The short answer
I started AWK Travel a little over three years ago, after I planned my daughter's graduation trip with a travel advisor. From that trip I learned two important lessons:
Good trips start with where, but great trips start with who, why, and how do you want to feel?
Travel offers us the opportunities to connect with ourselves, our loved ones and new cultures in amazing ways.
I came to travel from a career in education, and I now plan milestone trips: graduations, anniversaries, and honeymoons.
What did I do before AWK Travel?
I worked in education. For about a decade I taught elementary school and then for another decade I worked in educational technology. My favorite role was that of a coach, bringing groups of teachers together to connect and learn from one another.
Teaching gave me the ability to read between the lines. In the classroom, students often don't need help learning concepts; they need help calming anxieties or releasing frustrations that get in the way of learning. Planning a trip works the same way. If you've ever given up in the middle of planning because you were overwhelmed, it probably wasn't because you couldn't tell the difference between a room with a balcony and one without. It was likely because the trip mattered to you, and a lot of emotion was tied to it.
I also studied recreation, park and tourism sciences at Texas A&M. I didn't realize it at the time, but my degree set me up with many of the skills that I use today when working with partners to design better trips. Connection has always been the backbone of the industry.
What happened with my daughter's graduation trip?
For my daughter's graduation trip, we went to Thailand. I reached out to three travel advisors. One sent an itinerary within 48 hours without ever speaking to me. One tried to convince me that the trip would be terrible if we went in June and that we needed to go in December (when the prices tripled). The third scheduled a call, got to know our family, and designed a trip that celebrated our daughter but also had a little something for everyone in the family. I knew that was the type of advisor I wanted to be.
One activity that my daughter and I wanted to do on the trip was to visit an Onsen in Bangkok. Unfortunately, I ended up a little ill, and we had to cancel. We found that in Chiang Mai we had open time built into our schedule, giving us the opportunity for the a spa afternoon. We navigated the ride share, had an incredible spa day, and strengthened our connection. It was a day I'll never forget!
While we were planning the trip, I told a friend that I thought I might want to be a travel advisor. She laughed, but a couple of days later forwarded me information about an informational webinar about becoming a travel advisor. Before we even left for our trip I had put the wheels in motion.
Who is AWK Travel for?
I plan the trips people have been talking about taking for years: graduations, anniversaries, honeymoons. I'm the person who finally gets it out of the "someday" conversation and onto the calendar.
My own kids are getting to the age where milestone trips are on the table. I can feel time slipping away and am acutely aware that each trip might be the last of it's kind. Many of the moms that I work with come to me because they are overwhelmed with a trip and they don't understand why. As we get to know one another, I hear the same phrase over and over, "this is probably our last trip like this." When this much emotion is involved, it's important to bring in a specialist!
How do I plan trips?
I plan with depth over checklists. A list of top sights is easy to find, so I'd rather learn what the trip is for and build from there. I pay attention to pace, and I look past what an algorithm would recommend. I had a mom once call to plan a seven day trip that spanned 2 countries and 4 cities because those were the "base" and she felt her daughter was behind because she hadn't been there yet. That shows that marketing is doing it's job, but that doesn't lead to a great trip. We added three days and cut a city, and they come home energized instead of exhausted.
If you'd like to see how I think, read How to Build a Travel Itinerary With Room to Breathe and What the Top-10 Lists Miss About Graubünden, Switzerland.
Questions people ask
Where are you based? Houston, Texas.
What does Virtuoso-affiliated mean? I'm part of the Virtuoso network of travel advisors, and what that gives me is connection. I have relationships with hotels and suppliers that you can't reach on your own, and those relationships make for a better trip. You may get some great perks when you book through me, but being able to call someone I know and ask for a favor is worth more than any free breakfast. We have a saying, "You can't VIP yourself." My affiliation ensures that you are always a VIP!
What does CTA mean? It stands for Certified Travel Advisor, a designation I earned through The Travel Institute. I also have my Virtuoso Certified Travel Advisor designation, earned after a six-month intensive training from Virtuoso.
Where does the name AWK Travel come from? When I started my agency, I named it Adventuring with Krystal. Starting a business was an adventure, and I love adventures. But I soon realized the name was too long for an email address! So I shortened it to AWK and kept Adventuring with Krystal as my Instagram handle and my motto.
What kind of trips do you plan? Milestone trips: graduation trips, anniversaries, and honeymoons. These are trips that the calendar says are important, or that your heart says are important. Milestones carry extra emotional weight and expectation, and need additional love and support to plan.
Where to start
If there's a trip you've been talking about for a while, fill out my inquiry form and tell me a little about it. I'll start my research before we talk, and we'll use the discovery call to figure out what the trip is for.
Krystal Weiss, CTA, is a Virtuoso-affiliated travel advisor based in Houston, Texas, specializing in milestone travel: graduation trips, anniversaries, and honeymoons. She is the founder of AWK Travel.