Ep. 300 – Travel Smarter – Insider Advice on Curating Once-in-a-Lifetime Trips
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In this episode of the Secure Your Retirement Podcast, Radon and Murs discuss how retirement opens the door to incredible travel opportunities. Joined by travel consultant Molly Glasgow, they explore the secrets behind curating unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime trips. Molly shares her expertise on planning bucket list trips, luxury travel experiences, and personalized itineraries, making travel both accessible and extraordinary for retirees. Whether you dream of cultural immersion travel or relaxing in world-class destinations, this episode offers invaluable tips on crafting unique travel experiences tailored to your preferences.
Listen in to learn about the process of designing the perfect trip, from idea to execution. Discover how professional travel planning ensures a stress-free journey, allowing you to focus on making memories. Molly explains the importance of timing, budgeting, and selecting the right destinations, ensuring that each trip is meaningful and special.
In this episode, find out:
· How to plan bucket list trips of a lifetime without the stress.
· The benefits of personalized travel itineraries tailored to your preferences.
· Why luxury travel planning offers unparalleled value and peace of mind.
· The importance of timing and advanced preparation for exclusive travel experiences.
· Insights into cultural immersion travel and how it transforms your journey.
Tweetable Quotes:
· “Travel isn’t just about destinations; it’s about the memories and connections you create along the way.” – Radon Stancil
· “A well-planned trip can turn dreams into unforgettable realities.” – Murs Tariq
Resources:
If you are in or nearing retirement and you want to gain clarity on what questions you should be asking, learn what the biggest retirement myths are, and identify what you can do to achieve peace of mind for your retirement, get started today by requesting our complimentary video course, Four Steps to Secure Your Retirement!
To access the course, simply visit POMWealth.net/podcast.
For expert travel planning, visit Molly Glasgow’s website at www.mollyglasgowtravel.com.
Here’s the full transcript:
Radon Stancil:
Do you have a bucket list travel wish? Well, if you do,
you want to listen to this episode. We have a travel expert and she is going to
lay out in detail the importance of having a travel consultant on these major trips.
We hope you’ve been enjoying all the episodes from Secure Your Retirement. If you’d
like to keep learning and receiving these episodes, hit the subscribe button and the
bell so you receive alerts when they come out. We’ve helped thousands of listeners
get on the path to securing their retirement. Now it’s your turn. Let’s dive in.
Welcome to secure your retirement podcast. Today, I am extremely excited because it’s
a topic that you should be excited about and that’s And I’ve got a whole story to
tell about this, but we have brought on a, um, a very special guest. Uh, her name
is Molly Glasgow. Molly, first of all, let me just say thank you so much for
coming on and chatting with us today and taking some time out of your, your day to
share some good experience with us.
Molly Glasgow:
Yeah. Thanks for having me excited to be here.
Kind of give you a little bit of background as to why, uh, I’m excited about
this is that one of the things that Merce and I get to do is we get to work
with people as they are transitioning from really a work life to a retirement life.
And sometimes even as people are wrapping up work or they’re transitioning over into
the retirement, the number one thing we ask is we say, so do you have some extra
travel that’s in your plan? And what we find,
most of the time is that people say, yeah, when I’m going to retire, I’ve got
about 10 years that I want to do some extra types of travel, some bucket list
things that I just didn’t have time to do while I was working. And we had a
client of ours and I had learned about Molly and her travel expertise. And so, we
connected that family up with Molly and the experience was really, really good.
They were like, oh my goodness, I can’t travel without Molly ever again, not going
on these bigger trips. And, it made me go, wow, this is something I want to
make sure people understand about what’s out there and set that up.
And just so you know, they were actually looking at like AARP and the group travel
and they go, we don’t really want to do a group. We really kind of want to go
and do these things, but we don’t know how to plan it. And, we put them in
contact with Molly. Molly, first of all, can we just to get to know you a
little bit, kind of tell us about how you got into travel, what motivated you to
do that and a little bit about you so people can connect with you a little bit.
Yeah, absolutely, and thanks for your kind words and for connecting me with your
clients. They were such a pleasure to work with and I was honored to be a part of
their trip.
