Monarch & Swift

12/09/2022

A honeymoon so magnificent, our clients couldn’t pick just one highlight! ✨

Typically, when clients come to us to plan their honeymoon, we’re talking beach destinations. When .claire.h and came to us they said “send me to Iceland in the winter”

🫡 CAN DO🫡

In a weeklong road trip through Iceland Ian and Emily visited Reykjavik, The Golden Circle & the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. The highlights?

🧊 The Katla Ice Cave, made famous by Game of Thrones. On this excursion, Ian and Emily walked over the glacier, where underneath the mighty volcano Katla roared. After a short glacier walk, they entered the cave of “Dragon Glass” where they were dazzled by the cave's extraordinary colors. Swearing by the old gods and the new, the view from inside the ice cave is truly spectacular...

🥘 The second might not be what you expect! While many travelers fly into and out of Rekyjavik, few spend an extended period in the capital. Ian & Emily dedicated a day to exploring the capital, embarking on a 3-hour walking food tour delving into the local food, people, history & traditions. They visited everything from well-known ‘must visit restaurants’ to small family run businesses and secret local hangouts. Think delicious Icelandic lamb that every Icelander grew up loving, homemade Icelandic ice cream from a secret family recipe, an amazing local seafood cuisine, Icelandic cheese, a hot dog from the famous Icelandic hot dog stand. All that before an evening flight home map for excellent nap conditions on the plane…!

08/03/2022

🏔Perhaps you’re an adventurer bound for Patagonia, or are simply *passing through* Ushuaia on your way to Antarctica.

🍷 Or perhaps you’re a wine-lover staying in the famed Mendoza region or soaking in the culture in the capital city of Buenos Aires.

🇦🇷 Whatever the case, Argentina has something for every type of traveler. 

What’s at the top of our Argentinian hit list!? The Iguazu waterfalls.

These awe-inspiring waterfalls form a half-crescent moon on the border of Argentina and Brazil, with dramatic cascades falling into the Iguazu River below. On her first sight of the tremendous Iguazú Falls, former First Lady of the USA Eleanor Roosevelt exclaimed, “Poor Niagara!”

🇦🇷 If you’re hoping to visit Argentina this season, the time to plan and book your trip is now. Slide into our DM’s and we’ll get to work curating a trip worth writing home about.

07/28/2022

A five week tour through Europe with three kids, four countries, intense crowds and this HEAT? 

Your instinct might be “sheeeeeeesh” but with intentional planning, this whirlwind adventure created memories that will truly last a lifetime for the Smith-Vaniz family! 

Spain (San Sebastián, Barcelona, Menorca), France (Annecy), Switzerland (Lucerne, Jungfraujoch) & England (London, Cotswold).

So what did we focus on to ensure the Smith - Vaniz crew had a VACATION as well as an adventure?! Accommodation. When traveling with kids, Here are our non negotiables:

🏡 Space: both indoor and outdoor space for kids to run, swim, play and be boisterous. When you have SPACE on a family trip, you’re not reliant on BEING SOMEWHERE or DOING SOMETHING for entertainment – it’s built in.
📍Location: While you want built in entertainment, nobody takes a transatlantic flight to stay at the apartment pool. And nobody dreams of finagling with car seats and rental cars in the crowded streets of Barcelona (if you do, come see us). When in the city, it's a nonnegotiable that our clients are within a short walk to amenities & attractions – a metro stop, restaurants, and grocery store.
☯️ Balance: When designing a family vacation, we always balance time in cities with time in more remote areas. Cities lean towards “hard charging, go go go”, and the countryside provides respite, and that VACATION feel. 

Family vacation, especially to faraway destinations can be intimidating to plan. Don’t ever let somebody convince you that it’s not worth it because they had a mediocre experience. 

Shoot us an email (link in bio) and we’ll be more than happy to advise on how to best turn your vision into an ENJOYABLE reality.

07/25/2022

When’s the last time you crossed something off of your bucket list?
 
✈️ This week, we have two clients departing for southern Spain and upon arrival they’ll immediately sail the strait of Gibraltar, the body of water between Europe (Spain) and Africa (Morocco), to spend two weeks winding through Morocco.
 
🛥 So why not fly directly to Morocco?! As a child, Grant visited Southern and during this trip he  became intrigued with Morocco because he could see it from their house.. It blew his mind that you could sail from Europe to Africa in (90) minutes. He knew one day he had to do it, and one day is this week.
 
Aside from ticking “sail the strait of Gibraltar”  off his bucket list, Grant and Elise are most excited about:

🧶Carpet shopping in Fes’ famous medina
🥘 Learning to cook tagine at a home cooking class in Chefchaouen 
🧖‍♀️ Relaxing and getting pampered at hammams in…well in every city!
🕌 An architecture tour in Casablanca with Casamémoire, a nonprofit preservation organization working to have parts of the city designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
 
✈️ If your bucket list is collecting dust, shoot us a DM and we’ll help you rectify the situation!

07/21/2022

As the high season in North America & Europe rages on, we’re taking a minute to pick our heads up and look a few months down the calendar. If you have hopes of traveling to South America this year, we encourage you to follow suit! 

🗓 The peak season in South America is October – April which means right now, TODAY, is the time to be planning a trip to South America, especially if you plan to visit a popular destination (coughs, Patagonia, coughs, Uyuni Salt Flats)

South America is chalk FULL of bucket list experiences. Here are our top 5:

🐑 Stay at .lapeninsula , an operating wool farm in the heart of Argentinian Patagonia.

🚁 Helicopter through Parque Nacional Canaima, Venezuela

🧙🏼Experience El Mercado de Las Brujas (the witch market) in La Paz, Bolivia

🌴 Stay at in the Cocora Valley in Colombia. For those of you with kids, this is the house that inspired the family home in Encanto! 

