In this episode of Soul of Travel, Season 5: Women's Wisdom + Mindful Travel, presented by @journeywoman_original, Christine hosts a soulful conversation with Megan Ryder-Burbidge & Linsey Sherman-Zekulin.
Sororal was co-founded by women's rights advocates Megan Ryder-Burbidge & Linsey Sherman-Zekulin to prioritize safety education and economic security for women in hospitality and tourism spaces around the globe. Through consultation and collaboration with women-owned and led businesses, as well as nonprofit organizations in destinations such as Kenya, Costa Rica, Denmark, Sicily, Nicaragua, and Morocco, Sororal is disrupting existing standards for equity and independence for women in tourism with mindful cultural exchange, fair compensation, and local talent. At the heart of its small group travel experiences, Sororal seeks to change the conversation around what effective, equitable support looks like in tourism and put the future of success for women directly into women's hands.
Christine, Megan, and Linsey discuss:
· How they formed this partnership and brought Sororal to life
· How we can use travel as a catalyst for change
· The importance of finding the right co-founder and community when launching a business
· Their shared love of bringing women together in travel and life
Join Christine now for this soulful conversation with Megan Ryder-Burbidge & Linsey Sherman-Zekulin.
🌎
LOVE these soulful conversations? We rely on listener support to produce our podcast! Make a difference by making a donation to Lotus Sojourns on PayPal.
Are you a Soul of Travel subscriber? Click here to subscribe!
🌎
Visit Sororal.Travel to learn how to #TravelLikeASister and find your next great adventure.
Get to know Megan, Linsey, and Sororal on your favorite social media networks.
Facebook / LinkedIn / Linsey’s LinkedIn / Megan’s LinkedIn
🌎
Looking for ways to be a part of the Lotus Sojourns community? Learn more here!
Find Lotus Sojourns on Facebook, or join the Lotus Sojourns Collective, our FB community for like-hearted women. Find solo travel trips for women over 50 on JourneyWoman. Follow us on Instagram: @journeywoman_original, @lotussojourns and @souloftravelpodcast.
Credits. Christine Winebrenner Irick (Host, creator, editor). Megan Ryder-Burbidge & Linsey Sherman-Zekulin (Guests). Original music by Clark Adams. Editing, production, and content writing by Carly Oduardo.
In this episode of Soul of Travel, Season 5: Women's Wisdom + Mindful Travel, presented by @journeywoman_original, Christine hosts a soulful conversation with Megan Ryder-Burbidge & Linsey Sherman-Zekulin.
Sororal was co-founded by women's rights advocates Megan Ryder-Burbidge & Linsey Sherman-Zekulin to prioritize safety education and economic security for women in hospitality and tourism spaces around the globe. Through consultation and collaboration with women-owned and led businesses, as well as nonprofit organizations in destinations such as Kenya, Costa Rica, Denmark, Sicily, Nicaragua, and Morocco, Sororal is disrupting existing standards for equity and independence for women in tourism with mindful cultural exchange, fair compensation, and local talent. At the heart of its small group travel experiences, Sororal seeks to change the conversation around what effective, equitable support looks like in tourism and put the future of success for women directly into women's hands.
Christine, Megan, and Linsey discuss:
· How they formed this partnership and brought Sororal to life
· How we can use travel as a catalyst for change
· The importance of finding the right co-founder and community when launching a business
· Their shared love of bringing women together in travel and life
Join Christine now for this soulful conversation with Megan Ryder-Burbidge & Linsey Sherman-Zekulin.
🌎
LOVE these soulful conversations? We rely on listener support to produce our podcast! Make a difference by making a donation to Lotus Sojourns on PayPal.
Are you a Soul of Travel subscriber? Click here to subscribe!
🌎
Visit Sororal.Travel to learn how to #TravelLikeASister and find your next great adventure.
Get to know Megan, Linsey, and Sororal on your favorite social media networks.
Facebook / LinkedIn / Linsey’s LinkedIn / Megan’s LinkedIn
🌎
Looking for ways to be a part of the Lotus Sojourns community? Learn more here!
Find Lotus Sojourns on Facebook, or join the Lotus Sojourns Collective, our FB community for like-hearted women. Find solo travel trips for women over 50 on JourneyWoman. Follow us on Instagram: @journeywoman_original, @lotussojourns and @souloftravelpodcast.
Credits. Christine Winebrenner Irick (Host, creator, editor). Megan Ryder-Burbidge & Linsey Sherman-Zekulin (Guests). Original music by Clark Adams. Editing, production, and content writing by Carly Oduardo.
Christine: Welcome to the Soul of Travel podcast. I'm Christine Winebrenner Irick, the founder of Lotus Sojourns, a book lover, Yogi mom of three girls and your guide On this journey. We are here to discover why women who are seasoned travelers, industry professionals, and global community leaders fall in love with the people and places of this planet. Join me to explore how travel has inspired our guests to change the world. We seek to understand the driving force, unending curiosity and wanderlust that can best be described as the soul of Travel. Soul of Travel Podcast is a proud member of the Journey, woman Family, where we work to create powerful forums for women to share their wisdom and inspire meaningful change in travel. In each soulful conversation, you'll hear compelling travel stories alongside tales of what it takes to bring our creative vision to life as we're living life with purpose, chasing dreams and building businesses to make the world a better place. But the real treasure here is the story of the journey as we reflect on who we were, who we are, and who we're becoming. We are travelers, thought leaders and heart-centered change makers, and this is the Soul of Travel.
Christine: Sororal was Co-founded by Women's Rights Advocates, Megan Wrighter Verbiage and Lindsey Sherman zin to prioritize safety, education and economic security for women in hospitality and tourism spaces around the globe. Through consultation and collaboration with women owned and led businesses, as well as nonprofit organizations in destinations such as Kenya, Costa Rica, Denmark, Sicily, Nicaragua, and Morocco. Soro is disrupting existing standards for equity and independence for women in tourism with mindful cultural exchange, fair compensation, and local talent. At the heart of its small group travel experiences, Sororal seeks to change the conversation around what effective, equitable support looks like in tourism and put the future of success for women directly into women's hands. In my conversation with Lindsay and Megan, we talk about how they met and began to conceptualize RO and bring it to life and how we can use travel as a catalyst for social change. They share the importance of finding the right co-founder and community when you are creating a business. And we share our love of bringing women together in travel and in life. I don't get to do interviews with multiple guests very often, and the energy and enthusiasm combined with our shared passions really makes this a lively and heartfelt conversation that is a 10 out of 10 in my books. So join me now for my soulful conversation with Lindsey and Megan.
