Hearthline Travel started as a shared notebook. Three planners kept solving the same problems for different families: which room category actually sleeps four, whether a transfer is really forty minutes, which day of a ten-day trip is most likely to fall apart. Those answers lived in message threads and half-finished documents, so they went here instead, and they get edited when the season changes.
Maren Holloway designs the itineraries, working backwards from bed configuration and nap windows before anything else. Theo Castellanos handles routing and logistics, having spent eight years reading fare rules and connection buffers on the airline side. Priya Raghunathan does the destination research, comparing seasons against school calendars and building shortlists before anyone opens a booking site. Between them the work runs from the first call to the phone call at midnight when a road closes.
How the work is priced
Planning is quoted as a fixed fee based on trip complexity, not on the final bill, and it is stated in writing before anything is booked. Simple domestic trips carry no fee at all. The fee covers research, itinerary design, bookings, documents and reconfirmations, with support while you travel. There is no markup on the trip itself: commission comes from the suppliers, so the room costs what the property publishes.
What gets checked
Every itinerary passes the same four checks: transport times measured rather than estimated, bed configuration confirmed in writing, fees priced into the budget instead of discovered at check-in, and one backup built for the day most likely to break. Suppliers are used more than once before they appear in a second plan, and anything that fails gets replaced rather than explained.
Start with a question
If you are new here, the Start Here page shows the shortest route through the site. Questions about a trip go to the Contact page, and the two pieces most families read first are the seven booking mistakes we see most and a straight answer on what an advisor costs.