The Gift Of Time Together

You can spend a fortune on a “once-in-a-lifetime” family vacation and still come home thinking, we barely connected. That’s why we sat down with Paul Partridge, a former financial advisor and retirement planner who now designs multigenerational trips as a different kind of investment: time together that turns into stories your family repeats for years.

Paul shares the planning mindset behind his company, Travel Villa Guide, including a simple but powerful tool he calls travel type matching. He breaks down four common travel styles immersers, adventurers, experiencers, and relaxers and explains how conflict happens when one style sets the agenda for everyone. We talk about how to give each person space to enjoy what they love, then pull the group back together for the moments that actually matter, like meals, mornings, and unhurried time under one roof.

We also dig into the practical side of group travel planning: why starting with the people and the purpose beats starting with the destination, how to avoid the “vacation from vacation” feeling, and when a villa rental can deliver more value than booking multiple hotel rooms. Paul explains why vetted homes and local travel concierge support reduce risk, fix problems faster, and keep small issues from hijacking the whole trip.

If you care about family reunion travel, legacy, and building memories that last, this conversation will give you a clearer plan and a better reason to travel. Subscribe, share this with your favorite travel planner, and leave a quick review so more people can find us.

Visit Paul's Site: https://www.travelvillaguide.com/

Get a Free Guide!: https://gift.travelvillaguide.com/

Download full-color PDFs of my book at prices below Amazon paperbacks. Visit my store at https://shop.jimsantosbooks.com 

Subscribe to our Mailing List

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2292506/supporters/new
http://jimsantos.net
https://www.instagram.com/jimsantosblog
https://www.youtube.com/@jimsantos508
jim@jimsantosbooks.com

"Wherever We May Roam: Finding Your Travel Style" - On Amazon

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Welcome And Travel Style Mindset

Jim 0:00

Have you ever returned from a trip feeling completely worn out? Well, maybe we can help. Today we're talking to someone who can help you change the way you travel. Welcome to Wherever We May Roam, the new phase of Travel to Jim and Rita. This podcast is about discovering your own travel style to explore the world. I'm Jim Santos, and along with my wife Rita, we spent more than 16 years traveling. Sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes for a few months, and sometimes a whole lot longer. And what we've learned is this there's no right or wrong way to travel. Some people take extended getaways, some roam part-time, some work from the road, and some make travel a full-time lifestyle. This podcast is about helping you figure out what works for you and how to make it happen in the real world. So whether you're planning your next trip or thinking about something bigger, we're glad you're here. Let's get started. Welcome everybody, I'm Jim Santos, joined by my wife and travel companion Rita, and this is Wherever We May Roam. Our guest today is Paul Partridge. Paul spent years as a financial advisor and retirement planner. He's also a travel writer and photographer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, Forbes.com, and International Living. Somehow those two worlds collided, and today he runs a company called Travel Villa Guide, which helps families and close friends plan trips centered around what he calls the gift of time together. We're going to talk about travel today and about something bigger, about legacy, about inheritance, and why, for a lot of people, the most meaningful thing they can leave their family has nothing to do with money. Paul, welcome to Wherever We May Roam.

Paul 1:48

Thanks, Jimmy Rita. I appreciate being here.

Paul’s Shift From Finance To Travel

Jim 1:52

Paul, you have a pretty unusual background, uh, financial advisor and and now a travel writer and photographer. How did those two worlds collide?

Paul 1:59

Yes, you're right. It's pretty it's pretty unusual. I I guess I would explain it maybe in in a roundabout way to say that, you know, the older we get, the harder it becomes to get the people we love together in the same place at the same time. It is. Kids grow up, they move away, parents get older, close friends, you know, get caught up in their own little world, and getting everyone together, you know, just becomes harder every year. And you know, somewhere along the way I kind of realized the best trips aren't just where you go, but it's about bringing the people that you love close together.

Rita 2:39

Right.

Paul 2:40

And that's why I travel you know, I started Travel Villa Guide, you know, specifically to help families and close friends, people like me, honestly, you know, to create extraordinary vacations that celebrate life's important moments, you know, family reunions or multi-generational trips, milestone birthdays, anniversaries, you know, those kind of things. Just believing that the these kind of moments deserve more than ordinary vacation. They deserve more than uh, you know, going to the restaurant.