Christine: Welcome to Soul of Travel podcast. I'm your host Christine, and I'm excited. Today is a special podcast because as you can see, if you're watching the video, I have two guests with me. And if you can't see, you'll hear soon that I am being joined by the co-founders of Soro, Megan Ryder verbiage and Lindsay Sherman Kulin. And we were just talking about all these beautiful, hyphenated long last names that we have. We have some sort of unique tribe happening here, I believe, but I am so excited for this episode. You are going to have a moment of hearing me be nothing but a huge fan girl, but I just want to take that moment because I have really been such a fan of what you have both created since seeing the work that you're doing in women's work, which is a community we're both a part of and we'll probably touch on later.
Christine: And what I want to start with is reading something from your website and my last or two guests ago, I read stuff from her website. She's like, oh my gosh, I hope it's good, but I'm reading it because it's good. It says is Travel for Women, for the Good of Women kind. We empower small groups of women to travel to new destinations outside their comfort zones and inside their integrity. And for me, that's just like mic drop. I don't even feel like we have to have the rest of the interview. And I shared with Lindsay in our pre-interview, but I have some weird sense of pride seeing what you have put forward. When I started Lotus Sojourns, I really felt a call to have this values driven, women focused social impact forward product. And I really felt like I chickened out because I was receiving all this advice about what travel looked like for women, and it was retreats and wellness and it didn't have this feminist grit that I love that you have brought to your brand and have inspired me for the 2.0 or 5.0 or whatever version of Lotus Sojourn.
Christine: I'm at this point in my own journey. So I just wanted to start this conversation with that deep admiration and the respect that I have for what you created. And I can't wait to share with my listeners more about where that came from. I'm also going to add what I just shared with you that I'm landing in this conversation in a weird space for me energetically today. So we might hear emotions, usually I feel them and I suppress them today. That might not happen. I am so excited for this conversation. So after that huge amount of me talking, I'm going to turn it over to you and I would love to have just kind of a high level introduction. So Megan, I'll turn it over to you first to just introduce yourself.
Megan: Sure. So my name is Megan Ryder Burbridge. I am one of the co-founders of rural, a tour operations business that is focused on women's rights in the hospitality and tourism sector. I wear a few hats in addition to being the co-founder, ofor in my day-to-Day life, I have the privilege of being a federal public servant where I also work within the defense insecurity innovation space. I am also a mom of one, a little girl, and I'm a proud military spouse as well. So
Christine: Thank you. Lindsey, I'll pass the mic to you.
Linsey: I'm so glad you went to Megan first because since we're in an emotionally safe space here, I am just so touched by your intro, Christine, and the really kind things that you said about us. And when we had our pre-interview, I said to Megan, it's really beautiful. Christine shared so much kind stuff about our thoughts about our work, and I will talk about myself in a sec, but just to briefly say, as you know, when you have a values based business, you put so much of yourself into it and often at the beginning of your business journey, you're putting it out there and you're hoping to meet people who are like-minded and receive feedback. But sometimes at the beginning in particular, it's a little lonely. And so you're putting yourself, yourself, yourself and unsure if you're connecting with others or if it's landing. So when you shared that stuff, it is so meaningful for us to know that you're listening, maybe others are listening, and that we can connect on these things that obviously mean so much to all of us, but outside of all of the noise. So my name's Lindsay. I am a lawyer by training. I worked for many, many years in family law with families going through divorce and conflict until switching over. Now I work more in the nonprofit space, but still a bit of a through line. So my work now is really focused on infant and early childhood mental health.
Linsey: I'm the co-founder with Megan of Sororal, and we'll talk a little bit, I'm sure soon about how we met and how that began. But Megan and I met volunteering together specifically at an anti-violence organization. So that's been a big part of both of our lives. And I'm a mom of two little girls who we think a lot about our daughters, I think when we do our work together. Yeah, that's sort of me in a nutshell.
Christine: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I guess beyond being united by our double extra long last names, we also are all girl moms, which I think isn't lost on me that that's really important. I know in my own personal journey, I thought I would never have kids. I had all these reasons why most of them being social and climate based actually even as a really young person. And then I ended up being blessed with three beautiful children that are all girls. And every day I think I know exactly why I have you because they continually light this fire under me. It's no longer just for me. It's like you can really wield that sword if you're doing it for your daughters. And so I think again, this alignment in the way that we are tackling what we're tackling through travel is really powerful for the work that we're doing.
Christine: So again, I mean we'll be sick of it by the end, but I'm just so excited that you're here. And so I just am really honored to be talking about your journey. So I would love to begin to understand, we've heard a little of your background, which thank you for sharing. I'm always so impressed with where the women that I meet have come from before they enter travel and how that influences what they're creating. But I would love to hear a little bit more about how you landed, where you are, how you met, and how sorority came into being.
Megan: So as Lindsay mentioned earlier, she and I came to know each other through volunteering with a local grassroots organization here in and around the Ottawa Valley called Lanar County Interval House. It is an advocacy organization and an emergency women's shelter for women and children living in and escaping from violence. It's a rural shelter. It is busy all the time. It is never not full. And Lindsay and I have, Lindsay still volunteers with the organization, but she and I have the privilege of serving on the board of directors for a few years together, and that's how we came to know each other. It is a wonderful organization. We're so proud to be a part of it, and it has really shaped, I think at least I can speak from my own experience to who I am as a woman who walks through the world, how I support my community, and also what we have brought to rural through those experiences.
