How One Trip to Guatemala Inspired Travec and a Mission for Meaningful Family Travel

I didn’t grow up traveling the world.

I grew up in a pretty sheltered bubble in Rockford, Michigan.

Travel wasn’t a big part of my childhood. My life was fairly typical—school, sports, friends, family. I lived in what I thought was a normal home in a normal town. It wasn’t until I was 13 years old that my perspective on the world began to shift.

That year, I went to Guatemala on a mission trip with my dad.

I didn’t speak Spanish.

I had never left the country.

And I felt completely out of place.

But that experience quietly shaped everything that came after it.

A Village That Changed My Perspective

There are moments from that trip that are still incredibly vivid to me.

I remember how warm the people were to strangers. The kindness they showed us—even though we were outsiders who spoke almost none of their language.

I remember the homes.

Families of six, seven, sometimes eight people living together in a single room. They cooked there, played there, ate there, and slept there. Everything happened in that one shared space.

And yet what stood out most wasn’t what they lacked.

It was how happy they were.

Their lives looked vastly different from mine, but there was so much joy in their community and relationships.

I remember sleeping on the floor of a school gym that was essentially outdoors. I remember sitting with my journal trying to write down Spanish words so I wouldn’t forget them. (The spelling was… questionable at best. My 13-year-old attempt at Spanish was doing its best.)

I remember the kids in the village trying to teach me Spanish and laughing as we tried to communicate with half words, gestures, and lots of pointing.

And what struck me most was this realization:

You don’t need to speak the same language to connect with someone. Human connection is bigger than that.

When it was time to leave the village, I remember feeling deeply sad. Something about that experience had shifted inside me.

And when I walked into my house back in Michigan, I had another realization.

My home suddenly felt enormous.

Beautiful.

And far more than we needed.

At 13 years old, my perspective on the world had widened in a way I didn’t yet have the words to explain.

But I knew one thing for certain.

I wanted to keep exploring the world.

The Trip That Set My Life in Motion

That experience in Guatemala quietly influenced so many decisions that came later.

Because of that trip:

• I chose to study Spanish.

• I later traveled solo to La Coruña, Spain in high school, staying with an exchange student’s family for a little over a month and immersing myself in the language and culture.

• I went on to study Global Studies and International Relations at Arizona State University, and later earned my Master’s in Management from Davenport University.

My career path followed the same direction...

While I was still in college, I began working with the International Students and Scholars Office, helping organize international student orientation, airport pickups, and welcome week programming. I also communicated with students before they arrived in the U.S., answering questions and helping them feel more comfortable coming to a completely new place.

Later, I worked in International Admissions at Davenport University, running a one-person department responsible for recruiting international students, reviewing applications, and helping guide students through the entire process from acceptance to arrival.

Everything I was doing kept pointing back to the same idea:

Connecting people across cultures matters.

Becoming a Mom Changed the Question

Then I became a mom.

My daughter Victoria was about five or six years old when I began working for a travel company that created immersive cultural travel experiences for adults.

The trips were incredible. Thoughtful. Cultural. Meaningful.

But I started noticing something interesting.

Most of the travelers fell into two categories.

They were either in their 20s, traveling before kids…or in their 60s, traveling after their kids were grown.

And I kept thinking:

There is forty years of life in between those stages.

Forty years of amazing family memories waiting to happen.

Why did it feel like meaningful travel had to happen either before kids or after kids?

Why were families missing out on that middle chapter?

At the same time, I was raising my daughter and realizing something else: the kind of travel experiences I loved felt incredibly intimidating for families to plan on their own.

And I couldn’t stop thinking:

What if families could experience the world this way too?

The Beginning of Travec

That idea eventually became Travec, which Amanda and I launched on August 28, 2022.

Travec curates culturally immersive travel for families and adults so they can experience the world in a meaningful way.

In the beginning, we actually assumed families might want longer immersive experiences—one month or more abroad.

And while there is certainly a market for that, we quickly discovered something important.

Many families love the idea of immersive travel…but they don’t always have the flexibility to disappear for a month.

So we adapted.

Today, Travec designs shorter but deeply immersive experiences that fit within real family schedules while still creating meaningful cultural connections. We also continue to design extended custom travel experiences for families who want longer stays.

Our first group trip was to Madrid in June of 2023 (Amanda led that one!).

And seeing families explore neighborhoods together, practice Spanish, and experience a city through culture rather than just sightseeing reinforced exactly why Travec exists.

“I Want to Wait Until My Kids Remember”

One comment I hear from parents all the time is this:

"We want to wait until our kids are older so they remember the trip."

And I understand the sentiment.

But here’s the interesting thing.

Even though my Guatemala trip shaped my life in a huge way, if you asked me to recount every detail from those ten days when I was 13, I probably couldn’t.

I’d guess 70–80% of the specifics are gone.

But the moments I do remember—the feelings, the connections, the perspective shift—have stayed with me for decades.

Those small memories were invaluable in shaping the path my life took.

Kids take something away from travel at every age.

Sometimes it’s a memory. Sometimes it’s curiosity. Sometimes it’s empathy.

And sometimes the experience shapes them in ways they won’t fully understand until years later.

But here’s another part parents don’t always think about.

Travel isn’t just shaping their childhood.

It’s shaping your parenthood too.

Those shared experiences become part of your family story.

Maybe This Is Your Sign

One of my favorite parts of Travec is imagining that somewhere on one of our trips, there might be a kid having their own version of my “7th grade Guatemala moment.”

A spark. A widened perspective .A launching point.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your kids are ready for international travel…

Maybe this is your sign.

Because sometimes one small experience in another corner of the world can quietly shape a life in ways you never expected.