Rita 3:12

You know, I used to go with I have three uh older brothers and they were all married and had children, and we used to rent big houses at ski resorts and spend every Christmas. And then it seemed like after our parents passed away, we've moved along to different things. But yes, those were very wonderful trips.

Paul 3:33

Yeah, they kind of live on too, don't they, Rita?

Rita 3:36

They do. Yes.

Paul 3:37

Yeah.

Jim 3:38

There must have been a point along there where you're, you know, a financial advisor. Was there a particular trip that you took, or you and your family took that made you kind of bend into the into this direction?

Paul 3:49

You know, there there were a couple, we've been doing it to be honest, Jim. Our family has been doing these kind of trips for about 25 years, maybe a little bit longer. But we try to do one family, extended family trip every year, at least one. I remember the first one that we did was with my parents and siblings and and the kids, you know, a three-generation trip, and and we went to uh you're not gonna be surprised by this, but we went to Disney World. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, yeah, and we rented a house. It was the first time that we had ever done that, and that was a revelation. But you know what? It was just having everybody uh together. You know, I remember, and we used to laugh about this. My daughter, my youngest daughter, my dad was holding her in, I think it was what do you call it, frontier, frontier land. And you know, we just got there, we just kind of you know made our way through the park, we sat down, he put her on on his lap and she immediately threw up on him.

Rita 4:55

And then Welcome to Parenthood.

Paul 4:58

Exactly. And then my other daughter, who was a little bit over, she ran into Captain Hook about five minutes later and absolutely had a meltdown. And uh despite, you know, despite that, you know, it's still one of the trips that you know we laugh about and talk about. So that was like the first eye-opening thing was that trip. And then like I said, we've been doing it for 25 years and kind of that's kind of what launched the thing because you know, friends and and people I would meet either through work or whatever, we I would tell talk about the trip, and they'd say, Oh man, can you do that for us? Yeah, because that that sounds amazing. Yeah, so that's kind of how the whole thing started.

Rita 5:38

Yeah.

Jim 5:38

Well, let me ask you this. My first wife and I planned a trip once to France, and we rented a house, and her brother and his wife and some kids came with us. So there were like eight of us all there in this house in France. But we really only saw each other when we were in that house. We went with the kids one place, uh, he and his girlfriend went to another place, and his kids who were older, they hopped on a train and went to Amsterdam so they could try out the hash bars.

Rita 6:07

So love kids.

Jim 6:09

So, how how do you handle this when the same group of people may want completely different things and be in completely different places?

Paul 6:17

Yeah, you know, that's a great, that's a great question. And to be honest, it's a question that I kind of struggled with for years. You know, how do you do one trip that makes well we we take we have a little bit bigger crowd when we go? So, you know, how do you plan one trip that makes 12 or 15 people happy, right? Right, right.

Four Travel Types For One Group

Paul 6:35

And eventually over the years, I came up with something that we now call travel type matching. What we found is that people naturally lean toward one of four travel types, and I'll explain them to you. One we call the immersers, they they're the type of folks they want to understand the place inside and out. You know, they get out for the guides, you know, they read every museum plaque, they read every message in in the you know, in the laboratory, they they they have one more question while everybody else is wondering, hey, what's for lunch? They want to stick around and talk to the guide for another hour, right? So we call them the immersers, and and we have several of them in our family. My wife is one of them. And then the uh the next kind of category is called the adventurers. Those folks come alive through activity, you know. If they're not biking or climbing or kayaking or trying to, you know, hike to the best view, they they start to get restless. Yeah, so that's the adventurers. The next is the experiencers, they rely more on their senses, you know, they want to see it, taste it, smell it, yeah, and experience it for themselves. And and they're the ones who kind of wander off and then they come back later with a local fisherman who's been invited to dinner.

Jim 7:50

Yeah, that's kind of us.

Rita 7:52

Yeah, that's our job as well. Yeah, yeah.

Paul 7:54

That is me. I'm glad to see that we're on the same boat. We are experiencers, and that is me to a tea. The last one is called relaxers. You know, they find the perfect chair by the pool on day one, and you can find them in the exact same spot on day seven.

Rita 8:10

Yeah.

Paul 8:11

And they're completely happy.

Rita 8:14

Yeah.

Paul 8:15

You know, generally when I talk about these different types, people kind of say, Oh, you know, that's dad, or that's that's Aunt Lois, or whatever, right? They can kind of they they they recognize these things. But you know, the reality is that in any group, you're gonna probably have all four travel types.