Megan: So we got to know each other. Volunteering on this board. We became fast friends, sharing WhatsApp messages, emails, contacts whenever we could in the midst of our busy working mom lives. And I had one day mentioned something to Lindsay about my interest in wanting to create an organization that went outside and beyond sort of the community borders, the local borders that we serve, because not only is Lindsay's Family Foundation that she's a part of Happy Roots Foundation, it focuses on local community led support. So we wanted to do something that reached beyond that. So this is where sort of the idea of Soro came in, and I know we're going to speak to the importance of finding a co-founder later, but I really wanted to have a co-founder. I wanted to be able to build this with someone else, someone who had shared values, someone who really had the desire and drive to grow in this business with me. And that is where Lindsay said, Hey, I think you're onto something here. Let's build this beautiful thing together. Let's support women locally and abroad, and let's fuse this anti-violence philanthropy piece into the travel elements of the business. Did I get it all? Lynn? That was
Linsey: Perfect. The way I remember it too is that you had sent me a voice note that said something like, in all of this, we should say that it was right in the pandemic. And in Ontario in particular, we had long periods of stay at home isolation orders. And so we were doing a lot by Voice Note and WhatsApp because we also were sort of sequestered in our homes. And at one point we had been talking about travel because in addition to how strongly we feel about women's rights and women's issues, we also were sort of independently avid travelers. So we were also chatting travel, and I got a voice note from Megan that said, wouldn't it be cool if there was a travel company that did trips for women, created safe spaces so women could travel and supported women businesses in the countries that we were going to? And there was a philanthropic element. And I was like, yes, Megan, that would be a very cool company. And then from there we're like, well, let's make it.
Christine: Yeah, I love that. And also, I guess we'll go back to divine Timing or not, but that this all launched during the pandemic. I think that's so interesting because one that should feel like the biggest reason to not start a travel company, and yet you're kind of presented with this gift of time, this unique connection and the space to actually build it. Not that running, having your own businesses and children allows for a lot of space, but I feel like we innately create space for the things that we're really passionate about. And so I love that that was kind of where this came out of even some more, I guess fierceness to that or commitment. If you decide to launch something in 2020 in travel, that means you're pretty serious about what you're creating. So I think that's pretty outstanding. I unfortunately had the opportunity of launching on International Women's Day in 2019 as a soft launch.
Christine: And then I went to my first huge event to really show Lotus Sojourns off in February of 2020, and then had my first full year of travel schedule for 2020. So I did not have that same place, but I ended up back there because essentially that's where the joke about 2.0 or 5.0 comes in. I've had the ability to go back and be like, okay, well, we tried this for a little while and it was okay, and then we tried this and it didn't work and now nothing works, but what would you really want to do? And I kept getting to get closer to the thing I wanted to create. But for you, we see your background, we see this shared passion, and then you're like, Hey, let's bring travel into this as well. What was it like starting a travel company? Neither of you had been in the industry. How did you go about tackling that?
Linsey: I think the timing of it in some ways, although terrifying was also equally useful because we actually couldn't travel. And so that gave us a little bit of space and time to think about, okay, presuming that we will be able to travel again someday, what would we want it to look like? And then how do we want to build our trips to reflect those visions? I think if we had started perhaps at a time when we could travel, it would've been maybe a little more rushed. So we benefited from a bit of grace at the beginning in the sense that it gave us time to talk about what we wanted the company to look like.
Linsey: And what you said, Christine really resonated with me about the reevaluation, the evaluation and reevaluation of your company. Because I think too, in our experience, it's felt like a very iterative process in a way because we've tried some things. You start with the nuts and bolts and build it out, but we're constantly, and I'm grateful to have Megan, that we've co-founded it because we're able to have these iterative conversations about what we should do next, what we should try next, did that work. And we've really built it incrementally and in this ongoing iterative process to where we are now and it's continuing. We're always looking at what we're doing.
Megan: And I think the one thing that the sort of promise that Lindsay and I had made to one another when we started this business is that we were going to run the business in a way that made sense for us and a way that made sense for our families and our other commitments if we knew that it was going to be slow at a certain time, we had to be accepting of that because we can only build it as quickly as two people who have other requirements in life, other jobs, other things like that. We can only build it as fast as we can. Has that meant that things haven't gone as quickly or we aren't able to partner with people on certain things. Absolutely. And it's been really hard for us as two very type A personalities that want to really connect with people and go all into something, building it slowly and making sure that we're making the right choices.
Megan: We're evaluating our expenses, we're making mistakes, we're learning from them. We're pivoting has been really, really valuable to us. As you said, Christine, we weren't in the travel space before. And I'm going to say something that's perhaps not very popular, but the industry is really hard to break into. It's a really hard nut to crack. We have experienced that. It's not necessarily always as welcoming as we would've hoped, but we also understand that the industry is reeling off of a pandemic that completely wiped out the industry of which women were a major part of it. And so people are going to come back and be competitive and it's a sales space. And so it's been a bit of a challenge to sort of break into the industry, but what we're most thankful for is the wonderful people that have come into our lives since coming into the industry that have been super supportive, super welcoming, offered advice, offered some critique very early on because we've used it, we've really used it, we've taken it to heart and it's really shaped how we've presented ourselves or how we've presented the products that we offer women.
Christine: Yeah, okay. I have about 10 different questions I want to ask right now, but I think I want to go to working with a co-founder because we've mentioned it a couple times now. So for me, as my listeners know, I'm sure my business that presents certainly many challenges, especially slow growth because it's just me and all of the things, the decisions you have to make on a constant basis. I definitely get decision fatigue, and I'll just be like, and that's enough decisions. We're not doing anything right now because I don't have that person to kind of volley or fact check with or think things through. And another thing we'll talk about is community, which I do luckily have, but it's maybe not the same as having a co-founder. So Megan, why was that so important to you? And then Lindsay, maybe you can offer your thoughts on creating a business with a co-founder as well.
Megan: So I have an executive MBA, and I've met and interacted with a lot of people in the business world, entrepreneurs especially. And one of the things that they told me is that it can be quite isolating. It can be really hard. And if you are fortunate enough to have a co-founder and have someone that you love and trust and want to build something with, do it with 'em. There have been plenty of tears, shed plenty of happy moments both personally and professionally that I'm so happy that I've had Lindsay for. Luckily neither of us have had any sort of teta tets or disagreements, huge disagreements over anything in our business yet. And hopefully it doesn't happen. But I think finding a co-founder that you respect and that you work well with and have a shared vision is really important. And I am so happy I did it. I don't think Soro would be where it is today if it wasn't the two of us. The experience that Lindsay has and the experience that I have in bringing that together has really made the business what it is, and it brings different perspectives, which I think if you're a lone person working in a business, it can be tricky. So that's why I wanted Lindsay by my side.
