As you may know if you have visited the about page of my website, I began taking flights and traveling when I started managing several teams at my corporate job at the time. I had teams in various locations such as Tennessee, Texas, and Maryland so I did quite a bit of traveling to accommodate the teams at every location as well as traveling to attend corporate management and leadership events. It was during this time that I absolutely fell in love with taking a flight and experiencing new people, cultures, food, and landmarks/sites. Soon I began to take personal trips and I vowed to visit every single state in the U.S. Thus, this marks the beginning of my love of travel.

Now I know what you be thinking, why did she want to limit herself just to the U.S. I figured at that time that since I was so new to not only traveling, but solo traveling as well that I had better stick to what I knew and where I felt the safest. Of course that feeling was only temporary; I have never been a person to think small and eventually I started thinking even BIGGER; I wanted to see the WORLD. So I got my passport, but there was a small little problem. I did not know where I wanted to go, nor did I know which countries were safe, what areas to avoid, and what all I would need to do and/or bring to travel abroad. Long story short, I had no clue where to start with my international travel planning and that’s when I found a travel advisor. Here is where my relationship with Naomi, who has transitioned from trip planning for me to being my travel mentor and friend, began. I want to share from my perspective in working with her, how having a trusted travel agent/advisor is helpful.

Like many of other people I know, I had put off working with a travel advisor because I thought it would be expensive and I thought that I could handle everything myself. Here are some of the problems that I ran into as I was planning my own trips:

• Limited resources available to me
• Multiple sites and companies that I had to check to compare pricing
• Limited knowledge of hotel and flight perks
• Research that took multiple days for even the smallest trips and weeks for the larger trips
• Constant anxiety and feeling immensely overwhelmed during the planning stage
• Irritation from my lack of knowledge and not finding out important information until after I had already paid for a non-refundable booking/service and sometime not finding out until arriving at my destination
• Not fully understanding travel terminology and policies (what you may call the small print items that are usually written in a way that may not be easy to understand)
• Underwhelming service received from hotels, vendors, and servicers
• False advertisement

To put it nicely, I was over it and done with trip planning at this point. I needed help and I needed it fast because I wanted to eliminate any stress and anxiety that I was experiencing immediately; I needed my PEACE back. Working with Naomi was as easy as Sunday mornings should be. I gave her the destination I had in mind, she was able to tell me if that destination would support what I envisioned for my trip and if it did not, she was able to provide alternat recommendations. The most work that I had to do in those days were provide traveler information, reason for the trip, the dates of travel, any preferences, special accommodations, and/or additional requests that I had. I learned so much from her and I all had to do was review her proposals, then sit back and relax until takeoff. She made sure that she handled everything with the hotels, she booked my flights if I requested her to, she made sure that we had prestige level transfers, I was able to pay for more expensive trips via a payment plan, she recommended and booked activities, and made sure that I had all of the booking and contact information that I would need during my trips. In addition, she went the extra mile to check-in to make sure everything went according to plan/schedule and offered her support for anything that I needed during the trip. Talk about a life saver! My life was super busy at this time, I was managing so much in my life that this just no longer needed to be another task on my list.

Fast forward to today and I am a travel advisor. I created a company with the goal in mind to help beginning travelers/travelers that do not where to start to travelers that do not have the time to do their own planning to experienced travelers that know exactly what they want, but need a travel advisor to make it all happen and bring it all together into their perfect trip. My company is for ALL travel levels and for ALL types of travelers. We have a trusted network of travel advisors, travel agencies, and travel partners so no ask is to big for us.

As your trusted travel agent, you will get:

• The ease of knowing that your trip will be completely planned to your satisfaction & booked for you
• Access to our personalized experiences & recommendations
• More options to choose from due to our extensive access to various networks of pre-vetted suppliers
• Simplified information so as to not overwhelm you with information that may be unnecessary for your trip
• Perks & upgrades such as early check-ins, late check-outs, hotel credits, included breakfast experiences, room upgrades, specialty dinners, curated experiences, and access to transfers from and to the airports, hotels, and activities/excursions
• An assigned advisor to manage your booking with hotels and vendors; your advisor will provide specific information and/or special requests on your behalf

Hopefully this was very helpful for you and provided you with some insight on how a working with a travel advisor would be beneficial for you. We are excited for your next trip and hope that you will reach out and let us have the honor of planning it for you!

Bon Voyage,

Yasmine Leslie

Owner of Takeoff with Yasmine Yteria