mendacity of the time between Monday and Friday each week of our lives. No, life is too short to not seek, with vigor, those spaces and those moments....... to feel just something.