Rita 8:32

Right.

Paul 8:32

And the way that we kind of work things is we try to find out who are those types before you leave. And then we try to give each type, you know, something they're excited about. You know, we let them have their space to do those things, and then we work about gathering everyone together for the moments that matter, you know. So that could be, you know, we're gonna eat dinner together every day, or we're gonna eat breakfast together, or just something that brings everybody together to remind us that hey, we're on this thing together. The purpose of the trip is to be together and we can all go do our things and be happy and find our happy place, but let's come back and share, right?

Jim 9:17

So it sounds like a lot of work goes into this before you you even get on the plane.

Paul 10:06

Yeah, and and even honestly, Jim, even before we figure out what's the best destination.

Jim 10:13

Well, can you walk us through that? What how do you go about if somebody approaches you and says, hey, we want to plan a get together for our family, say, 12 people?

Paul 10:20

So the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna say who's coming. So we want to start with the uh we want to start with the people, not the place. Obviously, everybody has in mind, you know, an idea of where you want to go, so you know, extremely important. I don't wanna I don't want to discount that, but we have to know who's coming and what's the purpose of the trip. Because a trip that's for say eight people who went to college together 20 years ago and now they're getting together is very different from we're celebrating Grandma's 85th birthday. You know, we want to know the purpose of the trip and what is the, you know, what's the vibe and what do we what are the what's the number one thing we want to get out of it, who's coming, and then we can get around to all right, now let's talk about the destination. We talk about what kind of place you're gonna stay in. And then we figure out how do we put an experience against, you know, each of the different travel types that we mentioned. Right. So that you know, so everybody has a good time. And you know, a lot of times, you know, I I don't know about you, but I my friends come home from vacation, I say, How was it? And you know, the first thing they say is, Oh my god, I need a vacation for my vacation.

Rita 11:35

Yes.

Jim 11:36

Yeah, I've been there. There were times when I was working that it it was a relief to get back to work.

Paul 11:41

Yeah, and I think you know, when that happens, and you know, I I kept hearing it more and more, and you know, so I've thought quite a lot about that. And what I've concluded is that it comes down to like there's something off about the trip if you're coming home more exhausted than when you left.

Jim 11:56

Yeah, I think trying to do too many things.

Paul 11:58

Yeah, it could be it could be as simple as that. Yep, it could be as simple as that, or it could be like you know, there's some misalignment. So to the adventurer, you know, getting up and jumping on a bike before breakfast and you ride for 20 miles, that's exhilarating to somebody who is not an adventurer, if they're the relaxer and they're made to do that because you know, hey, we're all gonna do this together, that's they find that extremely exhausting. Right. Just like the same thing as if you, you know, if you're the type of person that, you know, wants to do three museums before 12 noon. Uh and you know, somebody else likes to just get up gradually and stretch and have their coffee. And if you put them on your schedule, you you know, one of the two of you is gonna not be very happy and probably exhausted.

Rita 12:46

Right.

Paul 12:47

So I think that's kind of how it gets to that. And that's why we try to figure out, you know, how best do we balance it so that people are gonna be exhilarated by what they do and they're gonna come home refreshed. And we always say our goal is to have everybody come home closer than when they left.

Jim 13:04

Now, the the cost of renting those homes, larger places, has changed a lot since the time that Rita was talking about.

Rita 13:10

Oh, yeah. Well, it was pretty expensive for

Start With People And Purpose

Rita 13:13

three hours.

Jim 13:14

Is there a threshold of the number of travelers you need to make it you know economically feasible to rent a house or a villa and and travel like this?

Paul 13:21

Yeah, I think you know it it varies by what you know what people are comfortable spending. But I would say for us, kind of the minimum threshold is we as few as six, I think is probably the smallest. But usually it's more than that. You know, usually it's eight or above. But I think six is the minimum because if you start to do the arithmetic, you know, a lot of people have this notion of, oh my gosh, villas and private homes are so expensive. But and they can be, but you know what I found, Rita, is that when they're saying that, you know, I always say, well, compared to what? So if you're you're staying, you like to stay in nice hotels, right? It doesn't have to be, you know, five-star, superstar hotel, but let's say you like to stay in a four-star, you know, four-star or above hotel. And that's that's kind of what you're used to. You have let's say ten people going, right? Depending on how it breaks down with families and stuff, you could need five or more rooms.

