Most people think they need to arrive with an answer. "We're thinking Italy?" they say, with a question mark they hope I won't notice. Here is the permission slip: you don't need a destination to call a travel advisor. In fact, some of the best trips I've ever planned began with the words "we just know we need to get away."

Because "where" was never really the question. The question is what you need this trip to do for you. Rest, the real kind, where your shoulders finally drop? Adventure, because the calendar says another year went by? Time with your kids while they still think you're fun? Romance that needs rekindling, or celebrating? A table full of food in a place where nobody knows you? Once I know what the trip is for, the where reveals itself — and it's often somewhere you hadn't considered, at a price that surprises you pleasantly.

This is destination matchmaking, and it's some of my favorite work. It starts with a conversation — twenty minutes, no obligation — where I ask better questions than a search engine can. When can you travel, and how flexible is that? (Flexibility is currency; the same budget buys dramatically more in the right month.) Who's coming? What did you love, and what quietly disappointed you, about your last few trips? And the honest number: what do you want to spend? Not the inflated number, not the apologetic one — the real one. I've planned glorious trips at every altitude of budget, and my only rule is that we aim the money where it changes your experience and save it where it doesn't.

Then I come back to you with a short list — usually two or three destinations, each with the honest case for and against, what your budget buys there, and when to book. You pick. I build. The hotels come vetted and layered with the VIP perks my industry partnerships unlock — upgrades, breakfasts, credits — at the same price you'd pay booking online. And from your front door to home again, you have a human in your corner instead of a chatbot and hold music.

Beaches, cities, cruises, safaris, mountains, islands, the trip you can't name yet — wherever it turns out to be, I can book it. That's not a slogan; it's the job description.

So bring me your daydream in whatever shape it's in. Vague is fine. Vague is welcome. Vague is where the good ones start.