🍷 Enjoy a smooth unoaked tannat at just north of Punta del Este, Uruguay!

We’re curious…what is on the top of your South America bucket list?!

07/18/2022

An epic wedding deserves an equally as epic honeymoon and that’s exactly what Monarch & Swift clients Dan & Sarah got!

Avid wine & art connoisseurs, with a penchant for biking & hiking, Dan and Sarah wanted a honeymoon where they could eat fine food & drink tasty wine all while unwinding and enjoying the natural beauty of Napa Valley. Here are some highlights:

🚂 A fine dining experience aboard the famed , which evokes the elegant glory days of luxury train travel. Sit back, relax, and savor every delicious bite & every bit of extraordinary scenery!

🚲 A bike ride along the Vine Trail with stops at the , the to admire street art, and an afternoon lunching in and binking about Yountville.

🧖 A mud bath ritual at . Calistoga is famous for its hot springs, sparkling mineral pools, and, of course, mud baths. Indian Spring’s mud bath ritual is an iconic treatment using pure volcanic ash and mineral water from their own geysers for a relaxing and detoxifying experience.

🥾 Hiking in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, marveling at the majesty of the redwoods (and…maybe some unexpected river crossings…Oops!)

We don’t put any badge on honeymoons other than they should be as individual as the couple. Tailor-made luxury at hand-picked beach resorts might be just what you've been dreaming of. If you want to mix time away from it all with a dash of adventure, we can tailor your honeymoon to include a couple of days exploring before your beach stay, on safari, picking up the pace in a city or visiting your destination's cultural heirlooms.

🍯 🌙 If you, or somebody you know is planning a honeymoon, send them our information. We’d be honored to help them curate a vacation as memorable as the wedding day.

07/15/2022

We believe that people travel to broaden their horizons, recharge and amaze themselves by the diversity of our planet.

🦋 When a client comes to us asking us to design an itinerary, our priority is to align them with places & people who will help them achieve just that.

🥘 Enter Gustamundo, a restaurant that helps immigrants in Italy get citizenship, deal with red tape and of course, find employment.

🦋 Gustamundo hosts weekly “migrant cooking stories” in which a 4-course dinner is served to participants in which each course is prepared by someone who migrated to Italy. This serves as an opportunity for the chefs to share their cuisine, their story and thus their country with those traveling to Italy.

🥘 It’s a foregone conclusion that food will be central to your itinerary in Italy. What many travelers don’t consider is what a central role Italy plays (and has played for centuries) in hosting migrants from across the world.

🦋 Experiences like Migrant Cooking Stories with enrich your travel experience, bringing you far beyond any guidebook recommendation, showing you just how interconnected and diverse our planet is.

🥘 If you’re headed to Italy in the coming months, reach out! We’d love to help you personalize an itinerary for an extraordinary adventure.

05/25/2022

🦋The high season is upon us in both North America and Europe and in the event you haven’t noticed, summer travel to Europe is fully back in action. We’re getting run RAGGED over here with all of your European requests.

🏔The destination we have the most repeat clients visiting this summer?! The Dolomites. We have 6 clients heading to the Dolomites in the next 4 weeks alone.

🦋We love curating itineraries to the Dolomites because for many, the opportunity to witness the natural beauty and to experience the melting pot of Italian, German and Ladin culture truly feels once in a lifetime.

🏔The flip side is there are endless ways to pass the days and the area is so vast, it’s an intimidating destination to plan...even for us.

🦋For all 6 of our clients heading to the Dolomites, we’ve relied heavily on for their DEEP expertise in the area. Their blog covers everything anybody could feasibly want to do in the Dolomites and their advice extends far beyond traditional guidebook recommendations. They cover the heavy hitting tourist destinations, as well as lesser known, but equally as marvelous sites. Put simply, their knowledge and expertise is unmatched!

🏔Curating extraordinary travel moments for our clients requires us to source information from the best and is exactly that!

🦋You know where to find us if the Dolomites are on your list.

03/09/2022

67% of people planning a trip experience stress and decision paralysis due to information overload.

Are you part of the 67%?! Has information overload and the stress of planning ever stopped you from planning a trip?!

If so, say it with us! OUT 👏 SOURCE 👏 IT!

It is our JOB to sift through information so you don’t have to. We EXIST to facilitate meaningful, hassle free travel.

And, at the risk of sounding pompous, I promise the sources we’re leveraging are better than whatever paid for ruckus is populating the first three pages of your google search 🤷‍♀️

Eliminate the barrier preventing you from embarking on an unforgettable adventure. DM us today and we’ll get to work curating the experience of a lifetime.

Are you planning your next trip? Find travel itineraries & plans made just for you and your crew to explore the vastness of the world safely.

02/15/2022

⚠️ AVOID ROADTRIP MANIA ⚠️

On this round of TRAVEL TIPS FROM THE COMMUNITY we’re sharing three beginner level travel tips for ROAD TRIPS!

🚗 Use cupcake liners to keep cup holders clean! Drinks are bound to spill, and Murphy’s Law dictates the only drinks that will spill are sticky ones! Keep your cup holders clean by lining them with cupcake holders. 

🚗 Turn a cereal container into a no-spill trash can! This is a lifesaver for keeping the car tidy and smelling fresh; cereal containers come with a lid which keeps trash and smells from piling up on a long-haul venture! Line the container with a small biodegradable bag (take spares!) and place it on the floor of a footwell. Empty the trash when you stop for gas along the way.

🚗 Hang bags you need quick access to with carabiners! Use carabiners as hooks for your purse, tote bags, snack bags, diaper bags or whatever you’ll need quick access to!

If you have a road trip coming up, we’re curious – where are you going and would any of these tips be useful?!