Linsey: I'll say too, from my side personally, I know about myself that I do my best work when I'm working with another person or in a small group. And for a long time I almost felt that was a self-criticism of mine. Like, oh, I rely on other people to get me going and to share ideas with. And now I would say once I got north of 40, I realized that wait a minute, there's no judgment attached to a particular working style. You do your best work when you're sharing with someone, building off of each other. And so for me, for sure, I would need and want to work with someone in order I'm at my most creative. Am I most motivated to do that when I'm working with someone? And I knew that Megan and I were already great at working together because we had that shared experience on the board. We were the co-chairs I think Megan mentioned earlier, and that's a lot. It's an important organization. We were both super invested in it. And so we had a trial run of working together and know each other's styles. I think we also have styles that compliment each other, and so we knew that about each other. And so when the opportunity came up working with someone, and I love that person. Okay, we're good.
Christine: Yeah, that's so good. I love that awareness that you shared about the way that you work as well. I think that is something that takes time for us to understand about ourselves and then to allow that to be a gift and not be the thing that you're holding yourself back because you feel that way about yourself to realize that that truly is a strength. I think that's a really powerful awareness. And I would love for our listeners to think about that maybe to look at something that they believe about themself is a weakness when actually it's truly their gift. And I know for me, I've done the personality assessments and all of these different ways about the ways we think and learn, and there was one in particular that my top three strengths were all about learning. One of your strengths is you learn for the sake of learning.
Christine: And I'm like, how can that even be a strength? That just seems like that's bogging me down? And it also wasn't really a tangible strength, like I am goal oriented and I am very organized. Those are the strengths you put on your resume. And someone who learns for the sake of learning feels like their resume should need to go to the bottom of the list. But having it be listed as my strength, it was something I could be like, oh, that is true about me. And what it has allowed me to do is have incredible insights into all these seemingly random things that now I can tie together in a different way and have observations about so many things that maybe most people wouldn't because they didn't just decide to take genetic engineering history of rock and roll in college because they sounded fun. And definitely my advisor would have said those were weaknesses in those moments, but I just couldn't kind of dispel that need to learn.
Christine: But I love that awareness of yourself. You had also mentioned Megan, kind of breaking into the industry how hard it was, particularly at this time. We've talked about the importance of having a co-founder, but I'd love to address the importance of having a community as you're building a business. And we met through women's work, which is a space that I'm really proud to be a part of. It's a great tourism accelerator for women and non-binary entrepreneurs. I will give Iris a shout out all day long. She's one of the allies of the podcast for good reason, but that program was so beneficial to me in terms of what I learned, but also incredibly important for the people that surrounded me with including both of you. So I'd love for you to share maybe about your experiences and why the community that you have around you when you're creating a business is important.
Megan: So we kept Ro quiet from everyone until the big launch day. We shared it with a bunch of our very close girlfriends and family members to get their feedback and thoughts, but we were very nervous to share our baby with the world, especially one that means so much to us in terms of our advocacy, our work, supporting women as well as those who have been victims of violence. We very much did not want to. I think most people don't want to hear the criticisms, especially around topics that are so important. Luckily for us, it was very well received and people were quite happy with what we had put together. We've had victims reach out to us that are very supportive and thankful for what we're doing for women all over the world. We've had experiences on fam trips where people have talked to us about their personal experiences and that they hadn't come across a business that was doing something very specific for women who have been victims of violence.
Megan: And so we're very proud of that as a business. And so our community has played a huge role in how we've approached launching rural into the world. They teach us a lot. We rely on them to not only inform us about how we're doing things, but to provide us with critical feedback as to when we are doing things wrong. The women's work community was excellent for us. We've maintained a lot of great friendships through that community, and I think groups like that are really important, especially for startups branching into the industry. I had a great conversation with Catherine Gallagher from Women Travel Leaders yesterday, just giving feedback on our experience being within the Women Travel Leaders group, a fantastic group, very helpful, very great. But some of my comments to her were around being perhaps a little bit more supportive or leaning in more to the mentorship elements of organizations or community-based groups like hers, where industry vets who've been working in the travel and tourism sector for 20 plus years should be almost partnered right away with newcomers into the industry because there are plenty little nuggets that you could get from me and I could get from you if that happened.
Megan: And I think it's really important that as women, we do that for one another.
Megan: I'm very, very supportive of mentorship opportunities with women and community building, and very much subscribed to the adage of when one thrives, we all thrive. And I think we're doing a disservice to each other as women if we're not really pushing for that. And so I think in the industry, I think it's getting better from what I've heard from people who have been in the industry for a long time, but I think we owe it to ourselves as women to do better and be better in the industry and really push for that. So that would be my feedback In terms of community. Lindsay, I don't know what you think on that.
Linsey: Yeah, I can tell we're connected because as you were starting in on answering the question, I was thinking about the mentorship piece and there were lots of parts of the women's work program, so both Megan and I enrolled in it. And we did wonder, since we're both from the same company, whether we should both do it. And I think it was a good choice that we both did because there is something about, so there's the information and that's shareable, but there is something special and unique about the personal relationships that you can develop when you're in a travel accelerator program or another type of community program, women's group or travel leaders program that you can't, there's something irreplaceable about connecting directly with other people. And I was reflecting as you were chatting, Megan, about the mentorship piece of women's work in particular and how several times along the way, so we were very early in our journey when we did the women's work program and my mentor gave us some really useful feedback, but it has come to light over time. So sometimes in a mentorship relationship, you're receiving feedback, you're happy to receive it, but it doesn't click right away. And I think that's the beauty of a mentorship relationship because some it may be six months later or nine months later and you realize, oh yes, okay, that's what she meant. Yeah, that's what she meant. And then incorporate it and take it. So I guess I would say that the value of those personal relationships and connecting with other people working in the space and then being able to maintain them has proven so useful for us.
Megan: These were two very long answers to basically tell you community is everything, and we wouldn't be here today without it.
Christine: Yeah, no, I love it. And I think those are the experiences that people relate to when they're listening. So I really appreciate it and I agree that I think mentorship is so important and personal connection, and that's part of my motivation even behind the podcast is that people listening are going to hear something, they're going to learn something from you and that's going to help them move forward in their journey. And so it's kind of like a disassociated mentorship, I guess. There's not a direct connection, but because we can share. So honestly, that's where that has value. Hey, it's Christine interrupting this conversation for just a moment to tell you about an incredible resource for women and non-binary entrepreneurs starting their travel businesses or wanting to create a more solid and sustainable foundation for their business. I am delighted to introduce you to one of the Soul of Travel allies women's work.
