How to Plan the Best Family Vacations and Start a Side Hustle

Zen(ish) Mommy

Welcome back to the Zen(ish) Mommy Podcast! Now that the world has opened back up, maybe you have been bitten by the travel bug once again. As moms, the task of travel planning often falls to us. There are so many benefits to outsourcing your travel plans to experts, or, perhaps even becoming the expert yourself! Today’s guest, Henley Vazquez, has created an entire company around the idea that moms are the travel planners in the household, and she wants you to turn that passion into a money-making hustle! Fora is a company enabling anyone to turn their interest in travel planning into revenue through flexible and fun work. Henley’s hope is to make family travel more accessible, and more enjoyable! Join us today to hear from Henley, and how you can also begin to make money from your travel-planning expertise.
Key Points From This Episode:

• An introduction to today’s guest, Henley Vazquez, with Fora.
• The pent-up demand for travel following the restrictions during the pandemic.
• Henley’s background and childhood, which surprisingly involved very little travel.
• Her career history leading up to starting Fora, including starting a boutique travel agency.
• Where Booking.com falls short as a tool for us to use.
• How the pandemic has changed the landscape of travel.
• An example of how a travel agent will help you to get better value for your money while the hotel pays the agent.
• Why approaching an agent trumps renting a vacation property from the owner.
• The ‘vibe’ element that you can only get from a person who has been to a location.
• Horror stories from Henley’s travel stories with kids and the amazing support service providers have given her.
• Leading with compassion for other parents while you are traveling.
• Why it is so important to have diverse voices in the family travel space.
• How people can work part-time in the travel agency space.
• Why working as a travel agent comes down to working in sales.
• The benefit of working in travel in comparison to real estate.
• Her favorite part of the job: seeing people who have always wanted to have an experience finally getting to have it.
• Why the memories are so much more valuable than other experiences you could have.
• How Fora goes about connecting you to the person with the right expertise for your needs.
• Why so many of her team members are her own former clients.
• What she loves the most about her business: her team!
• Henley’s tip for women who want to slow down: create boundaries for yourself.

Tweetables:

“Booking.com is not going to help you when borders close, or when that hotel doesn’t want to give you a refund. There’s no religion in Booking.com and that’s what makes it a company that investors love, but it’s what makes us as humans not like it, because they’re not there to help you.” — Henley Vazquez [0:06:02]

“You have to be opinionated because that is what’s going to turn you into a salesperson. It really is a sales role.” — Henley Vazquez [0:25:47]

“It doesn’t always have to be a 17 person safari for it to be an epic trip. Just watching those moments of seeing people finally being able to do what they’ve been waiting to do, it’s really wonderful.” —Henley Vazquez [0:30:36]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Fora Travel

Fora Travel on Instagram
Henley Vazquez on

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