Monarch & Swift

12/09/2022

A honeymoon so magnificent, our clients couldn’t pick just one highlight! ✨

Typically, when clients come to us to plan their honeymoon, we’re talking beach destinations. When .claire.h and came to us they said “send me to Iceland in the winter”

🫡 CAN DO🫡

In a weeklong road trip through Iceland Ian and Emily visited Reykjavik, The Golden Circle & the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. The highlights?

🧊 The Katla Ice Cave, made famous by Game of Thrones. On this excursion, Ian and Emily walked over the glacier, where underneath the mighty volcano Katla roared. After a short glacier walk, they entered the cave of “Dragon Glass” where they were dazzled by the cave's extraordinary colors. Swearing by the old gods and the new, the view from inside the ice cave is truly spectacular...

🥘 The second might not be what you expect! While many travelers fly into and out of Rekyjavik, few spend an extended period in the capital. Ian & Emily dedicated a day to exploring the capital, embarking on a 3-hour walking food tour delving into the local food, people, history & traditions. They visited everything from well-known ‘must visit restaurants’ to small family run businesses and secret local hangouts. Think delicious Icelandic lamb that every Icelander grew up loving, homemade Icelandic ice cream from a secret family recipe, an amazing local seafood cuisine, Icelandic cheese, a hot dog from the famous Icelandic hot dog stand. All that before an evening flight home map for excellent nap conditions on the plane…!

08/03/2022

🏔Perhaps you’re an adventurer bound for Patagonia, or are simply *passing through* Ushuaia on your way to Antarctica.

🍷 Or perhaps you’re a wine-lover staying in the famed Mendoza region or soaking in the culture in the capital city of Buenos Aires.

🇦🇷 Whatever the case, Argentina has something for every type of traveler. 

What’s at the top of our Argentinian hit list!? The Iguazu waterfalls.

These awe-inspiring waterfalls form a half-crescent moon on the border of Argentina and Brazil, with dramatic cascades falling into the Iguazu River below. On her first sight of the tremendous Iguazú Falls, former First Lady of the USA Eleanor Roosevelt exclaimed, “Poor Niagara!”

🇦🇷 If you’re hoping to visit Argentina this season, the time to plan and book your trip is now. Slide into our DM’s and we’ll get to work curating a trip worth writing home about.

07/28/2022

A five week tour through Europe with three kids, four countries, intense crowds and this HEAT? 

Your instinct might be “sheeeeeeesh” but with intentional planning, this whirlwind adventure created memories that will truly last a lifetime for the Smith-Vaniz family! 

Spain (San Sebastián, Barcelona, Menorca), France (Annecy), Switzerland (Lucerne, Jungfraujoch) & England (London, Cotswold).

So what did we focus on to ensure the Smith - Vaniz crew had a VACATION as well as an adventure?! Accommodation. When traveling with kids, Here are our non negotiables:

🏡 Space: both indoor and outdoor space for kids to run, swim, play and be boisterous. When you have SPACE on a family trip, you’re not reliant on BEING SOMEWHERE or DOING SOMETHING for entertainment – it’s built in.
📍Location: While you want built in entertainment, nobody takes a transatlantic flight to stay at the apartment pool. And nobody dreams of finagling with car seats and rental cars in the crowded streets of Barcelona (if you do, come see us). When in the city, it's a nonnegotiable that our clients are within a short walk to amenities & attractions – a metro stop, restaurants, and grocery store.
☯️ Balance: When designing a family vacation, we always balance time in cities with time in more remote areas. Cities lean towards “hard charging, go go go”, and the countryside provides respite, and that VACATION feel. 

Family vacation, especially to faraway destinations can be intimidating to plan. Don’t ever let somebody convince you that it’s not worth it because they had a mediocre experience. 

Shoot us an email (link in bio) and we’ll be more than happy to advise on how to best turn your vision into an ENJOYABLE reality.