Christine: Women's work helps women and non-binary folks build thriving tourism businesses through education, mentorship, and community. I'd love to take you back to my first connection with women's work. Back in December of 2021, I had a meeting with the founder, Iris ccu. She was in the early stages of launching the accelerator program, but I was actually meeting her to hear about a property in Nicaragua she was representing at the time. She hopped on Zoom, fresh off the beach with still damp hair, and if I recall correctly, she was still wearing a swimsuit and coverup from her easygoing full of life energy and passion for creating community and building connections between impact driven companies. I knew right away she'd be someone I'd be staying connected with in a follow-up email, she casually mentioned an idea she'd been incubating and was creating a pilot program for called Women's Work to support or at least stage women and non-binary entrepreneurs.
Christine: It was kicking off in just a few weeks and she thought I wouldn't necessarily want to participate, but wondered if I had any referrals. However, with my women's adventure travel company, Lotus Sojourns being launched just before the pandemic, I felt like I was still in startup mode. And I loved this idea without much convincing. I offered a full hearted yes day one, I didn't really know what to expect. I just knew that I would follow this brilliant woman where she would lead and I couldn't wait to be a part of the container she was creating. Then Iris shared the modules and content, the guest presenters and mentors, and I was floored. I couldn't believe the travel leader she had involved to share about their journeys and the industry experts who would be walking us through all of the steps to successfully launch a travel business.
Christine: And the other women on the call who would join me on this journey we're all so passionate and enthusiastic about the industry and what they were creating. It was perfect. I have been in the industry nearly 20 years at this point, and I also have a master's in tourism administration, and this was what I had been looking for. There is no other place that I have seen that offers this level of support for early stage entrepreneurs. Women's work aim is to flatten the learning curve when it comes to industry knowledge and entrepreneurship, helping you reach your goals faster and with more fun, which I can attest to. Through 12 weeks of expert led workshops, mentorship and community, even after all this, the fact that I was surrounded by women as I went through this journey only made it better for me and now I have a beautiful community of women who are friends and still support me as I grow my business.
Christine: So here we are two years later and women's work is about to launch its fifth cohort of this incredible tourism business accelerator, and I am still standing beside Iris and having full faith in her vision. If you are interested in this type of support to grow your business, you can still join the cohort that begins on February 26th. Just visit women's work.com to apply today. That's WM NSWR k.com. Be sure to let Iris know you heard about the accelerator here on Soul of Travel podcast, and are you an industry professional or business owner who would love to support women's work and their mission? You can get involved as a sponsor, subject matter expert or mentor. You can reach out to me for an introduction or just email them directly at women's work@buyirisco.com. That's W-M-N-S-W-O-R-K at B-Y-I-R-I-S-C o.com. Iris and I would love to launch a special series here on the podcast dedicated to telling the stories of women's work alum.
Christine: If your business would like to support us in amplifying the voices of women and supporting more women in achieving leadership roles in the industry, reach out to me@connectlotussojourns.com. Thank you again to Iris and women's work for being an ally of the podcast. I deeply appreciate your partnership and support of my work. Thank you for taking the time to hear a bit about women's work. Now let's head back to our soulful conversation when we were talking about community of women and why we gather women together. I think this is something we both obviously feel passionate about because we created businesses that do this. There's something really important about that space and that connection. So I would love to talk a little bit more about one, why you chose soro, because as our listeners will hear, it will be really maybe obvious as to why, but it has an important meaning. And then I would love to talk about the importance of creating experiences specifically for women.
Linsey: When we were trying to decide what to name this company, we really wanted to choose something that was representative, but not too obvious, like something interesting. But that represented exactly what we wanted to do and which is an amalgamation of a few different things. So we really spent a bit of time trying to figure out, okay, what can we do and Googling and somehow how we landed on the root of the word sisterhood, which is where we got ro. So roral means of or sisters. And when we came across it, it's exactly what we do. We are trying to create a company that connects women to be of or sisters and to share those experiences in all different parts of the world. So it was exactly what we were looking for, but also with a bit of a twist. It wasn't just a sisterhood experience or a sorority experience, which has some of its own connotations, but really back to the essence of what it means to have a sister experience. And I don't know if I should say this, but we like that it kind of sort of sounded like Aurora Borealis, which had the travel element to it. We had a good chuckle about that when we were deciding should we go with it
Megan: And we didn't want to include travel in the title of the business and we knew we wanted it to be sort of one word that would be a recognizable name. So yeah, as Lindsay said in our Googling and wordsmithing and putting names together, that's what we landed on because we felt it was true to what we wanted to create.
Linsey: Having said that, our website is RO travel because as any new entrepreneurs will know, it was a whole new world to us to find domain names and learn about the internet and realizing that there are new endings for websites. It was a whole new world, but we landed on rural travel because of the craziness of landing and securing domains.
Megan: We didn't want to pay some man $90,000 to get our name on the internet.
Christine: Yeah, I feel like that's one of the first entrepreneurial lessons because it's one of the things you're like, I will have a business. I will have a website, and then you go to your finder and learn that you can't have your business's name that you've already fallen in love with. That's a really painful one. I'm going through that with the podcast right now. Oh, no. Just one of those things where it's something you don't expect to have once you've gotten that far and fallen in love with it. I really love the name, and like you said, that it's evoking not just the idea of sisters, but something even stronger. It does feel a little more magical than that or bigger than that, or has more depth because it's this kind of different word for something we think we understand, so you're not giving it away so easily.
Christine: And then also that you didn't put travel initially in the name. This was something I went back and forth with as well because I thought, I am doing travel, but travel is just this vehicle for the experience I want to create. And the experience is bigger than travel, and the community is bigger than travel, and the impact is bigger than travel, but travel is just what it sits upon. It's the easiest part to understand. But I also don't want to just throw that word in there because I think it might confuse people about my intent. So I love that you kind of also had maybe a similar conversation about why or why word wouldn't initially be important in conveying what it is that you're creating. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Linsey: I totally agree with you. Sorry.
Megan: No, go ahead.
