Most families who reach out to me are somewhere between overwhelmed and ready to hand the whole thing over, and the right level of support is not the same for everyone. Some want the research done and the bookings left to them. Others want one number to call from the airport.
This page lays out the three levels I offer, what each one includes, and how the process runs once we start.
What I actually handle
I plan trips for families traveling in the mid-range to luxury band, with the work centered on pacing and comfort rather than on cramming a destination full of sights. In practice that means I book and manage airfare, accommodation, ground transport, experiences, and the destination logistics that hold them together.
When it makes more sense for you to buy your own flights, I will research the routing, tell you exactly where to book, and take it from there on the ground side. The point is a trip that runs, not a particular division of labor.
Three ways to work together
Custom trip design and planning
Full-service, start to finish. I build the itinerary around your family's travel style and the ages actually traveling, recommend hotels with any preferred perks available at those properties, and plan the experiences and the logistics between them. You get a proposal with options at different price points rather than a single take-it-or-leave-it plan.
Concierge-level support
For families who want a real person reachable once the trip is underway. This covers restaurant and experience suggestions, refinements before departure, and priority contact after you land for anything that calls for judgment: a disruption, a booking issue, a question the front desk will not answer the same way twice.
Requests you make after check-in, like an extra dinner reservation, are best handled by the property itself. Changes to confirmed plans close to departure are treated as revisions, since availability has to be re-checked on my end.
Planning only
For travelers who prefer to book independently but want the design work done properly: a custom itinerary, hotel and experience recommendations, and logistics guidance, priced on the same complexity scale as a full-service trip. You press the buttons; I make sure the buttons are the right ones.
Where my experience runs deepest
I work worldwide, but these are the regions where I have done enough trips to know which neighborhoods are quieter than the photos suggest and which transfers always take longer than the map says.
- Europe: family-friendly cities, slow travel, and multi-stop routes that do not change hotels every second night.
- Japan: logistics-heavy trips made manageable, which is mostly a matter of ordering things correctly.
- Hawaii: resort stays, island hopping, and a balance between actual rest and things worth doing.
- Mexico: resorts and cultural bases where ease and value both hold up with children.
- West Coast USA: road trips, national parks, and coastal routes with realistic driving days.
What working together looks like
- Discovery call. Twenty minutes about your goals, timeline, and who is traveling. Free, whatever we decide afterward.
- Planning fee. Simple trips carry none. Everything else scales with complexity, from $150 for a short single-destination trip to $750 and up for a multi-country month.
- Proposal. Options at a few price points, then we finalize and book.
- Travel support. You depart with confirmations organized and one person to contact if anything moves.
What a proposal actually contains
A proposal is not a brochure. It is a document you can act on, built so that you can compare options without starting the research again from zero.
Expect two or three route options at different price points, each with the same skeleton so the comparison is fair: nights per stop, transport between them, the room category being quoted, and what is included versus payable locally. Around that sit the notes that never fit into a booking engine, such as which of the two beach towns is quieter in August, or why the earlier flight is worth the worse departure time when there is a nap involved.
What is deliberately absent matters too. You will not get a list of every attraction in the region, because the value of the plan is in what was left out. And you will not get a single take-it-or-leave-it price when two sensible shapes of the same trip exist, because that comparison is the part families find hardest to make alone.
Revisions, changes and what they cost
Before departure, revisions are part of the conversation: a hotel swap, an added stop, a change of pace, all handled while availability is still open and at no extra charge for the first round of them.
Close to departure the arithmetic changes. Re-checking availability and re-arranging transport after suppliers have been confirmed is real work with real deadlines, so those changes are treated as revisions and priced accordingly. The fee is stated in the service agreement before we start, never invented later, and it is discussed on the free call rather than after the fact.
While you are traveling, support operates differently from planning. Day-to-day requests such as an extra dinner booking are best made with the property itself, since most resorts keep a desk built for exactly that. What reaches me is the judgment call: a disruption, a booking that does not match the confirmation, a question where the answer depends on knowing the destination rather than knowing the front desk.
Who this fits, and who it does not
This works if you want expert planning without spending your evenings researching, if you value itineraries built around your family rather than a template, and if you would rather have a trusted advisor than a booking engine. It does not work if you need budget-only planning, if you prefer to do all of it yourself, or if the cheapest possible room matters more than the right one.
If you are unsure which side of that line you are on, the discovery call settles it in twenty minutes and costs nothing either way.