Rita 14:21

Exactly.

Paul 14:22

You know, if you're again it it all depends on where you're going. If you go, but if you go on a lot of our trips are to Europe, so if you're gonna go to a nice place and and you're gonna go in and you have to be going in the summertime and you're in a four-star hotel, you know, you're gonna be paying, I don't know, five, six hundred dollars a night for the room.

Rita 14:41

Yeah.

Paul 14:42

And if you multiply that by five, if you do have five rooms, you know, you're looking at twenty five hundred, three thousand dollars a night in just in accommodation costs. And boy, you can get a lot of nice villas for that. Oh yeah. Right.

Rita 14:56

And uh you know, yeah.

Paul 14:58

And the difference is that you know, you have the space to be together when you want and to to you know retreat when you want as well. Everybody has their own rooms and stuff, but you have you have your own kitchen, you have your own pool, you don't have to fight for lounge chairs around the pool. You get to have coffee together in the morning, you get to have sit around the pool in the afternoon, you get to eat together at night. You know, it's it's a much more I think space is very un it's very underappreciated.

Rita 15:29

I I agree. Uh yeah, we always we usually get some kind of an apartment or a condo or where wherever we go.

Jim 15:37

It's even been a house sometimes.

Rita 15:39

Yeah. Even in in Ireland, it was lots of times houses because yeah, we enjoy that, even though it's just the two of us.

Jim 15:46

Yeah, the extra room really makes it. I mean, even just having a comfortable chair to sit in.

Rita 15:50

Yes.

Jim 15:50

Yes. A lot of the times in hotels you may have one chair or two chairs and they're not very comfortable.

Rita 15:57

Yeah.

Paul 15:57

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a certain sort of I mean, don't get me wrong, I love hotels. We do too. Um, but you know, not in a group. And to be that claustrophobic thing where you only have your that little space where it's a bed and maybe a desk and that's it. Yeah. Is

Villas Versus Hotels Cost Value

Paul 16:12

vastly different than just having like, you know, a kitchen and and a place to sit and a place to go outside. And yeah, it just it's just a different experience. So I would say even if it was the same price, just the difference in experience, you know, to me makes it hands down. If you're in a group, you really hotels kind of separate you. That's the other thing is you know, you're on different floors, you're in different rooms, right? Just you try to gather the group just to have dinner, and it's you know, you need a camp counselor to like it's a challenge, yeah. Right? Everybody's on their phone, it's like, where's Jimmy? Where's Mary? Where's Jimmy? Oh god. Wait, wait, where did Aunt Lois go?

Rita 16:51

Hold on.

Jim 16:51

Yeah, there's cost and then there's value.

Rita 16:53

Yeah, and that's what we look at. How much is the value gonna cost us?

Paul 16:59

Yeah, I remember you one of your shows. I remember you were talking about, I guess in Ireland you had you had a problem with a with a place you showed up it wasn't great, and you're saying, well, we we're gonna have to pay a lot more, but man, it's just worth it.

Jim 17:12

Yeah, that was something I wanted to ask you about because you know, as you know, we're no strangers to booking with Airbnb and booking.com, but like this place in Scotland, sometimes we found the description doesn't really match the location. But looking at your website, it seems like you've kind of like pre-screened or pre-selected the places that you're getting people into. Can you tell us a little bit about that? How how do you meet these people? How do you set this up?

Paul 17:35

Our trips, we're trying to give people their own private world where, you know, for one week or two week, you know, the rest of the normal hectic life fades into the background. That's right. And you're just you know, you're just ensconced or sometimes I say cocooned in your own little private world. What we want to do is we want to protect that, and we we protect that in a couple different ways. One is that we provide all the houses have concierge support. We can talk about that in a little bit. But to answer this question, you know, before we're not

Vetted Homes And Concierge Support

Paul 18:13

going to recommend a home, they've all been vetted and they've all been inspected. And and certainly I've I mean I've rented my share of Airbnb and VRBO places as well. But it's always that sense of, you know, when you open the door, especially if you have other people that you're responsible for, you kind of open it with one eye open. It's like a box of chocolates. Right? Yeah, I'm not sure what's here. And I mean, I I even read, you know, a few months ago, I remember I was reading, I was reading Travel and Leisure, and the CEO of Airbnb was being interviewed, and they asked him what's the you know number one problem. He said the number one problem, I I was surprised he said this actually, but he said the number one problem is is people saying this isn't what I expected. So I I feel that, and you know, if I'm gonna send 15 people, you know, to Tuscany or something, I want to make sure that the place has been vetted and inspected before they get there. And that's so that's what we do. Like I say, we have local concierge support to to you know also be there to make sure everything's great. And if anything comes up, look, you know, things do come up. And you know, the difference between being happy and being unhappy is do they get fixed right away?