So how did I get into travel? When I was 14, I took a family trip to Europe and
it just sparked my love for travel. And after that, you know, I kind of vowed to
myself that I was going to travel any chance I could get. And I studied for a
semester in Florence, Italy. And then before I went to MBA school, I worked and
lived in Switzerland and just love travel, meeting new people,
understanding cultures. It just kind of lit something inside of me. And so, you
know, beyond that, I had a career in pharma and then commercial real estate, but I
was always traveling and putting together, I was like the crazy spreadsheet girl that
would put together these spreadsheets of their trips since her friends would say,
“Hey, send me your spreadsheet for this, send me your spreadsheet for this. So new
people started to lean on me for travel advice, but it was it was merely a hobby.
And then in 2022, I took a pause from my career in commercial real estate at the
time, and was actually on a sabbatical and was sitting in in on a Capri in Italy
looking out over the beautiful water. And at that point, I decided I absolutely
cannot go back to what I was doing before. But I wanted to find something that
inspired me. And everyone had always said, “Why don’t you do something in travel?”
I started doing research and I’m like, “Whoa, this has become much more of a
consultative industry and business.” My prior experience was in consulting and I loved
working with people. And I launched my business and travel. And I went through
an intensive training program with the company that I’m affiliated with called Brown
El Travel, a really fascinating company because they are the oldest host agency in
North America. When you go to the headquarters, you see pictures of literally
years ago, people getting on ships to go to Europe with their big trunks, ’cause
there’s a lot of history with the company, but they have great leadership. I
went through a training program and tap into their incredible network of partners
around the world so that I can serve my clients. Well, Molly, that’s fantastic. And
thanks for the little background there. You know, I think when, when we’re talking
about our clients and some of them travel for work and, you know, and traveled
throughout the years, but as they kind of entered into retirement, the, the, the
repetition of travel, you know, if you travel a lot, you get pretty good at it.
You learn how to navigate airports, you know, how to look up destinations and things
like that. You build those spreadsheets, but once you kind of transition into
retirement, maybe you lose some of that or you just get a little bit nervous around
it, especially in the post pandemic world that we live in now where destinations
that were pretty cool maybe aren’t as cool anymore or they’re still recovering. So
what are some of the challenges people face when they’re planning these big trips
and how do you help with those pain points? – Yeah, so great question. And I think
there’s, for one there’s just information overload right now when people say hey i
want to plan a trip and they go online and start looking at themselves they’re just
completely overwhelmed and like where do i start um so that’s a big part of it is
i help client’s kind of distill down their interests and destinations and really dig
into what they’re looking for um people will come to me with a plan and say hey i
want to go to maybe three countries and I’ve got 10 days, and we talk about, you
know, connectivity between countries and what it looks like to get to and from
different places. And so really kind of digging into the reality of what the travel
looks like. Clients can have a true vacation and enjoyable trip versus being on
they go all the time is a big part of what I do. People also kind of don’t know
the overall cost and budget of what a trip looks like, especially if you’re looking
at luxury travel with private transfers. And I help clients establish a realistic
budget, understanding what the realistic spend could look like by destination. And
that really varies. I mean, people will say, well, what, what can I, you know, what
can I expect to spend on a European trip for 10 days? Well, going to Italy looks
very different than going to Portugal or Spain or Slovenia. I really help people
build realistic budget expectations before going into trip planning. And then as far
as accommodations go, I help select those. People have different preferences on what
they want. Some people want a bigger property. They want specific amenities. Some
want a boutique hotel that really feels like it pulls from the local culture and
area. And I can help client’s kind of put together really good options based on
that. And then you mentioned kind of COVID and the pandemic and impacts on travel.
And the reality is the pandemic just reminded us that the world is unpredictable.
And so is travel. And when I have clients traveling internationally, it’s nice to
know that you have people in country that can support you. I work with companies
in country called destination management companies or on -site. They’re local
partners in country and they have guest ambassadors that are in the same time zone.
If so, if my clients have issues arise while they’re traveling, say they miss a
train, say they can’t find their driver, they have a contact call in that same time
zone, they can troubleshoot it while they’re there. Excellent. You know, I, when I
hear that, so I know that whenever my wife, Lauren and I travel. I, you know,
we have; I think very similar travel habits. I know some of our friends that are
like, they want to go do every single thing, pack days, all that kind of stuff.