07/25/2022

When’s the last time you crossed something off of your bucket list?
 
✈️ This week, we have two clients departing for southern Spain and upon arrival they’ll immediately sail the strait of Gibraltar, the body of water between Europe (Spain) and Africa (Morocco), to spend two weeks winding through Morocco.
 
🛥 So why not fly directly to Morocco?! As a child, Grant visited Southern and during this trip he  became intrigued with Morocco because he could see it from their house.. It blew his mind that you could sail from Europe to Africa in (90) minutes. He knew one day he had to do it, and one day is this week.
 
Aside from ticking “sail the strait of Gibraltar”  off his bucket list, Grant and Elise are most excited about:

🧶Carpet shopping in Fes’ famous medina
🥘 Learning to cook tagine at a home cooking class in Chefchaouen 
🧖‍♀️ Relaxing and getting pampered at hammams in…well in every city!
🕌 An architecture tour in Casablanca with Casamémoire, a nonprofit preservation organization working to have parts of the city designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
 
✈️ If your bucket list is collecting dust, shoot us a DM and we’ll help you rectify the situation!

07/21/2022

As the high season in North America & Europe rages on, we’re taking a minute to pick our heads up and look a few months down the calendar. If you have hopes of traveling to South America this year, we encourage you to follow suit! 

🗓 The peak season in South America is October – April which means right now, TODAY, is the time to be planning a trip to South America, especially if you plan to visit a popular destination (coughs, Patagonia, coughs, Uyuni Salt Flats)

South America is chalk FULL of bucket list experiences. Here are our top 5:

🐑 Stay at .lapeninsula , an operating wool farm in the heart of Argentinian Patagonia.

🚁 Helicopter through Parque Nacional Canaima, Venezuela

🧙🏼Experience El Mercado de Las Brujas (the witch market) in La Paz, Bolivia

🌴 Stay at in the Cocora Valley in Colombia. For those of you with kids, this is the house that inspired the family home in Encanto! 

🍷 Enjoy a smooth unoaked tannat at just north of Punta del Este, Uruguay!

We’re curious…what is on the top of your South America bucket list?!

07/18/2022

An epic wedding deserves an equally as epic honeymoon and that’s exactly what Monarch & Swift clients Dan & Sarah got!

Avid wine & art connoisseurs, with a penchant for biking & hiking, Dan and Sarah wanted a honeymoon where they could eat fine food & drink tasty wine all while unwinding and enjoying the natural beauty of Napa Valley. Here are some highlights:

🚂 A fine dining experience aboard the famed , which evokes the elegant glory days of luxury train travel. Sit back, relax, and savor every delicious bite & every bit of extraordinary scenery!

🚲 A bike ride along the Vine Trail with stops at the , the to admire street art, and an afternoon lunching in and binking about Yountville.

🧖 A mud bath ritual at . Calistoga is famous for its hot springs, sparkling mineral pools, and, of course, mud baths. Indian Spring’s mud bath ritual is an iconic treatment using pure volcanic ash and mineral water from their own geysers for a relaxing and detoxifying experience.

🥾 Hiking in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, marveling at the majesty of the redwoods (and…maybe some unexpected river crossings…Oops!)

We don’t put any badge on honeymoons other than they should be as individual as the couple. Tailor-made luxury at hand-picked beach resorts might be just what you've been dreaming of. If you want to mix time away from it all with a dash of adventure, we can tailor your honeymoon to include a couple of days exploring before your beach stay, on safari, picking up the pace in a city or visiting your destination's cultural heirlooms.

🍯 🌙 If you, or somebody you know is planning a honeymoon, send them our information. We’d be honored to help them curate a vacation as memorable as the wedding day.

07/15/2022

We believe that people travel to broaden their horizons, recharge and amaze themselves by the diversity of our planet.

🦋 When a client comes to us asking us to design an itinerary, our priority is to align them with places & people who will help them achieve just that.

