Meet Travel Entrepreneur Kelly Lewis
Shaping Cultural Experiences
Travel has been an integral part of my life since I was a young child. I grew up in a multicultural, bilingual home in the Netherlands with a Polish mother and a Dutch father. My
Update & BBC News Link
A brief update: One interview video will be uploaded tomorrow evening. I believe the BBC News One-Minute World News provides well-balanced reporting of news, hence why I wanted to share it. Top stories on May
From Nigeria to Boston
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VNkCazT_T4&feature=youtu.be
When you first meet Oluwagbeminiyi Osidipe, you encounter a very vibrant, friendly, and unique personality. Oluwagbeminiyi or Niyi – as she shortened her name for simplicity – was named by her mother, who had a “very personal experience” when she had her, Niyi explained. Niyi is a Yoruba Nigerian transplant who arrived in the U.S. in 2006. As one of the most densely populated (West) African countries, Nigeria derives its name from the river that spans its land. To the South, it borders the Gulf of Guinea to the Atlantic Ocean. Originally colonized by the British, Nigeria gained independence in 1960. Its main ethnic groups are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, who speak English and their own respective languages, while major religions include Islam, Christianity and indigenous beliefs. Niyi shares her story, her views on politics, cultural differences she’s embraced with humor, and what we can learn from each other by expressing curiosity. Her message is simple: travel enriches us through its exposure to new cultures, and enables us to grow.
Mark Twain on Travel
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” (American author Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad).
Have you had the opportunity to travel (extensively, within your country, or even once abroad)? Can you relate to Twain’s sentiments? How does travel enrich us?
Pleasing The Taste Palate
Food has the wonderful quality of uniting us no matter where we are. There is nothing partisan or narrow-minded about food. It simply invites us to indulge, create recipes, and share with others. Two of my favorite Polish dishes (included in collage) are pierogies and barszcz czerwony – a beetroot soup – served on Christmas Eve in Poland. How does food bring us together? What are some of your favorite dishes and why? Can food trigger memories?
Stereotypes: Truth or Fiction?
DEFINING STEREOTYPES: “An idea or statement about all of the members of a group or all the instances of a situation.” (Merriam-Webster). Stereotypes enable bias and preconceived notions to perpetuate, but can also reveal valid
Annual Human Rights Report
“The world changed immeasurably over the course of 2011. Across the Middle East, North Africa, and far beyond, citizens stood up to demand respect for human dignity, more promising economic opportunities, greater political liberties, and
Euro Crisis & Emerging Stereotypes
Brief Crisis Breakdown Since the onset of the global financial crisis, or Great Recession, in 2007, the Eurozone has feared impending growing global debt levels, as well as sovereign debt within European countries themselves. In
Remembering Tiananmen
Today marks the 23rd anniversary of Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in Beijing, China. Inflation, a lack of career prospects, the fall of Eastern European communism, and political corruption, are all said to have fueled anger
Coffee's Uniting Power
A cup of coffee can bridge cultural gaps. At least, that’s what Gizem Salgicil White, founder of Turkayfe.org, believes. Her organization aims to create awareness of Turkish culture, particularly within America. Gizem is a Turkish native,
Today’s Culture with Travel interview is with Kelly Lewis, founder of Go! Girl Guides, Women’s Travel Fest, and Damesly.
You’ve founded several exciting companies and events specifically for women travelers. Why do you focus on women?
Honestly, I feel that I have always had a calling towards helping other women. My first company, Go! Girl Guides, literally came to me as an idea in a dream in the middle of the night. Sure, it was probably that I was frustrated at a lack of information I could’ve specifically used when I was traveling South America, but sometimes things just hit you in ways you can’t predict.
From that business came the Women’s Travel Fest — which was also a need, there was a huge void in the travel community when it came to women, and from that came Damesly, tours I created for women, which were a natural extension.
Tell us about Go! Girl Guides! How do you hope to inspire women to travel the world?
I have found such incredible personal strength and power through traveling the world. I know myself better, I understand other people better, and, bonus, it’s given me a whole new career. But, I meet women every day who want to travel the world but are afraid to go out there and do it alone. My whole existence has been around reaching these women and trying to encourage and inspire them to do the things that seem scary at first, like traveling.
I hope that Go! Girl Guides and our guidebooks can be another tool for women to have in their toolkit when it comes to getting out and seeing the world.
What inspired the creation of Women’s Travel Fest? What excites you about hosting the Women’s Travel Fest each year?
When I first moved from Arizona to NYC, I went on a cross-country road trip in which I was talking to women about traveling and I was just struck by the incredible curiosity and the conversations I had that lasted for hours. That’s when I knew I wanted to have these conversations in a bigger way, and that’s how Women’s Travel Fest began. What excites me every single year about this event are the conversations I have with our community. Last year, I had a woman in her 70s come up to me with tears in her eyes saying ‘I finally found my tribe’ and that just about exploded my heart.
It is a LOT of hard work planning this event every year, but it is the community that makes me want to keep going.
You’ve also launched Damesly. What makes your women-centric trips unique and different, and how do you create custom experiences?
Damesly is a women’s tour company that focuses on workshop-based learning — the idea was to take the workshops we have at Women’s Travel Fest every year and take them traveling. So, every trip has a theme.
For example, in our Cameras + Canyons tour, we combine a 2-hour photography workshop with a tour of the Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend, where we are taking photos the entire time. It’s a fun way of seeing the world, because you’re meeting like-minded women along the way.
When it comes to your personal travels, how do you think exploring the local culture of a destination helps you discover its story and layers of history?
Well, I don’t really think of the two as any different. Exploring a place is getting to know the local culture, and vice versa. It would be a real shame to get to a new country and only see your hotel room (although, I’ve definitely done that if I’ve had deadlines to meet — sorry, Kathmandu!). I try everywhere I go to talk to everyone I can, for tips, insight and just for friendship!
Share about a particularly memorable trip you’ve been on! Why was it so special?
I recently was in Bhutan, and it was really special to me, because it taught me some real lessons that I didn’t anticipate when I landed. Like most travel stories, it started with food poisoning. I was so so sick and had a 7 hour hike to Tiger’s Nest planned on my last day in the country, and I knew I didn’t want to miss it. So I toughed it out, somehow, and made it all the way up the mountain to the temple. As I was sitting there, meditating in this amazing place, I heard a voice out of nowhere that said, “We already love you, now you just have to love yourself.”
I cried the whole way back down the mountain, and I continue to hold to that memory when things get tough.
What advice would you share with a budding travel entrepreneur?
The best advice I have is to just keep at it. Not all projects will end up taking off, not all products will be sold, but if you just keep plugging away towards the ultimate goal of living the life you dream of living, it will start to come together slowly but surely. I also am a big proponent of meditation and manifestation — I visualize the life I want every single day and have for years. Now I catch myself taking a step back and realizing — whoa, I’m living it!
Follow Kelly on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Learn more about Go! Girl Guides, Women’s Travel Fest and Damesly.
Hi! I'm the founder of Culture With Travel and #CultureTrav. Please chat with us on social media and contribute in the comments! Follow @Nicolette_O