We’re much more along the lines of like, we want to go see something and then we
kind of, maybe do that for a couple of days and want a rest day. And then we do
something else and we want another rest day if we’re going to be on a longer trip.
You know, we’re, we’re cool with the fact of just hanging out a little bit. But
what I love about the, this kind of conversation is what is very helpful is to
know what should we make sure that we go see in a place and what should we make
sure, we don’t miss out on? And what are those key elements? But I guess this kind
of, you know, I know that’s the way we travel, but other people travel some other
way. How do you kind of work with somebody to kind of align them up with maybe
the way they like to travel their unique experience? How do you work with people to
help them think that through and make sure they get the trip they really want.
Yeah, it’s a great question. And you talked a little bit about, I call it pace of
travel. And that’s a topic that I talk about in great detail with my clients,
because that varies by client. But I take a very consultative approach with my
clients. So the first thing I do when someone has interest in working with me is
get on what I call a discover call. And it’s a 45-minute complimentary call where
I really dig into into their personal preferences, their interests,
their activities, their hobbies, how they like to travel, what they want out of this
particular experience, which can vary by trip and destination. And so I have a whole
slew of questions that I ask folks from pace of trip to interest to,
you know, what do you want out of a hotel experience? What are your priorities? And
so From that, I really dig into kind of their needs and desires,
and that is kind of my roadmap for planning their entire trip. And then once we
have that call and they decide they want to move forward; I start integrating my
local partners into the process, design an itinerary really based on what we talked
about on that call, and then work collaboratively with the client to go through
different iterations and revisions of the itinerary until it kind of meets their
satisfaction. And at that point, I proceed with booking everything for them. Hey,
just real quick before we move on to it. I’m just, and this has just popped in my
mind. I know we’re talking a lot about these big European type trips and those kind
of things, but do you work with folks if they, if it’s going to be a, maybe
they’re trying to do some kind of experience within the US and they’re doing those
kind of trips as well. I just want to make sure that we got context here. Is it
just those big European and trips or something like that. – Work all over the world.
I’ve planned trips recently. Someone wanted to do the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.
So we made that a really special trip. We had somebody that wanted to go to Miami
with a group of friends. We made that a really special trip. We had a group that
went out to Palm Springs for a long weekend. So yeah,
we can absolutely do stuff in the US and we have partnerships with these hotels
around the world, including US based properties, where you can get extra perks and
amenities through my partnerships with them. – Okay, good. Well, that’s good. And it’s
good to hear that you’ve got a process of, hey, let’s sit down and actually get to
know each other, try to figure out what it is that you’re looking for, rather than
saying, hey, where do you want to go? And then you get a response back and then
you just kind of, you know, you’re throwing, what’s the phrase mud at the wall?
Here’s what I think you should go do without knowing anything about the client. So
I think it’s good that you have a process to understand them first and then make
recommendations based off of that. Um, with that said, can you give us any, any
examples of some of your, your favorite ones that you’ve put together kind of for
our listeners to entice them as to what goes into the whole planning process for
you and what is the result of it? Yeah. Um, yeah, so many, um, for me, it’s
really about working with the people and understanding the people, and I think that’s
kind of similar values in our businesses, right, as it’s really about the people
that you’re working with. And, you know, different situations motivate travel or cost
people to travel, and people reach out to me, and it may be that they’re
celebrating a big milestone, an anniversary, a birthday. I’ve had people reach out to
me because they’re in remission from cancer and they want to plan a really special
trip. I have people that are maybe overcoming grief and want to plan something
special for their family to focus on something new and positive and you know this
is kind of a really a really personal story but not to me but to the people I
was working with. I had a client reach out to me whose wife had passed away from
cancer and he had to elementary -age kids, and he said,
“Hey, I want to plan a trip to thank my parents for all the help that they’d
given our family when my wife was sick, and I want to give my kids something
positive to focus on this year because it’s been a really tough couple of years.”