Rita 19:29

Yeah, exactly.

Paul 19:31

If you're in Greece and you don't speak Greek and you show up at your place on a you know, Friday afternoon and you've flown all night and you get there exhausted and no hot water. Yeah, or I was gonna say, you know, these days, you know, it could be 105 degrees, and what if the air conditioning doesn't work? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you yeah, so if you don't, I mean if you don't speak the language, it's even it's even scarier because you know, the owner of the Airbnb, that person, he or she could live in Istanbul or London or New York or that.

Rita 20:07

So she lived in Canada.

Paul 20:10

Yeah, like first you have to find them, yeah, and then and then you have to tell them the problem. And then, okay, now they have to try to fix it from New York and the and you're in Santorini, they're not gonna find somebody to well, first of all, you're not gonna get anyone in Greece to come on a weekend. Right. Right. And you know, you're gonna be it'll be Monday or Tuesday before anybody even shows up at the house. Yeah. And now you've lived four days and 105 degrees, everybody's miserable.

Rita 20:38

Oh god.

Paul 20:39

They're all looking at you saying, Why'd you pick this place?

Rita 20:41

Yeah.

Paul 20:42

And um, so we just like it to have it where you can have someone to say, you know, Julie, the air conditioning doesn't seem to be working. Could you take care of that? We're going to the beach. Yeah. That's a much that's a much nicer sentence than what are we going to do?

Rita 20:57

We've actually only had two stinkers, though, right, hon.

Jim 21:00

Yeah, and with that air conditioning problem, we had to we had to stay in the unit until somebody came out because we had to be there to let them in. Yeah. Oh, good guy. So it wasn't a we'll go to the beach. It was Yeah, well, we'll be here sweating.

Paul 21:13

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's yeah, no, that's what I was saying is that what you know when you have the concierge support there, you can go to the beach. You don't have to wait for the exact for the air conditioning guide to show up, right? So that's that's just one of the ways we you know, we're trying to protect that. We're trying to create this little private world, and then we're trying to protect it to make sure that it, you know, it it's it's the way that you want it. Yeah.

Jim 21:35

Yeah. Well, you know, another source of anxiety for for travelers, especially new travelers, is when you f first show up at the airport and you don't speak the language.

Transfers Group Input And Teen Realities

Jim 21:45

Getting transportation from the airport to your accommodations can sometimes be a little stressful. Do you help with that also?

Paul 21:53

Yeah, we're gonna make sure that that's all arranged beforehand if that's what someone wants. Some people are inveterate travelers and they say, Oh no, no, we we know what we're doing, we're good. Now, the one thing we don't do, you know, is we don't handle the flights. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Jim 22:08

Yeah, that could be a nightmare.

Paul 22:09

Yeah, that's a nightmare. And you know, people are coming from everywhere and their schedules change and stuff. So we just say, look, from the time you land on the ground, we we got it from there. And then, you know, we'll get you take care of everything, and then we'll put you on a plane to go home. But the plane part isn't isn't anything that we do, but everything else we yeah, we do. We make sure that that people don't have that panic moment of, Oh my gosh, I I I don't even know where I don't even know where we're we're supposed to meet somebody, or where's where's the where's the bus? Where's the taxi? Where's the thing?

Rita 22:43

Say I've Some people just freak out about that. We just pivot. We just work it out. It's no biggie. Yeah.

Paul 22:50

Well, part of it is, you know, Rita, I think it's partly like how long you have to be there too, right? So if you agree. Yeah. If you're going somewhere and you know you're going to be there for a month or two months or something, you're much more relaxed. Oh, we can figure this out. Yeah. Well, you only have a week or you only have 10 days or something. It's like, hey, every minute counts, you know? Yeah. We got to get to the house.

Rita 23:12

Yeah.

Jim 23:13

Now do you typically work with just one group member or is the kind of thing where everybody gets a vote on what they're doing or gets at least a say on it?

