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It has been a joy and a shock to return just 7 years later and find a country so changed, so focused on tourism, and genuinely booming.
I am feeling a bit like when I was in Vietnam a few months ago: tourism has really taken off here and with it, infrastructure, construction, traffic jams, crowds, places focused entirely on tourism and so many new hotels, restaurants and experiences.
The hotel I stayed in Khiva had opened only 10 days prior to my stay, I visited 3 more than opened in the last 6 months, and several 5* in Tashkent that had opened recently too. There are new roads, new hotel openings every month, new experiences, even an entire new neighbourhood built from the ground up to honor the Silk Road.
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With more than 12 million people visiting the country during the first 9 months of this year, this is a country playing in the major league of tourism hot spots.
Join our waitlist if you'd like to travel with us in 2027 and follow me on Instagram to see what we will be up to.
On this week's email:
- Have you ever had a truly life changing experience when traveling? Have you returned home from a trip with something invaluable that has changed the way you see yourself or the world? Has a travel experience affected you so much that you have changed your life irrevocably? If a travel business (a guide, driver, chef, artisan, expert, community...) has left a lasting mark, there are a few ways in which you can truly show your appreciation while helping them, and they don't cost a thing.
- This is your last chance to book our Xmas markets tour and save 350 EUR. We are closing bookings really soon and have only 2 spots left. Go reserve your spot now!
- The end of the year is coming and if you have any pending vacation to take, this is the time to plan and book it, only 2.5 months left!
- This week's podcast episode is an interview with Alessandra, founder of Women in travel CIC, a social enterprise bringing equity and employment opportunities to the tourism industry through the Tour Guiding Academy, a free course diverse women can complete to become qualified tour guides or create their own tours. We have partnered with them for our Scotland tour, which featured a Ukrainian guide sharing the ties between Kiev and Edinburgh and a food feast and a deaf guide that talked about the often ignored but very important deaf women of Scotland, all during our welcome evening. Alessandra and I will host a full day of tours in London on the 31st of October and I would love for you to join us. Details here.
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How to help your favorite travel business, for free
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Running a travel company is both incredibly rewarding and incredibly intense.
You are in the business of people and people are unpredictable and much more nuanced and challenging than dealing with machines in a factory.
People make the "product" and people "consume" it.
The entire experience relies on your partners and collaborations being at their best, on the guides being present, interesting, entertaining and likeable and on the guests being respectful, interested and appreciative.
The result relies on the chemistry between the parts.
Our guides are all 100% amazing, and 95% of the times, our guests love them too. But there are times when a guest just does not gel with a guide or a group. I know there are guests that do not love me or Meg either. And I've learned that we can't please everyone, we aren't ice cream after all 
In the words of Carl Jung, "The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: If there is a reaction, both are transformed"
Even though we know all your partners, collaborators and guides really well and 40% of our guests have traveled with us before, we could never predict how all of them feel together.
Like most travel businesses I know, we put our hearts and souls into every tour.
We painstakingly think about the smallest details you probably haven't even noticed, and that is the point.
From the route we should take and the exact time we should depart so we come across the best toilet stop available at the time when we think the group will need a stop, to the daily menus to ensure locally sourced, seasonal meals showcasing local culture while not repeating dishes and catering to the ever expanding list of dietary requirements and likes / dislikes.
If you could spend a day in the life of a guide or a tour company, you would be left speechless at the types of questions we get asked, or the minutia we spend our time on.
And this is because we care.
If it all goes as planned, it all goes smooth and nothing is noticed.
Travel is indeed one of the few things we buy that makes us richer.
We know every trip is important.
It can be life-changing, it can be a big celebration, it can rekindle the love for yourself or help you reclaim your independence and identity. It can teach you things about yourself, it can introduce you to your new best friend or even your future wife.
How can we let you down?
This is not like selling a phone charging cable. Yes, it can be life changing in some situations, I know better than anyone, but there isn't a person behind who tried to make your phone charging moment special and memorable.
If you have ever returned from a trip and felt like it was purposeful, out of the ordinary, or that you were well taken care of and welcomed like a friend, here are a few ways in which you can help the people who made it special:
Tell or show them
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It seems obvious, but we sometimes forget that this is a people business and the best way to help someone is by telling them what a great time you had.
Write a heartfelt thank you note, bring a small souvenir from home, give them a hug if appropriate, show your appreciation with your heart. If customary, leave a generous tip, especially if they went the extra mile and worked outside of regular hours, took you out at night or added extra stops or detours just for you.
Many of our guides receive heartfelt cards on our tours and they genuinely appreciate it. As a business owner, I have also received small gifts from guests, from a hand painted coffee cup to a small pottery piece or a personalised thermal coffee mug with my name, and I treasure them. Feeling like someone thought of you is wonderful
Tell a friend!
Most travel businesses have grown on the back of some serious word of mouth. I am sure you have asked a friend or family member you knew had visited a place for recommendations before.
If a guide, driver or tour company made your trip extra memorable, tell your friends about them.
We promote our guides and partners on all channels when anyone asks us, but you don't even need a huge audience to help out.
Share on social media
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Better yet than telling a friend or waiting for someone to ask you, you could make a social media post and tell everyone about them. It is likely that you will be sharing photos and videos, so why not tag them too?
You can also answer posts asking for recommendations or jump on Reddit and talk about them. Share their contact details, tag them, let the world know they are worth it.
We do this with all our guides and collaborators too: we promote them, we spotlight them, we tell everyone about them, on our IG posts, our IG stories, these emails... We know for a fact that it helps them and they get bookings from women who follow us. We don't hide the women we work with, they are front and center and talked about by name. We don't want to gate keep. A rising tide lifts all boats and we are here to support women, so we will always hype them up.
Leave a review
You cannot imagine how difficult it is to get reviews. Most travel companies get a maximum of 5-10% of their travelers leaving one.
At the same time, over 90% of us read reviews before choosing a guide, a driver, a tour company, a travel agency, etc.
But we often forget to leave a review not because we thought the guide or experience wasn't amazing, but because once we get back to the daily routine, we forget and life takes over.
If you really want to help your favorite travel business, leave a review, this is the one thing you can do that does not cost absolutely anything yet can mean the difference between them getting another customer or not. And don't just focus on one review site, leave a review in all of them if they have presence in several platforms. Write a review, click on the star rating and upload photos if possible.
In a world where AI rules, it is harder to trust anything online and photos are much harder to fake. A public endorsement is the greatest gift you can give a travel business that made your trip extra special. And the best part is that you can do that anytime, it does not have to be for a trip, experience, restaurant, etc. you have just tried, you can review a business you traveled with last year.
So go on, locate them online or better yet, ask them where they want you to leave a review. A small gesture can be big help, especially for small businesses.
Reach out
Are you still thinking about an experience you took 3 years ago?
Reach out and let them know, trust me, it is wonderful to hear from a previous guest years later.
If you follow them on social media, you can just reply to one of their posts that maybe features the experience you had, the food tour you joined, the trip you went on, etc.
And if you've traveled with us, have found my newsletters helpful or are part of our Facebook community and it has helped you in a meaningful way, leave us a review, or reply to let us know, it will mean a lot to us. We are still a pretty small business doing things differently, and there are just 6 of us behind it all, so chances are you already know us by name :)
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Tags: Solo Female Travelers