Linsey: I was just going to say as you were talking, Christina, it made me think about also because I think we have built RO really similarly to what you just described, that it's about an experience that is really values led and travel is one way to do it, but also travel means looks a lot of different ways to a lot of different people. And there is maybe a few overarching industry narratives of what travel looks like, and we are trying to create a really different slow, personal, meaningful travel experience. And so I think in a way, although I don't know that I fully thought of it in just this way until now, but it could be misleading in a sense, to have included travel because we want to share a specific type of travel experience and not sort of a red herring of what maybe people have traveled in the past or what's most commonly thought of when you're booking a one week vacation type thing.
Christine: Yeah. Did you want to add anything, Megan, or do you want me to hop to the
Megan: Next? No, I mean all I was going to sort of add there was that travel is the tool for the social change, which as you read out earlier or mentioned earlier, travel as a catalyst for social change. And so we didn't want to add that very specifically into the title.
Christine: Yeah. Well, perfect. That will help me narrow down what the next question is. I have written, let's talk about travel as a catalyst for social change because we are so aligned in that. And when I started my company, I literally started in support of a local social impact project and I thought, okay, this is how I know I'm going to Guatemala. This is the first place I'm going. I love this organization and I want to create an experience in connection with them, and I want it to be about connection to them. And so of course we have to travel to get there, but it was so much more than travel, and so we had all these beautiful experiences together. I want to know from you, why do you believe travel is the perfect opportunity to create impact? And how does this work in your business? How have you built these two things together?
Megan: Go ahead,
Linsey: Lynn. Okay. I think when we were really starting ro, we were interested in making life better for women. And so then we had conversations, how will we do that? One place? We really landed well, we landed specifically on the fifth sustainable development goal, which is to empower women and girls all over the world, gender equality and empowering women and girls all over the world. And we sort of came narrowed it down to looking specifically at economic security of women and girls around the world and how could we contribute to that? We also have a love of travel, so we sort of linked those two up with the idea that if we traveled to other countries and look specifically to support the economic security of women in those countries, what does that look like? And so for us, it looks like finding women owned businesses that work in the industry.
Linsey: We know that the industry employs a lot of women and more than many other industries. So it's already an industry that is open and prime for supporting women in and supporting their security and increased leadership opportunities. So it's a good fit for that. So the way we've implemented it, as I was saying, is to look at are there women owned places that we can stay? Are there chefs that we can support specifically with our travel dollars? Are there guides and artisans who are trying to create sustainable long-term businesses for themselves and their families? And we can bring travel dollars to them. The women that come with us are having a personal beautiful experience, but they're also knowing that they're travel dollars are supporting women specifically. So that was sort of the core of the business piece of why travel and how we wanted to link it up to women generally, but specifically women entrepreneurs and family owned businesses. I mean, I think we know all over the world that it's harder for women-owned businesses for a whole bunch of reasons, but to get their start and to build themselves out. And so we also are a small women-owned business, so we appreciate some of the challenges and we want to support them everywhere we go.
Megan: Yeah, I think we're also an unapologetically feminist social enterprise and travel company, and I think that ties into the grit that you were talking about earlier, Christine, in that when we were initially sort of laying out what we wanted the business to look like and we were trying to think of what our voice would be in the industry, I think we thought bold, cheeky, and authoritative or something along those lines. So not only do we want to incorporate this feminist approach in the operational aspects of our business, so working with female hoteliers, service providers and various other things, we also want to create a space for that advocacy work, whether or not it's shining a light on women in the industry, the percentage of women who work in the industry, the plight of the women in the industry, showcasing bipoc women in the industry who are oftentimes overlooked.
Megan: We want to create this space where we can openly talk about how women are represented in hospitality and the tourism industry writ large. And so there's sort of this dual element to the business that we wanted to create that we didn't think existed anywhere else. There are plenty of organizations that focus on supporting women or even only working with women. There's wild terrains, El Camino, there's tons that are industry leaders that are doing really great things to support women. Where we think we are different is that we add this advocacy element and we're quite outspoken in it, and we also add this philanthropic side of things where we pair with it the support to anti-violence organizations for a reason in the countries that we go to. So again, a very long-winded,
Linsey: I love it.
Megan: Response to your question, this is why I have an hour long podcast. No, it could probably be more than that. With us, we
Linsey: Can keep going. To just take briefly onto the end of Megan's comments is that we also really on the advocacy piece, so our advocacy and our philanthropy are tied a little bit because yes, we do want to give back from our travel dollars to the local nonprofit that we've partnered with, but also to advance all of our interests in the advocacy piece by shining a light specifically on violence against women. Because what we have, of course, that's how we met in the sense that Megan and I were volunteering at our local anti-violence organization. But in every country that we've planned a trip to, it is a pervasive issue for women everywhere. And so there are lots of things that unite women around the world, but specifically on this one issue, it has touched women in every single country that we visited and all the ones that we haven't. So it's really one of the major through lines, and that's why we chose it as a focus for our advocacy work.
Megan: We probably should have pulled some statistics on it, but I mean we can share those with you, Christine, but I mean, I think anyone who, any woman can say a percentage of friends that I know, people I know community, there's not one woman in the world who isn't touched by violence against women to some degree, whether or not it's them, whether or not it's their mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, someone that they know. So it was really important for us to shine a light on this and support organizations combating this.
Christine: Yeah, that was the last thing that I kind of wanted to talk to you about is specifically how you were bringing that in and that I know that again is how you met, why you started this business, and then how you decide to bring that focus to the front of what you're doing. And again, not have it be hidden, not have it be subtle, not having it be a checkbox when people apply to take a trip with you or sign up for a trip. Do you want to add this donation? Having this be what you're connecting on, why women are finding you in the first place, they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't know my travel dollars could do this. This is how I want to make a change. And I was sharing with you before we hopped on that. I just did this Instagram post that I'm going to be crazy to see what happened while we're even sitting here talking.
Christine: But I had just read a statistic about, actually, I won't go fully into it right now, but a really painful statistic about rape in the United States and how that's kind of been eating me alive and the way that I can't get away from that thought. And then it is, what can I do about it? And that's the hardest thing. What can I do about it? Peace feels impossible. And so I think what we have all done is try to think of a way we can do something about it and do it in a way that maybe it's not all consuming. It's not focusing entirely on the experience, but we know that the choice we're making is creating an impact in a way that we want to see change being made in the world. And I can't get past how much room there is in the travel industry to do that because as you said, everywhere we're going, there is something that we could be touching upon, whether your focus is gender equity, whether your focus is climate action, whether your focus is any of the sustainable development goals, you can have an impact with your travel business.
