Well Traveled Texan

08/03/2024

Popping the Pink today in celebration of big news - Well Traveled Texan has been invited into the prestigious Belmond Bellini Club 🍾

A huge thank you to for the honor and for the amazing for flying into Houston to surprise us in person in our office over lunch and pink bubbles. To be invited into this tiny, exclusive list of luxury travel agencies in the world is a big deal in so many ways, especially since we are a boutique travel advisory, not a huge firm. We succeed by always focusing on our clients first and spending countless hours building relationships intentionally with partners like Belmond who offer the best in luxury travel and focus on representing the DNA of every single destination where they have a property. Taormina, Tuscany, Amalfi, Peru, Brazil, Anguilla, France, the UK, San Miguel, Madeira, Mallorca, and many more glorious hotspots.

What does this mean for you, our fabulous clients? 😎 Extra VIP perks and first in the list upgrades for Belmond’s incredible hotel and resort properties around the world. Bespoke travel on their breathtaking train journeys, the Venice-Simplon Orient-Express across Europe, Scottish perfection (and Dior Spa!) on the , and Peru’s iconic that whisks you up to in luxury and style (one of my favorite trips ever!).

Belmond is 7 ⭐️ luxury in the world’s most iconic places. Haven’t experienced a Belmond yet? What are you waiting for? PM me and let us help you fall in love with luxury travel all over again ✨

12/01/2024

Weekend getaway alert! We’re in love with our newest WTT hotel partner, Auberge Hotels’ Bowie House in Ft Worth. Stayed a few weeks ago and I’m still thinking about it!

Let’s start with a sense of place because it’s so important. I’m a stickler for hotels that intentionally represent. It’s an art to get it right. When I walk inside a hotel in a cool destination like Ft Worth, I better feel like I’m in Texas.

In Ft Worth’s art district, Bowie House welcomes guests to step their boots inside, order a fancy cocktail, and stay a while. Floor to ceiling windows, gorgeous marble vanities, huge walk in showers, warm wood accents, and hidden bars await; We slept like babies in the most comfortable beds, soft sheets, lush curtains, and fluffy soft towels. The high staff to guest ratio is evident every moment you spend here. Friendly, and helpful.

I love lobby bars - they’re the calling card for the hotel’s vibe. It needs to be the living room of the destination.

Bowie House’s magazine spread- worthy lobby, game room, and library are the place to be seen in Ft Worth. Couples, ladies trips, guys groups and multi-gen families happily gathered together every night we were here. So fun to be a part of the scene. I bet the pool deck is hopping in summer.

Auberge Resorts’ attention to the guest experience is the reason why they have the highest percentage of hotels in Condé Nast Traveler’s 2023 Reader’s Choice Awards. They do SO much right.

Bowie House makes you feel like you just stepped through the looking glass and into a secret party - warm, welcoming and oh so Auberge. It’s perfect for a guys or girls trip or couples Staycation. Well done Auberge ⭐️

The icing on the tres leches cake…when we book you here we add complimentary daily breakfast for 2, upgrade and VIP amenities. Trust me, you want the breakfast! Get the quail and waffles 👩🏼‍🍳

09/01/2024

What NOT to do when you hop on Wi-Fi when you travel? Have we got a story for you 😆

Tune in to KHOU/CBS 11 tomorrow morning with , and learn how to not let what happened to me happen to you!

24/12/2023

Dear others hoping for a :

As we’re enjoying another 70 degree Texas Christmas, I’m ready to go back to the Wonderlands of Europe. Here’s 1 minute in the Alps ❄️

We all want the Christmas we remember as kids, which for me was living in Europe with snow - my brothers opening the front door to several feet of it, our little dachshund, Max, dodging out, only to be buried under the fluffy drifts, us 4 kids laughing until we dug him out.

Gleefully sipping hot toddies (with a nip of whiskey) my mom made when we retreated inside, rosy faced from sledding or skiing, curling up by the fire for fondue, and writing letters to Santa that we gently tucked under the cookie tray before snuggling in for the night.

Decades later, we still want friends and their families to experience this holiday bliss. Today, it’s SO much easier to experience the Alps - and remarkably less expensive than a ski trip to anywhere in the US. Lift tickets to Europe’s stunning ski resorts are a fraction of US resorts. $60 per day compared to $250. Ski lessons from English speaking local ski champs for less. And don’t get me started on the food, wine, less crowds and more authentic cultural experience - European resorts are the origin places US resorts built their villages to look like. It all started here.

Nothing gets you in the holiday mood quite like a week in snowy St Mortiz, Switzerland or Italy’s Dolomites - and we make it SO easy. Why?

Because I’m a obsessed and . Because our travel team knows the and .