Paul 23:22

Generally there's one point person, but we don't plan around one one point person's vacation or trip. So we go out of our way, you know, with the travel type match, and we're enthusiastically asking about the other members because that's gonna make or break it. But we wanna, you know, we tend to deal with one person. It's we're not gonna deal with 15 people, but we'll deal with one, but we encourage, you know, this is a group trip and it it they should have group input. I I remember one, it was a destination wedding that uh gentleman had come to us and asked us to work out it was in Italy, and we had a couple conversations with him and we were starting the planning process, and it seemed like every time I asked questions about, you know, what what is the what does mom think? What is the what does the bride to be think? What is what is your son think? He's planning it for his son. You know, the answer was always, oh, it doesn't matter, I'm paying for it. So they're gonna do it my way. That's a disaster. It's gonna be a disaster. I actually I said, you know what, I don't know that I'm the best for this trip, so I think I think we were gonna pass. Yeah. Um, because it yeah, that was gonna be a disaster.

Rita 24:41

Yeah, it only takes one customer to be dis dissatisfied and spread it all over the world.

Paul 24:48

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, we plan group trips, we want the group to be happy. We don't it's not just one person, right?

Jim 24:56

Yeah. Do you have uh a lot of difficulty with teenagers? I know we took our son to France once and he walked through the Louvre with his head down looking at his feet the whole time. Yeah. You know, the kid the kids get to this certain age where they they're rebelling against everything. Oh yeah. Uh has that ever come up on your trips?

Paul 25:14

Fortunately, is I've been on the planet long enough, Jim, to kind of have seen all these things. Yeah, yes. Right. So I that's why, you know, I spend the whole first conversation trying to find out who the who the folks are that are coming. And I, you know, because I've seen this, I get to explore it. But you know, if you do again, if you set it up correctly, we're trying to set, you know, have those things that, okay, this young man is maybe not going to be interested in the Louvre. So do you intend to drag him or her around, or are you open to them doing something else? So depending on the answer to that, you know, we can make make the uh proper arrangement. But we're trying to we're trying to nip that in the bud because you know, the whole per again, the whole purpose of this is like we want you coming home closer than when you left.

Rita 26:09

Right.

Paul 26:10

You know, it's not to put up fences or have anybody be uh, you know, excluded, uh resentful, you know, that they had to go here or there. And also, you know, the other part of it is like if you know the Louvre, like well, maybe you don't want to see, you know, this painting or that painting, but there are a lot of things in the Louvre that might be interesting to a 13-year-old.

Jim 26:32

Well, he's since grown up and took his daughter to France, and she was a major pain in the ass, too.

Paul 26:36

So that's great.

Jim 26:38

So I feel vindicated by that.

Paul 26:39

Yeah, it is yes, yes, fair play.

Jim 26:43

It may be petty, but I feel I feel good about it.

Paul 26:46

That's good. That's good.

Jim 26:49

Now, what what do you think are some of the biggest mistakes that people make when they're planning a family or or a friends reunion or or especially a multi-generational trip?

Paul 26:57

I think the first

Biggest Mistakes In Family Trip Planning

Paul 26:58

one is, you know, kind of one that we spoke about already, which is like every, you know, everybody starts with the destination, right? They're all they're all focused, hyper-focused on where they're going. You know, before the destination, it's all these other questions, you know. Is this, you know, is this the first time the family's been together in years, right? Are you celebrating a birthday? Is this the trip where the grandkids are you know meeting their first cousins for the first time? Or so it's to get that stuff down first. I think that's the first mistake is starting with the destination as opposed to the people and the in the purpose. I think you know, another one is not getting everyone on the same page early, schedule-wise. I just this one's on top of mind because we were planning a trip for a family. You know, we had asked all the questions and we were narrowing in on the destinations, and we started to go down to the point where we're you know starting to pick pick out homes and stuff. It turned out that you know, two of the kids actually couldn't come.

Rita 28:01

Oh gosh.

Paul 28:03

That's something that I would say, you know, make sure everyone's on the same same page, uh, you know, schedule-wise. Yeah. Uh those I imagine that's one of the biggest problems.

Rita 28:12

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Especially if you have adult children.

Paul 28:17

Having those ducks in a row at first. Otherwise, I mean, you can go around and around on these things, you know. And you know, that's why we like to have one person who's has a little bit of authority where they can kind of push the conversation along. Yeah. But we have a list, like a checklist of things. All right, can we check off these boxes before we move to the next step?