Christine: You are having an impact one way or the other, but you can choose the impact you're having. And so I just am so honored to sit beside you and see and witness what you're creating and know that we can offer people ways to give back when they least expected to be able to do so, such as having a beautiful travel experience. That felt like a soapbox, but thank you for sitting
Megan: With me. No, not at all. No. Well, I mean Lindsay and I really appreciate you sharing all of that with us and feeling comfortable to share that with us. I am looking forward to reading what you said after the podcast on your post. We'll make sure we check that out. One of the things that was really important for us when we partnered with these grassroots women's organizations in country was that we weren't too foreign white women coming into a country and telling them what they needed to do or how they should spend the money that we give them. So we make a conscious effort to connect with 'em often to say, what do you want us to help you with and how do you want to spend this money? And how can we help you with that? It's for them to tell us what they need, not for us to tell them what they need, which I think sometimes folks in the travel industry can forget when they go to another country.
Megan: I think everyone's intentions are probably in the right place, but sometimes we need to think about the fact that you shouldn't be parachuting in and tell local organizations how they should run their services or help local women. So that's important for us. And the other piece is that we allow our travelers the opportunity to meet with representatives from the organization that we're supporting. We don't do volunteerism, we don't do anything like that. It's a hosted coffee or lunch so that they can actually ask questions and educate themselves about the organization. And we purposely do it at the beginning of the trip so that can sit with them for the trip so they can think about it so they can ask questions, and that becomes part of the experience that they had while traveling, and it's hopefully something that is memorable to them and that they're mindful about throughout their travel experience.
Christine: Thank you. Well, as we both have all said, we could probably keep talking and talking, so I'm afraid to open up another topic bucket as I sometimes call them. But before we wrap up our conversation, I want to give you the space since we have it here. I know you are looking for some aligned partners to support some of the work that you're doing. So I want to give you that space. And then we'll end with our rapid fire questions, which will be fun with three of us. We'll see how that goes.
Linsey: I think we'd love to take the opportunity to let anyone listening know that we are looking for partners for specifically a corporate sponsorship program that we'd like to launch that would sponsor advocates or victims in the violence space to join us on one of our trips. So that's something that we've just recently launched that we'd love to share with anyone in case that piques anyone's interest or if they have the opportunity to share that with anyone that they think might be interested. One of the things about travel is that it can sometimes be prohibitive because of cost. And what we really want to do is open up spaces and create some experiences for women specifically who are living or working in those circumstances to join us and really have that opportunity to travel, have meet some other amazing women and have those experiences in other countries.
Christine: Yeah, thank you. Did you want to add anything, Megan?
Megan: I think it would just be more of a call to action to our fellow women that work in the industry, seek out women owned businesses, service providers, hoteliers, when you're traveling, do your best to lift up women in the countries that you're traveling to. And if you are supporting women based organizations through your companies, tell us what you're doing exactly to support them so that we can all learn and be better and do better as an industry and have more impact moving into the future.
Christine: Yeah, I love that. And I think if people were sharing how they were doing it, again, it makes it easier for us to figure out how to do it as independent travelers and as businesses and think so many, so many of us, especially women leading these businesses, feel the same way that we do see the opportunity to create change. So I think the more we can share it only is better. Nobody loses when that happens. And so I think it's really important to create the change that we hope to create. Okay. Rapid fire questions. I think what I'll do is just bounce them back and forth between, I won't make you each answer it. Hopefully I ask the right person the right question, but I'm going to just start with you. Lindsay, what are you reading right now?
Linsey: Oh, right now I'm reading a great book. Oh goodness. It's called On Our Best Behavior by Elise Lowen, I think. I hope I didn't get that wrong for my book club. It was my pick actually. So I have to lead the discussion next weekend. I've just started it. But essentially she's looking at how women's behavior has been conditioned in our modern times through the seven deadly sins. So I have just started it, but already it's really fascinating.
Christine: Yeah, I super love her. Elise, her podcast is my most recommended podcast to anyone. It's brilliant conversation all the time. I leave every time, just like I can't even believe that next time she couldn't top it. And every time is so good. And we're reading that book in my book club this year No Way as well. So I accidentally have two copies. I pre-ordered it and then thought I didn't pre-order it, and I pre-ordered it again. So Elise Lunan someday. I would love to have that conversation with you because I'm a fan
Linsey: Out into the world right now
Christine: While we're putting out asks. Okay. Megan, what is always in your suitcase or backpack when you travel?
Megan: Lindsay probably makes fun of me for this, but always in my suitcase or backpack. It's the contact information for the embassy, the Canadian Embassy.
Christine: Yes. That's very good. I actually told my daughters, we were traveling this summer and I said one thing that might be helpful for you to always know is that there's a US embassy wherever you are, and that anything ever happens. I mean, they're super little. They're probably like, I don't even know what you're talking about, but we'll plant that seed thing to know exists.
Megan: I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that considering I work in the defense and security industry. So yeah, so that contact info,
Linsey: Because Megan has put that on my radar now, which Oh yeah. Really was before I just show up someplace.
Christine: Yeah. Okay. Back to you, Lindsay. The to sojourn is to travel somewhere as if you've lived there for a short while. Where would you still love to sojourn?
Linsey: I just got back from a weekend reunion with four girlfriends that I lived with. My very first real travel experience was in undergrad. I did an exchange to Madrid and I lived with these four girls. And then we just got together for a 23 year reunion in Paris. And while I was there, I thought I really could live here.
Christine: Yeah, I went in the summer. I would love to go back, not in the summer, because I would never want to live there in the summer. I think much like many places in the world, but I would love to give it a second chance with a little more breathing room around me. Megan, what do you eat that immediately connects you to a place you've been
Megan: Momos? They're like a Nepalese dish, Nepalese sort of Northern India dish. They're so good. Yeah, I mean, there was a place in, so I used to live in India and there was a place in Delhi that was run by a Nepalese family. I think we used to call it Momo's Palace or something like that, but that's not actually what the name was. And you could go in and just eat so many and you ended up feeling so sick after. But the experience was great.
Christine: Perfect. Lindsay, who was a person that inspired or encouraged you to set out and explore the world.
