The luxury travel tips I share most often as a travel advisor have less to do with where you go and more to do with how you experience it.

Recently, I joined the Top Producers Club at Gifted Travel Network. It was a milestone that gave me a reason to pause and reflect. When I started Sol Kiss Escapes, I was ready for a change and wanted to build something of my own. I didn’t expect the business to grow as quickly as it has. Or to be this happy along the way.

I’m grateful for the clients who have trusted me with their travels, and for everything this work continues to teach me. Here are a few things I’ve come to believe about traveling well.

Leave Room to Enjoy

The best trips happen when my clients let me handle every detail and give themselves permission to switch off.

The transfers, guides, hotel choices, and pacing are my job. Ideally, your biggest decisions should be where to have dinner and what to pack. In some wonderful hotels, a thoughtful butler will even help with the packing.

I’m also a firm believer in leaving room for nothing at all. During a stay in Sardinia, we set aside full days simply to enjoy the property. We hiked out to the lighthouse, booked spa treatments, and spent long hours on the beach. There were beach clubs to try and towns to explore, but we chose to sleep in and spoil ourselves instead. Lunch was a burger at the pool restaurant, and it was absolutely worth it.

Those are often the days we remember most. Not how many sights we saw, but how good it felt to be there. An extra day in a beautiful place can be more rewarding than squeezing in another destination.

I should take my own advice here. This past summer was a full one, with trips I wouldn’t trade for anything. Still, it reminded me that travel should add to your life, not become one more thing to keep up with.

Spend Where It Matters Most

It’s hard to travel with champagne taste on a beer budget, and I say that with love.

Rather than trying to make every trip extravagant, I encourage clients to choose one special trip each year to splurge on, then build in smaller weekend escapes with beautiful hotels, memorable dinners, and a change of scenery.

It’s about knowing what matters most to you and spending accordingly.

I also encourage clients to stop being loyal to airlines. They aren’t loyal to you. Programs change their rules, and the miles you’ve worked hard to earn can quietly buy less every year.

A flexible credit card points strategy gives you options instead. Rather than being tied to one airline, you can move points to whichever program offers the best route or value for that particular trip. The goal isn’t to collect points indefinitely. It’s to use them strategically to make the trip itself better.

Choose Hotels With a Sense of Place

When I traveled internationally for business, I appreciated the predictability of familiar hotel brands. Knowing what to expect was reassuring.

For leisure travel, I’m increasingly drawn to properties that connect you to the destination.

It’s also what I hear most often from my clients. Those who stay with Belmond and Rocco Forte tend to come home talking less about the room and more about how much the hotel reflected its surroundings: the setting, the local character, the feeling of being somewhere specific. Smaller, locally rooted hotels can offer that same connection in wonderfully unexpected ways.

A beautiful room is lovely. A hotel that makes you feel you couldn’t possibly be anywhere else is even better.

Is a Local Guide Worth It? Absolutely.

You don’t need a guide every day, but a few hours with someone who truly knows a destination can change how you experience it.

We have endless information available online, yet information isn’t the same as understanding.

In the Galápagos, our guide, Christian, elevated the entire trip. He is from the islands, and his knowledge went far beyond anything a guidebook could offer. He shared personal stories of life there alongside the natural history, and his passion for the place was contagious. By the end, we weren’t just seeing the islands. We understood them a little better through his eyes.

Guides are also often the best people to ask where to eat. Not just the restaurants everyone is posting about, but the places that suit your tastes and the kind of evening you want.

Let Inspiration Guide You, Not Social Media

I love discovering new destinations through social media, but I wouldn’t let it decide where you go.

So much of what we see online is marketing: beautifully styled photos, perfect light, and very little context. I once stayed at a property in Mexico that looked stunning online and felt quite different in person. It was a good reminder that a photo can show you what a place looks like, but not how it feels to be there.

Some places are absolutely worth the attention. But before booking somewhere because it looks beautiful online, ask yourself why you want to go and what you hope to experience.

Travel should reflect your interests, not someone else’s feed.

Two Years In, and Still Learning

I’m proud of what Sol Kiss Escapes is becoming, but I don’t believe there’s a final formula for great travel. Destinations evolve, our interests change, and I’m always learning, too.

What I do know is that the best trips aren’t necessarily the ones where you see the most or spend the most. They’re the ones where you feel present, connected, and exactly where you want to be. That’s the kind of travel I want to keep creating for my clients, and for myself.

Those trips are also worth not putting off. Our interests and circumstances change, and some journeys become more complicated with time. If a place has been calling to you for years, it may be time to start planning.

If you’re dreaming about your next escape, I’d love to help you plan it. And if you enjoy thoughtful travel inspiration, join my weekly newsletter, my occasional reminder that the best journeys aren’t just about where you go, but how you experience them.