Grand Voyages Weekly Digest

Alaska cruises, European luxury boutiques under $500, and Tennis around the world

March 02, 2025

Happy Sunday Grand Voyagers and Welcome to March!

Are you ready for Spring Break yet?

How about planning Summer travel so you have something to look forward to in a few month’s time?

I’ve got some great tidbits for you today of what’s been on my radar lately in helping plan spring getaways and summer holidays for our clients - honestly, it’s been an insanely business couple of months for Grand Voyages travel which tells me that people are looking to get outta dodge and have something special and fun in the books.

Before I go there though - if you’re at all enjoying these dispatches please share with a friend :) I’ll make it easy for you with this little button right here…

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Now let’s get into it! ✈️

Last summer we did an Alaskan cruise on the Celebrity Summit, It was my third Alaskan cruise and my favorite one so far. Why? Well for starters because we decided on the one-way itinerary from Anchorage to Vancouver, which made a huge difference from the roundtrip ones I’ve done in the past. Second, I’m just such of a Celebrity fan-girl that It made the experience that much more enjoyable. You can see the review we did on our You Tube channel below.

By the way, since we’re Film producers building a travel brand, people often ask us about the gear and tools we use to create content for our You Tube channel. While we’re moving into some more professional grade gear now for upcoming productions, we started off with a small but mighty kit of a DJI Osmo Creator Combo, and an Insta 360 which is a treat to run around with! In addition to this cruise review video below, I shot almost the entire White Pass Railway video on the Insta and got great results!

(Disclosure: some of the links on this page are affiliate links. Thank you for your support as we grow our startup travel media brand! 🙏)

OK this one is a bit of a doozy since I’m routinely booking clients now for rates in the $1K-$2K range per night at European luxury properties. Say what? Yep, it’s gone that far!

As an antidote to that I’ve been researching high end boutique hotels that you can get into for around $500 +/- a night and to my surprise and delight, there are a good handful of them. Here’s a good sampling from London - a notoriously expensive hotel market.

Email me for more ideas - I have lists going for Paris, Miami, New York, and a bunch of other expensive hotel markets. We can hack this together! [email protected].

If checking out cherry blossoms are on your bucket list Japan is the obvious choice (and I’ve got my eye on a few cruises that circle Japan as an ‘easy button’ way to enjoy it care free) but don’t forget about Seoul, Vancouver, or even Washington DC!

Here’s a handy guide if you’re looking for something to pull the trigger on in the next couple of months.

And last but not least, a client reminded me I should be highlighting the upcoming French Open as an example of destination-travel. She’s 100% right! Last year I had clients turn Wimbeldon into a big birthday trip and blow it out. What an awesome way to celebrate if you’re a tennis fan. This year they’re blowing it out at the European Music Festival Tomorrowland. We’ll save music-festival travel for another day though!

Coming down the pike we have a possible transatlantic cruise to position to Europe in style. Possibly some ramblings on the Camino de Santiago. And a river cruise along the Venice lagoons and canals.

Some of which is made possible by a brand new bonus from my Capital One Venture Card! If you don’t yet have one, our referral link will get you the best current deal and once hitting the minimum spend, your points will post right away as mine did. Just in time to book that spring or summer travel!

Thanks for reading Grand Voyages! This post is public so feel free to share it.

What about you? I’d love to hear more about your travel plans! Hit me up in the comments below or shoot me an email at [email protected].

Have a wonderful rest of your Sunday and speak to you again soon!

Stacey

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