🥘 Enter Gustamundo, a restaurant that helps immigrants in Italy get citizenship, deal with red tape and of course, find employment.

🦋 Gustamundo hosts weekly “migrant cooking stories” in which a 4-course dinner is served to participants in which each course is prepared by someone who migrated to Italy. This serves as an opportunity for the chefs to share their cuisine, their story and thus their country with those traveling to Italy.

🥘 It’s a foregone conclusion that food will be central to your itinerary in Italy. What many travelers don’t consider is what a central role Italy plays (and has played for centuries) in hosting migrants from across the world.

🦋 Experiences like Migrant Cooking Stories with enrich your travel experience, bringing you far beyond any guidebook recommendation, showing you just how interconnected and diverse our planet is.

🥘 If you’re headed to Italy in the coming months, reach out! We’d love to help you personalize an itinerary for an extraordinary adventure.

05/25/2022

🦋The high season is upon us in both North America and Europe and in the event you haven’t noticed, summer travel to Europe is fully back in action. We’re getting run RAGGED over here with all of your European requests.

🏔The destination we have the most repeat clients visiting this summer?! The Dolomites. We have 6 clients heading to the Dolomites in the next 4 weeks alone.

🦋We love curating itineraries to the Dolomites because for many, the opportunity to witness the natural beauty and to experience the melting pot of Italian, German and Ladin culture truly feels once in a lifetime.

🏔The flip side is there are endless ways to pass the days and the area is so vast, it’s an intimidating destination to plan...even for us.

🦋For all 6 of our clients heading to the Dolomites, we’ve relied heavily on for their DEEP expertise in the area. Their blog covers everything anybody could feasibly want to do in the Dolomites and their advice extends far beyond traditional guidebook recommendations. They cover the heavy hitting tourist destinations, as well as lesser known, but equally as marvelous sites. Put simply, their knowledge and expertise is unmatched!

🏔Curating extraordinary travel moments for our clients requires us to source information from the best and is exactly that!

🦋You know where to find us if the Dolomites are on your list.

03/09/2022

67% of people planning a trip experience stress and decision paralysis due to information overload.

Are you part of the 67%?! Has information overload and the stress of planning ever stopped you from planning a trip?!

If so, say it with us! OUT 👏 SOURCE 👏 IT!

It is our JOB to sift through information so you don’t have to. We EXIST to facilitate meaningful, hassle free travel.

And, at the risk of sounding pompous, I promise the sources we’re leveraging are better than whatever paid for ruckus is populating the first three pages of your google search 🤷‍♀️

Eliminate the barrier preventing you from embarking on an unforgettable adventure. DM us today and we’ll get to work curating the experience of a lifetime.

Are you planning your next trip? Find travel itineraries & plans made just for you and your crew to explore the vastness of the world safely.

02/15/2022

⚠️ AVOID ROADTRIP MANIA ⚠️

On this round of TRAVEL TIPS FROM THE COMMUNITY we’re sharing three beginner level travel tips for ROAD TRIPS!

🚗 Use cupcake liners to keep cup holders clean! Drinks are bound to spill, and Murphy’s Law dictates the only drinks that will spill are sticky ones! Keep your cup holders clean by lining them with cupcake holders. 

🚗 Turn a cereal container into a no-spill trash can! This is a lifesaver for keeping the car tidy and smelling fresh; cereal containers come with a lid which keeps trash and smells from piling up on a long-haul venture! Line the container with a small biodegradable bag (take spares!) and place it on the floor of a footwell. Empty the trash when you stop for gas along the way.

🚗 Hang bags you need quick access to with carabiners! Use carabiners as hooks for your purse, tote bags, snack bags, diaper bags or whatever you’ll need quick access to!

If you have a road trip coming up, we’re curious – where are you going and would any of these tips be useful?!

02/01/2022

Surprise! Valentine’s Day is exactly two weeks away.

💕Have you gotten something special for your sweetie yet? If not, don't fret – we’ve got you covered.

