About Us
Bell & Bly Travel Design is a boutique travel advisory for adventurous luxury travelers. I work with individuals, couples, families, and businesses who want to stretch their comfort zones but still take advantage of the finer things.
Meet Sarah
My mom likes to tell the story of the autobiography I wrote in 1st grade – I had never set foot outside Corpus Christi, Texas yet I wrote that “I love traveling and speaking Spanish!” My travel experience has since ranged from ultra-luxury safaris to nomadic homestays, language immersion programs to luxury-chartered sailing vacations, and highly detailed itineraries to on the fly backpacking excursions. In all, I’ve been to all 7 continents, nearly 100 countries, and have tens of thousands of hours of travel and planning experience.
I love working with clients to design trips of a lifetime and long-term strategies for achieving their bucket lists. My personal travel philosophy is to “travel bigger” and I will encourage you to push the limits of your comfort zone (recognizing that everyone’s limit is different), but then I will organize the trip in a way that allows you to feel completely taken care of. This collaborative process results in a magical trip, personal growth, and vivid lifetime memories.
In addition to my passion for travel, I am an experienced executive and entrepreneur. I have held positions in investment banking, private equity, venture investing, and at Uber. I will bring the same level of professionalism to planning your trip as I’ve shown throughout my career. I have an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BBA in Finance from The University of Texas Austin. Check out my LinkedIn profile here.
Core Values
Bell & Bly Travel is known for a focus on surprising and delighting clients, unequivocal travel experience, and for crafting amazing adventures.
Love Our Customers
I always do what is best for my clients and put herculean effort into surprising and delighting them along the way. I treat my clients like family and they do the same for me.
Always Be Learning
I am constantly traveling and learning all there is to know about new destinations. I spend time up front learning about my clients’ unique travel style and bucket list dreams. I help clients have amazing experiences on the ground that expand their knowledge of the world.
Cultivate Adventure
I help clients gently push the boundaries of their comfort zones and use my deep industry relationships to craft amazing adventures and experiences that cannot be found online.
Behind The Name
When deciding what to name the company, I wanted something that invoked a spirit of adventure and was a nod to inspirational travelers. Bell & Bly is named after two travelers and world experts, who were well ahead of their time – Gertrude Bell and Nellie Bly.
Gertrude Bell was an English writer, traveler, and archaeologist at the turn of the 20th century. She traveled alone through the Arabian Desert and became the world’s foremost expert on the Bedouin tribes.
Nellie Bly also lived at the turn of the century and was an American journalist. Inspired by the work of fiction, Around The World in Eighty Days, she decided to make a go at it and traveled around the world in 72 days while documenting it for the popular press.
Praise
“We could not be happier to have planned our trip with Sarah. She thought of activities and off the beaten track destinations we would never have considered. The entire process was such a pleasure, I would recommend her to anyone!”
PAM S.
“Sarah planned a holiday trip for us to Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. Every detail was taken into account!”
KENNY L.
“Sarah helped my family to plan a surprise birthday trip for my father. It was all so well thought out, it couldn’t have gone better.”
ADAM L.
“I was a little nervous to visit India, but it has always been on my bucketlist. I worked with Sarah to plan a trip that was two parts luxury, one part adventure. I went hiking in Ladakh and did homestays in small villages, and also was treated like a VIP on my visit to the Taj Mahal.”
ASHLEY M.
“I run a startup and I have zero time to dedicate to planning a trip. The information out there is so overwhelming! I worked with Sarah to plan my honeymoon and it was one of the most amazing experiences. She took all the trouble out of planning and made the trip so enjoyable for my husband and me.”
VU V.
We specialize in luxury travel design, long term bucket list planning, surprise vacations, incentive travel, and luxury “off-the-beaten-path” destinations.
