Choose Awe
RESEARCH-BACKED TRAVEL DESIGN
You have an advisor for your wealth. Another for your health. Your time off is worth the same professional care.
Bell & Bly plans private travel for people who'd prefer to spend their leisure time at leisure rather than having 16 tabs open at midnight comparing hotels. Founded by a positive psychology practitioner, every trip we plan is designed to cultivate joy, growth, and closer bonds with the people you love.
You have an advisor for your wealth. Another for your health. Your time off is worth the same professional care.
Bell & Bly plans private travel for people who'd prefer to spend their leisure time at leisure rather than having 16 tabs open at midnight comparing hotels. Founded by a positive psychology practitioner, every trip we plan is designed to cultivate joy, growth, and closer bonds with the people you love.
YOUR TRUSTED TRAVEL FIRM
Our clients treat leisure time as their most precious asset and want someone on their professional team to protect it.
A great trip starts with a hundred small decisions made before you pack.
For founders, executives, entrepreneurs, and the families around them, we're an award-winning travel firm bringing innovative research, decades of on the ground expertise, and a passion for crafting moments of awe.
EVERY TRIP HAS A PREMISE
Different Life Phases Call for Different Trips
Connecting with your ancestral roots is a different trip than unplugging in nature for the first time in months. Before we talk where, we ask why. Why this trip and why now?
Everything we plan is not only built around you, but also what your distinct life phase is asking for. Here are a few trips we've planned recently, and the premise behind them.
Japan for Grandchild & Grandparent
A grandmother and her seventeen-year-old grandson, traveling together until he heads off to college. Ryokan mornings and a soba lesson he still cooks for her at home.
Norway on Sabbatical
Six months to write and research. We sent her north through the fjords by boat and left her in a Lofoten cabin where her only job was to navigate the weather.
Italian Ancestory
Two brothers had a village name in Basilicata and a great-grandmother's maiden name. We booked the parish archivist and the dinner with the cousins it turned up.
Cruising to Your 7th Continent
He had six continents and a set of knees with opinions about the timeline. He crossed the Drake in November and stood on the ice at Neko Harbour four days later.
African Safari Anniversary
Twenty years married called for something bigger than dinner and a bottle of Champagne. Two weeks in Botswana and South Africa, built around being alone together somewhere wonderfully wild.
Beach with a Babysitter
Their first real vacation since becoming parents—with the baby along for the ride. A week in the Maldives with a private villa, plenty of family time, and trusted childcare when they wanted dinner for two and post-bedtime cocktails.
Hiking in Patagonia
Four friends in their fifties who still walk five miles every Saturday. We routed them through the W in Torres del Paine with a real bed and a bottle of Carménère at the end of each day.
New Zealand in Retirement
The first big trip after thirty-five years of working around someone else’s calendar. Three unhurried weeks through New Zealand, with nowhere they needed to be afterward.
Broadening Teen’s Worldview
They wanted to get their teenagers out of their bubble. Two weeks in Vietnam traded the familiar for street food, motorbikes, history, and a completely different rhythm of daily life.
The founder
She studied how travel changes people, then built a firm around the research
Sarah Groen holds an MBA from Stanford and a Master's in Applied Positive Psychology from Penn, where she studied the science of happiness under Martin Seligman. That research is the backbone of every Bell & Bly itinerary: trips engineered for the moments that actually shift how you see things, with everything else handled so those moments have room to land.
The tight-knit team at Bell & Bly, recognized on Travel + Leisure’s A-List and named as Virtuoso’s Most Innovative Travel Agency, continues her vision and plan to the same standard.
Sarah's podcast, Luxury Travel Insider, is nearly 300 episodes deep featuring interviews with people who run the world's best hotels, lodges, and guides.
featured in:
Notes From the Road
Postcards from the road, honest takes on the famous places, and the small stuff that changes a trip: when to go, who to ask for, what to skip. Everything we'd tell you after a cocktail or two.
THE JOURNAL
Luxury Travel Insider
Weekly conversations with the people who run the world's best hotels, lodges, and expeditions. It's where the insider knowledge comes from, and how we get you through doors that don't open on their own.
THE PODCAST
"Thank you for taking our cherished idea and changing it into an incredible reality that we will remember and share for the rest of our lives. The experience and memories from this trip changed us. We see, appreciate, and think about the world and things in our everyday life differently—and feel like better people for that. All of that change was made possible by the kindness you showed us organizing the trip and supporting us during the trip. That same level of kindness was magnified by everyone we met on the trip at the different properties and excursions. We always hoped that much kindness existed in the world, but now we experienced it firsthand."
"We see, appreciate, and think about the world and things in our everyday life differently."
FROM OUR CLIENTS:
- randy h.