💕What’s more thoughtful than gifting a romantic weekend away? A weekend where neither of you have to fuss with logistics. Simply show up and enjoy each other's company.

Today through February 14 enjoy a❣️sweet ❣️discount for you and your loved one!

01/29/2022

01/26/2022

How much do you know about Oman?!

🇴🇲 Before planning a trip for a client embarking on a three-week road trip through the country, we didn’t know much. It’s since SKYROCKETED to the top of our bucket list. Oman STUNS with breathtaking architecture, natural beauty, and artisans producing eye-popping pottery.

🇴🇲 For NATURAL BEAUTY, head to Musandam “the Norway of the Middle East” and take a Dhow cruise.

🇴🇲 For BREATHTAKING ARCHITECTURE visit The Grand Mosque in Oman's capital of Muscat. (PRO TIP! Stay at The Chedi Muscat - a GHM Hotel while you’re in town – it’s at the top of our list of hotels to visit worldwide!)

🇴🇲 For TRADITIONAL POTTERY hit the Nizwa Souq! You’ll find local artisans, and traditional designs. On the same day, check out the Nizwa Fort which is just across the way.

If you’re craving a vacation that’s a bit different than what you’ve done in the past, reach out! We LIVE for client interactions where we’re able to advise on lesser known locations that align with your interests.

01/20/2022

In a city as busy as ATLANTA, how do you decide where to spend your time?! 🍑

We’re starting a series in which once per month one of our travelers (Local Swifts) will share insight into the place they call home! This month, we’re featuring our founder, , who hails from ATL, GA.

🍑 Atlanta is a city renowned for its distinct culture, exquisite culinary scene, and deep historical roots and I’m proud to call it home! 

🍑 I grew up in a neighborhood in Atlanta where the Centers for Disease Control, Emory University, and the International Rescue Committee , fed into the same school system. The combination of these international organizations contributed to a massively diverse student population (80 languages were spoken at my high school!), AND a massively diverse neighborhood at large. 

🍑 Nowhere is this more apparent than . I would NEVER CONSIDER taking a trip home and not visiting the Farmers Market. Here’s what to expect: 

📍 This isn’t your typical “set up for a few hours on the weekend and sell soap” type Farmers Market. This is a 140,000 square foot warehouse that is a TRUE world market. 

📍 GO HUNGRY! There’s an in-market cafeteria chock full of MOUTH WATERING, international food where you pay by the pound. Don’t pass the veggie samosas. CHEFS KISS. 

📍 Hit the spice section – extensive, colorful, wildly affordable, and a sure-fire way to avoid bland. 

If you’re considering a trip to Atlanta, reach out, and we’ll
get you in touch with Molly. If you’re not considering a trip to ATL…. you
should be, but we’re biased.

01/15/2022

If you’re planning a trip to Ghana, SAVE this post.

🇬🇭  The “tourist route” for many folks visiting Ghana typically consists of Kakum National Park, Cape Coast Castle, and Labadi. Don’t get us wrong….we wouldn’t visit Ghana without experiencing these places. However, we’re here to encourage you to stay in the capital city for a bit longer than you might have planned.

🇬🇭  Accra, the capital of Ghana, is receiving increased recognition for its talented designers and is solidifying its spot on the world stage as a fashion hub. 

✨.a.k.s designs IMPECCABLE handbags leveraging weaving techniques that are passed down through generations. AAKS bags are exquisite, ultra-colorful, and sustainably produced! 

✨ founded by  got his start in fashion by dealing second-hand vintage wares in Accra. His inspiration draws from a vintage market in Kantamanto. Eventually, he began taking vintage pieces and deconstructing them, creating his own original designs. Iddrisu uses fabrics that nobody buys and would end up as junk, then prints or dyes them how he wants!  