All you do is show up, skis up for first tracks - or hit the and meet the skiers later - over a long wine and fondue lunch on the slopes, horse drawn carriage ride back to the hotel, warming your toes over cocktails and stories in front of the fire, Apres ski parties when they sun slips down beneath jaw dropping peaks of the Alps.

Spring Break or Holiday 2024? Give us a Jingle when you’re ready to make a plan for a special snowy 2024!

Signed,
Your Holiday Kris Kringle & the Travel Elves

22/12/2023

The Happiest of Holidays to all our friends, clients (who we are lucky to call friends!), and travel partners, all over the world. May you have a very merry holiday season filled with Love, Peace and Joy.

10/12/2023

On my recent trip to Florence, you might have heard me repeating “go in the off season” several times. Why? Overtourism is killing Italy, footstep by footstep. It’s much more enjoyable to discover these ancient cities when they’re not jammed with summer tourists, in the Fall, Spring Break or the Holiday season.

Venice was hit hard by tourism this past summer - it was miserable. Summer 2024 will be worse as we see more of the world opening up post covid and those travelers getting back to Italy that couldn’t go this summer. It will be “doubled down”.

The Venice government is doing something about it. Venice is an iconic destination and everyone should see it once. Let’s make it happen outside of summer! Read on for yet another reason why off season travel just got even more attractive 🙂

The Venice City Council just released a 2024 schedule of dates during which day-trippers will need to pay to enter the city. Here's the full list of dates and what it will cost.

22/11/2023

Just in time for Black Friday cruise sales, our brand new website is ready to go on our website at WellTraveledTexan.com.

The week after Thanksgiving is the busiest time of the year for travel advisors since all of you get together over holiday meals and talk about where the next year will take you. Then Monday you call us to make it happen.

Why wait when you can get started now before the food coma starts?

Our new website makes it easy to not only search and book all the Black Friday cruise sales (hurry, they’re happening NOW!). Click the Book Yourself tab to search and book cruises, tours all over the world, purchase never-leave-home without it travel insurance and take a peek at all the VIP benefits in our Fine Hotel and Resort program.

The biggest gift to give yourself - find your new best friend/travel advisor who will help you make 2024 the best year yet.

Click the Travel Team page, get to know our advisors in Houston, Austin, Los Angeles and Atlanta and send them an email to get your trip started!

Happy Thanksgiving from Well Traveled Texan. Let’s get this travel party started!

14/11/2023

We’re excited to announce Molly Strange has joined Well Traveled Texan as an inside travel advisor who will help us craft itineraries for individual clients and small groups - plus, assist me in relaunching the wine side of our business. Molly will be based in our Houston office and brings our rock star travel advisor team in Houston, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta to 15. Welcome, Molly!

13/10/2023

Our team has been around the world this week! We started the week with Peru, Panama, Cuba, Spain, zipped over for dinner with Japan, lunch yesterday with our Italian partners and ended Friday with our fun friends from Switzerland Tourism, St Moritz (my fav ⛷️ spot I hit last year!), Ticino (the Italian side of Swiss Alps can’t wait to go!) and lovely Geneva Tourism (the lake!).

Relationships and spending time with travel partners means everything in this business - and what makes us the best travel advisors and advocates for our clients.

What a way to wrap up the week and remind us all how travel truly is the great connector - and it’s a heck of a lot of fun! Next time over White Merlot and Fondue 🫕!
.ch .switzerland .patrick

09/10/2023

Casa Del Mar 💕My first time staying here and I realllly don’t want to leave.

The perfect marriage between an elegant Mediterranean Villa + chic beach house, sits right on the sand in Santa Monica. The attention of the staff to every guest makes it special for couples, families and travelers looking for a luxury beach getaway for a few days. They texted me the moment I checked in, so when we needed dinner reservations or the car brought up, they’re a tap away. True luxury is being able to relax and let them take care of you.

The rooms are light and bright, white marble bathrooms (my fav) and the architecture of the public spaces - sweeping staircases, ocean views and the hopping lobby make you relax the moment you walk in. The pool, perched on the fifth floor overlooking the huge stretch of beach and walking and bike paths is the best of both worlds. Grab a chase for an afternoon dip, nap or my favorite pastime, people watching!

I’m obsessed with the lobby lanterns, Murano lamps and etched mirrors in the room. Don’t get me started on the huge Princess and the Pea King beds, we needed a step ladder to climb in for the best sleep- perfectly firm mattress, the softest sheets.

You need minimum 3 nights here to enjoy the property and the Santa Monica area. Take the beach bikes down the Venice, hit the spa, then have the house car drop you at dinner down the street like we did.

Casa Del Mar is thankfully part of our WTT Fine Hotel & Resort Progrom so we get you the best rate, then spoil you with complimentary Daily Breakfast for 2, $100 spa credit and upgrade at check in if available. But only when you book it through us. Let us VIP you 😎