And so we put together a really incredible itinerary for this multi -generational
family and brought in a private guide that dug into their family heritage and took
them through Scotland and they went to family heritage sites and learned about their
family history and did really cool stuff together with the kids. And, you know,
that stuff is special and being able to contribute to memories like that for
families is really why I do what I do. When I look back at my life, a lot of my
first memories traveling. Um, and so being able to be a part of that, um,
really brings me a lot of joy.
Murs Tariq:
That’s a really cool story. Um, so when we talk
about travel, sometimes people just go out, maybe they’re trying to wing it, maybe
they do a bunch of Google searches, all that kind of thing. But what are some
things that you think people might maybe overlook when it comes to some experiences
or some things maybe that they just because they just are not experienced at maybe
going to this particular location or certain type of trip that they would just
overlook. – Yeah.
So a lot of times, you know, I think there’s been a shift in travel and in the
past people would travel to kind of check off seeing landmarks and that was how
travel was kind of conducted. But as time has changed, I think people are looking
more for experiential travel and they want to really immerse themselves in the
culture and understanding the world and the people that live in these different
destinations, so a lot of people that come to me, they’re like, hey, I want to
interact with people that live there. I want to immerse myself in the culture,
and I think that’s where I really can add a ton of value for people through my
destination partners that are in country because we can pull together really unique
experiences that you can’t find it on Google. And it may be that you’re cooking in
someone’s home. It’s like cooking with your grandmother, right? Your Italian
grandmother, or you might tour these artisan markets in Peru. I mean,
there’s, you name it, or you want access to kind of behind-the-scenes experiences,
like the behind-the-scenes Churchill war rooms tour, or I want to go see the
behind the scenes, see the crown jewels in London, whatever London, whatever it is,
people can come up with these outlandish ideas and we can kind of bring them to
life. And so that’s where we can really add a lot of value is when people want
this experiential travel that they want to feel like, “Hey, what does it feel like
to live in this city or I’m going to tour these neighborhoods or,” you know, I
mean, it’s just unique experiences and then we really customize it based on personal
interests. – Yeah, I think that’s really cool. And, you know, you’re planning trips
for people all in all types of parts of the world, all over the place.
So there’s a lot to keep up with there. And I mean, I’ve had scenarios where I
thought I did the best job and I did the research on Google and TripAdvisor and
found this perfect hotel. And then we get to that hotel and, you know, half of
it’s down for renovations or construction or it didn’t look like the pictures and
all this stuff and so how do you stay up to date with you know locations
destinations accommodations and you know making sure that what you tell the client is
going to get is what they actually get. Yep great question. So there’s a number of
ways I do that. Through my partnership with Brownell, I have access to all these
fully vetted partners around the world. And when I say fully vetted, it’s from a
quality perspective, it’s from a financial perspective, because there are companies
that went under during the pandemic. So we know that there’s sound financially,
but also high quality guides. A lot of the guides are historians, really well
-educated, knowledgeable people that are going to bring you a wealth of knowledge when
you’re traveling. And so through that partnership, we’re on webinars with them,
constantly one on one phone calls, different trainings. So that’s always happening.
And that’s a part of my weekly work life. And then I also have access,
we have a Slack channel. So Brown now has 150 advisors, and it’s an extremely
collaborative community. And so we have something called the travel tribe, and it is
just constantly going with questions and sharing of knowledge. So anytime something
comes up of a destination, maybe that’s I’m not as familiar with or I haven’t been
to recently, I can get the latest and greatest because these people are also
traveling and sharing information. So there’s that piece. And then I’m also going on
educational trips myself. So in November, I was, I spent a week in Provence touring
luxury villas. Some people want to stay in villas when they’re traveling. I leave
next week and I’ll be in Mexico and I’m staying at a wellness resort called Shaw
Wellness outside of Cancun but then I’m also touring all the five -star properties in
Riviera Maya while I’m there and it sounds glamorous but it is actually I’m like
it’s very rigorous. I mean I’m looking at call it five or six different hotel
properties a day. And so it’s really meant to inform me of what’s going on and the
differences of the accommodations so that I can match the clients with the right
properties. So just a few examples, but a lot of reading, a lot of communication
and a lot of calls with partners. Yeah. So obviously to me, you listen to this and
you’re like, okay, having a consultant like you is obviously very advantageous.