✨ And finally, is a womenswear label fusing Ghanaian prints with strong shapes. Chloe’s first collection was inspired by the moods and sentiments from the pandemic. She leverages color schemes or words that speak to the things that we gravitate towards in a crisis.

🇬🇭  At Monarch & Swift, the perfect itinerary incorporates heavy-hitting attractions ALONGSIDE harder to find, hyper-local attractions. The balance allows you to experience the culture of the place you’ve been so looking forward to visiting. Reach out to us and we’ll curate the perfectly balanced itinerary for your upcoming trip.

01/10/2022

BEEP BEEP! Watch out, that’s us coming onto your timeline to toot our own horn 🎺

We recently planned a long weekend to Charleston for three friends looking to reconnect and relax before the holiday craziness. There is no shortage of charm or delicious options in Charleston. We’re so pleased we were able to help Kenzie and her friends experience this to the fullest.

“Molly, my travel consultant with Monarch & Swift, was incredibly helpful in planning a friend's weekend trip to Charleston. She had PERFECT recommendations for restaurants and bars and designed an itinerary that was just what we were looking for. Without working with Molly we would have had a much more random and less delicious weekend. I would definitely recommend this service!”

Are you and a group of friends looking to get away and reset?! Let us know. We’d LOVE to curate a memorable vacation where you’re all able to recharge, have fun and enjoy each other's company.

Planning and group decision-making is what we do best!

Hotel Emeline Chasing Sage Palmetto Brewing Company, SC The Cocktail Club Bowen's Island Restaurant

12/22/2021

How To Eat Like a Local in Florence, Italy.

A food tour is one of the best things to do in Florence at the start of your visit. So, are you ready for a chow adventure? Take a look at this delicious list to eat where the locals do! 🥘

✔️Breakfast: a typical breakfast consists of coffee, tea and cornetti, which is a warm, sweet croissant filled with cream or fruit jam. Try out Caffè Finisterrae

✔️Baked Food: Try schiacciata at Forno dei Ciompi. It’s like focaccia, only flattened by the fingers of the baker, leaving pockets to hold olive oil and salt that are added on top. Try it out at Piazza dei Ciompi.

✔️Wine; Don't forget to sample out the hidden gems in the neighborhood of Santo Spirito, Babae for aged varieties that will excite your taste buds.

✔️Fast Food; Try a lampredotto sandwich at a street food stand. It’s a thing in Florence.

✔️Hang out at the Sant’Ambrogio Market in Florence. There is a lot of local dishes you could dig in and try out. You can have a nosh with a glass of wine, sit down and sample bruschetta, try nicely-aged prosciutto sliced on order, or finocchiona (salami with fennel)!

✔️ Last but not least, your food journey isn't complete without gelato! Top it up with a signature Amarena flavor with black cherries, hazelnut, and amaretto biscuits.

12/20/2021

"Monarch & Swift planned a long weekend getaway in Bend, OR for my daughters and me for my 60th Bday. With no planning on my end, it was one of the best weekend getaways I've had. We rented cruiser bikes to explore the city, canoed in a volcano with a beer-tasting theme, and went to the mountains for a long hike. One of the hikes required a permit and had I not gone with Monarch & Swift I would have missed this bit of information and not been able to do the hike. Of course, all these activities were supplemented with great breweries and restaurant recommendations as well."

For this birthday celebration, we wanted something where Laura could be her most active self and take in everything Bend had to offer. We planned a three-day trip including different activities for each day of celebration.

🥾 A long hike up to Green Lake on the ever-gorgeous Green Lakes Trail!
🚴🏼‍♀️ Biking along the Deschutes River Trail which took them all around town along the Deschutes River. They stopped in town for lunch and to shop around the downtown!
🍺 A Canoe’s, Brews, and Views tour where, as the name alludes to, they went canoeing at Paulina Lake and sampled local brews, which Bend is famous for!

Want to celebrate someone special in your life? If so, let us help you make it unique and aligned to the person you're planning for. Planning is what we do best!