Jim 28:39

Yeah. Yeah. Rita and I had families of our own when we met. And when we went to get married, we decided, oh, it'd be great to do a a Disney cruise.

Rita 28:48

Or a destination.

Jim 28:49

And invite everybody along and they could come on the cruise and you know, the kids and the grandkids.

Rita 28:53

And because they all had little ones.

Jim 28:55

And everybody had a conflict with this or with that, and we finally just got married in the Justice of Peace.

Rita 29:01

Yeah. Yeah. And went to Ecuador and bought a conflict. Yeah. So okay, come see us when you want.

Jim 29:09

Yeah, so I can I can see where your service would be really valuable to people who are trying to put something together like that. Now, on your website, you mentioned uh three aha moments in your life uh about travel. Is there one that you'd like our listeners to take away from this conversation?

Paul 29:24

There's a couple things that say it goes back to my uh financial advisor days. You know, I spent a lot of our time answering

Living Heirlooms And Travel Legacy

Paul 29:33

the big questions, you know, like, you know, what's what's important and and what are the assets, right? And what's the what are what's the legacy and what are we going to pass on? I think that there's a lot of a lot of that thinking can be brought over to traveling. You know, there's another kind of, I guess if to keep it in terms of the you know, financial planning, there's another kind of wealth really. To me, what I've discovered to me is beyond money, beyond tangible things, what what is it? You know, it's having adult children who still want to take vacations together. It's having grandchildren who actually know their grandparents. It's friends who you know you've shared decades of life with that you still want to make time for. And those those things don't just happen, they have to be invested in. And traveling together is an investment in the in the people that you love.

Jim 30:29

So this is that gift of time together.

Paul 30:32

Exactly. And over time, those investments become we call them, we call them heirlooms because you know, people think of heirlooms as things, right? Like a watch or a piece of jewelry or something tucked away in an attic or in a safe deposit box or something, right? But something you leave to someone you love. But to me, you know, the best heirlooms are the memories are different, right? They're not tucked away. They're carefully protected. You know, a a a watch or a piece of jewelry, they're not brought to life. They're like kept in a box somewhere, you know? Right. But a travel heirloom is different because it comes back to life every Thanksgiving or every Christmas, you know, whenever somebody says, Remember when we did this? Remember when we went here? You know, there's another detail that somebody forgot and everybody's laughing about it. Maybe the grandkids are hearing about the story for the first time. And and and maybe it's something that, you know, years later they're gonna pass on to their kids. And I think these living, we call them living heirlooms, they they become your travel legacy. You know, the trip itself might last a week or two, but that story can last for generations. So yeah, I think that's one kind of aha. And sort of in the same vein. I asked the question, you know, what's luxury? And I think what luxury certainly what it means to me today is different than what it meant to me 20 years ago, 30 years ago. Sure. You know, for a long time, luxury was defined, I think, as having more, right? We more amenities, more services, more extravagance, more stars on the hotel, right? But to me, today, the greatest luxury is is having less. And what do I mean by that? Well, like less noise and less interruption and less hassle.

Rita 32:28

Right.

Paul 32:30

Which leaves more time with the people that you came to be with, right? So you know, that's why we're not just planning a vacation, we're creating this private world where your favorite people can reunite and reconnect and you know, be together in a way that ordinary life rarely allows these days, you know?

Jim 32:53

Yeah, I think you're on a good track there in terms of inheritance because something we've learned, you know, combining households and moving from place to place is our kids don't want our crap.

Rita 33:03

They don't.

Jim 33:04

You know, kids kids today are not interested in grandma's fine china.

Rita 33:07

No. Yeah. No.

Jim 33:09

But the kind of memories that you're talking about, the life connections, that is something that does last.

Rita 33:15

Yeah, it does.

Paul 33:16

Yeah, yeah. And and you know, my father-in-law, you know, we were talking about earlier, like what were the things that launched me on this journey. I remember my father-in-law, we were celebrating, I think it was his 80th birthday. And he said, I have one request, I just want us all to be under one roof. So that you know, we were going to Italy and he said, I don't know, this might be my last trip to Italy, or I just want us all to be under one roof. You know, that was just it was such a it was a different trip for us to together with that with that family, and it was just so amazing. And he what he had said, you know, before we left, he said that I believe passing on experiences and memories is better than passing on money or things. And so that was his, you know, part of part of his gift that he that he wanted to share. And I think it goes to what you were just saying, Jim, about you know, would you rather have a piece of china or would you rather have you know this memory that just that just keeps coming back and you can relive and re-experience when you all get together again? Yeah. We have this other thing, you know, I we talk about travel type matching. We're always coming up with with different ways to talk about what we do and and how the points of difference that we have and believe in. And again, because of my financial background, I kind of talk about return on investment. You know, we have this thing we call it the five-year test. It's very simple. It says, you know, five years after the trip, A, you're still talking about it, and and B, if you are, what are you talking about?