And there’s lots of things that you’re already telling us that would say these are
all beneficial. So what I’d like to jump to is really kind of thinking about this
idea. I’ve got a person has a life set that this trip they’ve been thinking about
and they’re, they’re going to retire and they got this, they’re going to say, hey,
this is a once in a lifetime type trip I want to put together.
What are some things they need to think about now? If they’re thinking about this
trip, you know, wherever it might be in their life, whether it be in a year or
two years, three years, what are some things that they might need to think about or
a trip that way? Yeah. So my biggest advice for people planning milestone trips and
in your case with your clients, kind of looking at the overall big picture is one
start a list of the destinations that you’re really interested in so that you can
be intentional about, about hitting these destinations and then we can talk kind of
on a more macro level about timing best time a year to visit these
destinations And also start planning early 12 months out reach out 12 months.
I especially proved like a safari you have to plan 12 months out at least People
don’t people think that’s too far out and I’ll be honest and say hey, we don’t
have pricing yet for this But as soon as it comes up then we can work on
unlocking it in, but we can do some of the pre -planning before, you know,
destinations like Japan. That’s another one where there’s a bit of a shortage of
really quality guides there. So you want to start planning that destination really
early to ensure that you can have access to the unique experiences that you want.
So I would say be intentional and start early. And I’ll shoot people straight if
they reach out and I’d say it’s too early. Yeah. Yeah. So Molly, it’s clear that
you’re, you know, you’re passionate about this. And it’s also now evident that
there’s a lot of work that goes on in the background as far as the research you
- And, you know, going to sites and everything to make sure that you can kind of
put forward the best product for the client at the end of the day. So you told us
a little bit about your process somewhere in the middle of our recording here
together but could you kind of as we close this out just walk through how does
someone get in touch with you and then what is it they can expect as far as your
process before kind of put a whole a whole plan together for them? Yeah absolutely
so um I have a website www.mollyglasgowtravel.com super easy to find Glasgow spelled like
the city in Scotland so that’s easy you can go on my website and you can get my
contact information and reach out via email. Before planning a trip, I always
schedule a discover call and I ask that my clients fill out my trip in query form
first, which just captures kind of general information before we speak. And that
helps me kind of understand what you’re looking for, also determine whether I’m the
right fit for the trip because I’m always going to shoot a client straight and tell
them where I can add value. and maybe if I’m not either direct them somewhere else
or to someone else or give them some ideas. And then once we have that discover
call, then I send over pretty easy onboarding forms for clients to fill out.
And then at that point, I have all the information I need to get started on
planning. And then we work together, I get a first draft of an itinerary, we work
together to revise it, go through the whole booking process. And then once clients
travel and while they’re traveling, I’m also working with my partners in the
background. People don’t realize that, but while they’re traveling, there’s a lot of
coordination happening between me and my on the ground partners. And then my clients
are able to travel using an application on their phone. So I build everything into
a digital itinerary. So literally they have step by step, day by day, here’s what
I’m doing and it takes a lot of the thinking out of travel because I think I’ve
found when I am traveling and I’ve booked it myself in the past I’m the one kind
of coordinating what are we doing here here’s where we’re going next and so clients
don’t have that when they’re traveling with me because they literally wake up look
at their app it can be PDFed if people don’t want it in an app on their phone
and they know where to go they know who to call if they have issues it’s simple,
um, and makes the overall process kind of more enjoyable.
Radon Stancil:
Well, excellent. Well,
thank you very much. And by the way, uh, for anybody who was wanting to see that
website, we will have the website link in our show notes and we’ll have it on the
website as well. So that way you’ll have an easy way to get in touch with Molly,
but Molly, this has been great. I want to go on a trip now at just, you know,
uh, and, and always, I love travel and it’s exciting. I enjoy it too. and we get
to go to a lot of cool places, but I think this is just a fantastic service. So
if you are thinking about a trip, make sure you reach out to Molly, and thank you
again, Molly, for coming on and chatting with us. – Yeah, thanks for having me on.
It’s been a pleasure to be on today, and I appreciate it. – We hope you have
enjoyed this episode of Secure Your Retirement. If you would like to learn more, we
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