'What Exactly, Do You Do?'
I want to do this for the rest of my life
I hear this question a lot, even from friends and family members. It’s hard to believe I'm 40, but that means that I have been in the travel industry for 18 years, and every year I fall more in love with travel.
I worked at Exclusive Resorts for the first five years of my career, where I helped design and run their Once in a Lifetime group trips for members of the club. I truly loved my job, especially the aspect of designing trips. From curating incredible experiences for each group, to planning out the daily pacing, and selecting the best hotels, each trip felt like a work of art that I was so proud to create.
After getting my MBA at Darden (UVA), I was asked to create the Experiences program at Inspirato. There, I grew the department to one of the most profitable areas of the company, running chartered cruises, expedition trips, and small group luxury journeys around the world. I also pitched and launched the Bespoke custom travel department, a travel agency that sat within the club.
Eventually, I left to create my own company. For the past few years, I’ve remained a travel agent, booking travel mainly for close friends and family. A year ago, two former colleagues and I decided to start Alpenglow Travel, a travel agency that combines all of our expertise and connections in the hotel and travel world.
Today, we can do the following:
Help you design and book individual travel
Book your hotels and attach our perks to them for certain hotel partners
Run your corporate or executive retreat
Help you run your YPO forum retreat
Design and run your influencer retreat
Help you with your milestone group trip
Take you to major events like the Kentucky Derby or US Open
I’m often the person everyone calls to ask about my favorite hotels in a particular area. I read all the travel blogs, follow the instagram accounts, order the magazines - I devour information about travel.
I also REALLY love fashion, especially dressing with a theme for a trip. I find it helps me feel present in a location. There are people that will disagree with me who are perfectly comfortable wearing nothing but athletic gear around the world and pride themselves on packing only carryons.
I am not that person. I love dressing up. I take joy in the hunt to curate a travel wardrobe over several months. This Substack will contain packing guides to show you how I approach packing for a particular location. I also get into a trip by watching movies and reading books themed or set in a particular destination.
You can read my packing guides on my Shop My account:
Products curated by Anne Marie Brown
So, in short, what I do is:
Book Travel
Design Travel
Travel (FREQUENTLY)
Plan What I’ll Wear Traveling
Dress Up While Traveling
Come along for the ride. Subscribe to learn more about my favorite hotels, my trip itineraries, and learn about my packing strategies.