Jim 34:55

Right.

The Five-Year Test For Joy

Paul 34:56

You know, I ask clients, I always ask clients when they come back, you know, what's your favorite moment from the trip? You know, no one ever tells me the people that go to Paris never say, well, it's the Eiffel Tower, or you know, people that go to, you know, people that go to Rome, they don't tell me, oh, it's the Coliseum, right? What yeah? What do they say, right? They say it's you know, the surprises or it's the things that made them feel something. And you know, I'm remember one client who was in Rome, he said his favorite memory was was running from gelato shop shop to gelato shop with his kids in the rain. Yeah. He said, you know, he said, I'll never forget that. Another said it was arriving in Italy for the first time and and being welcomed into the neighborhood restaurants like they were long-lost relatives. Um, they thought that was amazing. You know, if if if you ask me, if if you ask me about, you know, going to Ecuador or going to the Galapagos, I'm not gonna tell you, you know, I saw, you know, a a tortoise. I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you about swimming with sea lions. Right. And I remember that's the thing I'll never forget is we were snorkeling, we were with a group, and this little sea lion swam right up to me underwater. And I had the goggles on and stuff, you know, and he looked at me in the eye, and then he darted over to my wife, and he jumped clean over like something out of a flipper movie, just like to this amazing look. Like he was sort of like saying, Hey, watch this. And then he did that, and I and I, you know, stood up in the in the water, and and everyone on the beach just burst into applause. Five years later, you know, I'm still telling that story. Right. You know, to me, it's like, well, that's my return on investment. And, you know, honestly, that's what I want for the families you know, we serve. I want, you know, I call them moments of pure joy where you're you know fully present and fully alive and you're with the people you love, you know, you just it's like a snapshot, and you say to yourself, Oh, I don't ever want to forget this.

Jim 37:09

Well, if someone's interested in planning a trip or exploring the possibilities, is the best way to reach you then from your website, the travelvillaguide.com.

Paul 37:17

Yeah,

Free Guide Resources And Farewell

Paul 37:17

yeah. It's it's absolutely the best way to do it. I would say an even simpler, you know, an even simpler thing is, and I'd love to share something. We have a guide. Um we kind of mentioned it before. It's called the gift of time together, kind of explains some of the things that, you know, our philosophy and what I've been talking about and how to put together family reunions and multi-generational trips. I'd love to offer that to any of the listeners together. It's a you can download it for free at gift.travelvillaguide.com. So it's our name, but the word gift in front of it. So gift.travelvillaguide.com. You know, if it helps your family uh create memories you'll still be talking about five years from now, then uh it's done exactly what I hope it would.

Jim 38:07

We've been chatting with Paul Partridge, travel writer, photographer, and so much more. You can find out more and start planning your own aha moment on his website at travelvillaguide.com. And don't forget to visit gift.travelvillaguide.com for your free copy of his three steps to creating unforgettable trips. And of course you'll find links to those sites in the show notes. Paul, thanks for joining us on Wherever We May Roam.

Paul 38:31

Thanks, Jim and Rita. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for spending some time together today.

Jim 38:37

Next week we'll be taking you all the way to Australia to meet the travelista herself, Linda King, who will be sharing money-saving tips on travel. So until then, remember we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us. If you've been thinking about traveling longer or just traveling better, we hope this episode gave you a few more ideas. Remember, there's no right or wrong way to explore the world. Only the way that works for you. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow the podcast, and if you have a moment, leave a quick review. It really helps more people find us. And if you want to go deeper, you can check out my book, Wherever We May Roam, Finding Your Travel Style, where I walk through all of this in more detail. You can search for it on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and audiobook, or just use the link on our podcast page. If you have any questions, a topic you would like discussed, or would like to be on our show, email us at Jim at Jim Santosbooks.com. Thanks for listening, and as always, safe travels wherever you may roam.