For people who are done with obvious.
Travel designed around you, not what's trending. Milestone trips, and trips for people who have the budget and none of the time.
You get one 40th. One honeymoon. I don't let people waste them.
Design my trip
Travel designed around you, not what's trending. Milestone trips, and trips for people who have the budget and none of the time.
You get one 40th. One honeymoon. I don't let people waste them.
Design my trip
Flights that connect. The hotel on the right street, not just the right island. Dinner at eight because I held the table in March. The logistics are handled before you think to ask.
The parts you'll talk about for years are usually the ones nobody planned. A four-table place on the wrong street. A bar the hotel didn't mention. Some of the best things aren't written about for a reason; the people who know want to keep them that way. I'm not against the famous spot, and I'll tell you when it's worth the line. But we'll find the other ones too.
Yes, the Four Seasons is great. Sometimes it's the right answer. But have you considered the six-room place run by someone who knows every chef and winemaker in town and will remember your name? That's the version I like better.
Where to stay, where to eat on night three, what to skip. Start to finish. My favorite kind of work.
40ths, anniversaries, bachelorettes, honeymoons. The ones you don't get to redo.
For the person who says "handle it, I trust you" and means it. Flights, hotel, dinners, car at the curb.
Multi-family trips, buyouts, big birthdays. Houses I've vetted, staffed, with a contract I've read.
Patagonia, safaris, off-grid. The lodge is still great. It's just not why you went.
F1, the Olympics, the Super Bowl, private guides. The places with no booking page, where you have to know someone.
A real call, not a form. Some people know exactly what they want. Some just know they're over big resorts. Both are fine. No commitment.
Your taste, where you've been, who's coming, what would ruin it. You won't get a list of twelve options. You'll get the one I'd pick, why, and how I'll get you in.
Upgrades, a note to the hotel before you land, dinner reservations, the car. The front desk knows your name before you check in.
Your job is to be there. The decisions are already made.
If you want to compare seventeen hotels and pick one yourself, I'm not your person, and I'll say so on the first call.
Most travel designers have good taste. I have that, plus fifteen years of knowing what it takes to make a night, or a week, go right.
Something most people don't know about me: I grew up in hospitality. Golf resorts, restaurants, private clubs. I was working in the industry before I had a reason to call it that. When I got to Temple University and found out there was an actual degree in Tourism and Hospitality Management, it felt less like a choice and more like confirmation.
My first job out of college was the management training program at Loews Hotels. If you don't know Loews, here's what matters: their entire philosophy was that a hotel has to belong to the city it's in. Not a chain property dropped into a new market. I rotated through every department, housekeeping, engineering, front desk, all of it, and eventually ran the food and beverage operation at a 600-room property. Room service, the bar, a full-service restaurant. Every day. That is where I learned the difference between a property that is open and one that is run with care. The difference is enormous and it is almost never the obvious thing.
You only get one shot. There are no redos.
From there I spent years planning weddings and events. First with Cescaphe in Philadelphia, one of the most respected event companies in the region, where I planned around 600 weddings and events. Every culture, every religion, every budget, every season. Then with Stephen Starr Events, where every single event was built from a blank page. No venues. Just a location, the steps of the art museum, a beach, the middle of the woods, and the job of building a night there. We rented the floors. We brought the silverware. We built the whole thing and took it apart when the night was over.
Those years taught me the thing I carry into every trip. A wedding, like a milestone trip, is a specific moment in time that either delivers completely or doesn't. The only way to make sure it delivers is to understand what matters to this person, in this season of their life, and then fight for it when other people are pushing another way.
Eventually the pace of events caught up with me. I moved into healthcare sales, where I have spent the last decade doing work that matters. Something was still missing. Every trip I planned, for myself, for friends, for anyone who would let me, came back the same way: "Can you just do exactly that again, but for me?" Enough times that I finally listened.
That's where The Traveler's Architect came from. Not a pivot. A return to the thing I was built for, with a decade of knowing how hotels work from the inside.
I live in New York, travel most weeks, have opinions, and will share them with you directly. My French Bulldog, Teddi, is Chief Experience Officer. She has stayed in better hotels than most people I know and does not apologize for it.
"The stuff I forget to take pictures of is the gorgeous hotel. The amazing beds. When I'm somewhere, I just experience the moment."
The gorgeous hotel is a given. The soul is what shows up everywhere else, and it is almost never the most expensive thing. It's high and low, the way the best rooms and the best wardrobes are. The vintage chair next to the good sofa. The white tee under the good coat.
$8A pizza counter in Villa Ortúzar, Buenos Aires. The best thing I ate that week.
4 + 1Four nights in huts on the Ausangate, then one night at Palacio Nazarenas with a butler. Same trip, same person.
LunchA corner cantina in Buenos Aires. White tablecloths, no menu in English, nobody in a hurry.
5 pmEmmett's on Grove, on a weeknight, before the line.
Taste has nothing to do with price. It's knowing when the $8 pizza counter is the right call and when the butler is. Mix them on purpose and the trip has a point of view. Book only the expensive one and it has a budget.
I'm not performing the trip. I'm living it. That's what you're hiring.
Hotels I book on commission: you pay nothing, the hotel pays me, you get the room with the perks. Trips that need designing have a fee. Booking is free on the internet; you're paying for the hours I spend picking the right place, the people I can call, and the opinion that keeps you out of a trip that looked great on paper.
| Hotel only | One property, perks attached, same rate as booking direct | No fee |
|---|---|---|
| Trip design | One destination. Where to stay, where to eat, what to skip, tables held. Villas included if that's the stay | $500 |
| Multi-stop, milestone and group | Two or more destinations, or a 40th, anniversary, bachelorette or family trip. Scoped by stops and group size | from $1,500 |
| Executive | Handle it. Per trip, or a yearly retainer if you travel a lot | $2,500 / trip |
| Retreats and offsites | Quoted by project | Let's talk |
Fees are due when we start and are separate from the trip. They don't come off if you find a cheaper room; they pay for the work. Upgrades, resort credits and early check-in come free at most hotels I book.
Sometimes a place is hyped because it's worth it. Sometimes you need someone to tell you it isn't. One city a month: Lost is the one I'd skip, Found is the one I'd keep to myself. Three tables, one hotel, no roundups.
First issue lands this winter.
The first call is free. A few questions so it's useful. I take a handful of trips at a time, so the more specific you are, the faster I can say yes.
This is the preview site, so the form does not send on its own yet. Your answers are below. Copy them and email meagan.kearney@fora.travel, or tap the button.
Bookings are made through Fora Travel, which is how the upgrades and credits happen.