Linsey: I would say my mom, she grew up in a small town in Ontario, but I started exploring when she was in university and really sort of lit that fire in me to go and see different places and meet people in different parts of the world. When I was a little girl, she told me this great story. She was London, she was maybe 19, and Christopher Plummer sound of music was a big deal and Christopher Plummer was performing in London and she was sitting in a park and she had her Canadian flag on her backpack. It was a big thing a long time ago that everybody had that on their backpack. And this guy came over to her and remarked on it and sat down with her and asked if she was picnicking or whatever. Anyway, it turned out to be Christopher Plummer, so she was beside herself. So she told me stories like that when I was growing up. All these little funny little brief moments, encounters, and I think that lit the fire in me to go and see that for myself.
Christine: Also, I'm just sitting here imagining what it might be like if our daughters could travel together because they're having such a different experience of seeing their moms travel and what they're doing and why they're traveling, which I was just at a travel show and was listening to Andrew McCarthy speak actually, and he was kind of setting up what he was going to talk about and he was like, so many people here will be talking to you about where you should travel and I want to tell you about something different. And I leaned to my daughter and I was like, he's going to say why we travel. And she is just like, oh mom, you're so annoying with all this why we travel stuff, but how incredible just to think about this generation of travelers that we're literally raising right now. Okay. I'm getting sidetracked again and again and again, but it's okay. They're all good tracks. I think the next question, Megan, if you could take an adventure with one person, fictional or real, alive or past, who would it be?
Megan: My grandmother. She and it would be to Wales. Yeah,
Christine: Thank you. Just to share, I have a picture of my grandma right here at my desk every single day. Oh, nice. So I can Thank you. Sorry
Megan: About that.
Christine: That's okay. I emotions happen here. This is what I'm most well known. People have even told each other not to be on my podcast. You just will probably get emotional. We actually did way better than I thought. We have more left.
Megan: Okay, great. Yeah, sorry. So I'd say my grandmother and only because, and it would be to Wales because my grandfather was from Wales and when we were growing up, she always told us that she would bring us there when we got to university, but she passed away before that happened, so that would always be a fun trip for us to go.
Christine: Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. The last question I'll let both of you answer because it's the most important one, soul of Travel is for honoring and recognizing women here in the industry. Who would you like to take a moment to acknowledge in this space? And Lindsay, I'll let you answer first.
Linsey: I would love to give a very special shout out to a woman we work with in Denmark who has helped us with our work on our beautiful Denmark trip. Her name is Ann Catherine sga. She is the founder and owner of OBO Tours. And I'll just briefly say about Ann Catherine that she has many, many years in the travel industry working, but right before the pandemic, she really bet on herself and she started OBO tours at such a difficult time because then the pandemic happened and she persevered and she's got so much grit and she pulled it together and kept it going. And we met her just after that and she has been one of the most generous, supportive people that we've worked with.
Linsey: She appreciated that we were at the beginning of our journey and she still put so much heart and soul into helping us develop this itinerary. She and I drove all around Copenhagen and the South Islands together, and I have the last thing I'll say about her, but she's so amazing is that when I was there working with her and visiting with her, she doesn't just, she's a destination management company, but she doesn't just set up trips. She really has personal relationships with all of the people that she works with. She created and met new women owned businesses specifically to help us out and to introduce us to them in Denmark. And her entire business is built on personal relationships and trust, and we both have so much respect for her and Catherine.
Christine: Thank you. Megan,
Megan: Can I give two?
Christine: Sure. Why not. Okay.
Megan: One of them you might know. So a big shout out to security T Reis from Soulful Safaris. She was part of our cohort in the Women's work travel accelerator. She is one of those people that I would classify as being the salt of the earth. She has been so supportive of ro. We have great chats about being staunch feminists and working in this industry, and she is so knowledgeable and loves India so much and we're really looking forward to possibly doing a collaboration with her, so keep your eyes peeled for that. But yeah, I can't say enough great things about her. She's been a wonderful colleague, a super supportive person, and she's just an overall great gal. The other person is a woman by the name of Lourdes Martin. She's an American based in Chicago. She is a travel writer storyteller. She also owns a beautiful online company called REOs.
Megan: I think I'm saying that right, where she purchases beautiful objects from overseas that have a cultural and spiritual meaning from the place that she's sourced them from. And she, again, is just someone in the industry that we didn't know that has just been so beyond supportive of us without expecting anything in return. She's been highlighted on the Women Who Travel podcast. She's done some work from El Camino Travel. She's highlighted us, our little company in her online newsletters. So a big shout out to Lourdes. I think her Instagram is, please do tell PLS do Tell and security. They're just girls, girls supportive, great women who if either of them lived closer, I'd be having them over regularly on the weekends.
Christine: Yeah. Oh, thank you so much. That was such a beautiful end to the conversation. And I do know and love security as well, and I can't wait to check out the two other women that you've mentioned. And I mean, I think I knew it at the beginning of this conversation, but this is such a perfect example of everything that I hope to be creating and supporting in the world, and I don't want us to end the conversation, but I know you guys actually have something scheduled right after this, so it has to happen. But thank you so, so much for being here. I hope our listeners are really inspired by this conversation and I can't wait to see maybe what evolves in this new kind of sisterhood that we have ignited for ourselves here today. So thank you for being here.
Megan: Thanks for having us. Thanks so much for having us.
Christine: Thank you.
Christine: Thank you for listening to Soul of Travel, presented by Journey Woman. I hope you enjoyed the journey. If you loved this conversation, I encourage you to subscribe and rate the podcast. Please share episodes that inspire you with others because this is how we extend the impact of this show. Learn more about each of my guests by reading our episode blogs, which are more than your average show notes. I think you'll love the connection. Find our episode blogs at www.souloftravelpodcast.com. I'm so proud of the way these conversations are bringing together people from around the world. If this sounds like your community, welcome, I'm so happy you are here. I am all about community and would love to connect. You can find me on Facebook at Soul of Travel podcast or follow me on Instagram, either at she Sojourns or at Soul of Travel podcast. Stay up to date by joining the Soul of Travel podcast mailing list. You'll also want to explore the Journey Woman community and its resources for women travelers over 50. I'd also like to share a quick thank you to my podcast producer and content magician, Carly Eduardo, CEO of Conte. I look forward to getting to know you and hopefully hear your story.