I have a dream. Actually, I have a lot of dreams, because I’ve never been particularly good at dreaming small or dreaming about only one thing at a time. I tend to have the audacity to believe that we can dream big, chase more than one thing at once and somehow figure out how to make it all happen.
One of those dreams is to bring a group of women together to travel the world, but I want it to be about more than simply seeing beautiful places. I want us to learn about the women who live there, the women who came before them, and what women around the world are doing, creating and building today.
I genuinely believe that when women come together and learn from one another, amazing things can happen. Travel gives us this incredible opportunity to step outside our own little corner of the world, experience how other people live and come home looking at our own lives a little differently.
So I’m thinking about actually doing it, and I think our first adventure could be Italy from September 23- October 7th, 2028.
I’m looking at becoming a Group Coordinator with EF Go Ahead Tours for their Italy for Women: Rome, Tuscany and the Italian Lakes tour. EF would organize the actual trip, itinerary and logistics, and we’d have an experienced Tour Director travelling with us. I definitely won’t be attempting to guide a group of women through the streets of Rome pretending I know where I’m going.
My role would be much more about creating the community around the trip. I want to bring our travellers together before we leave, help everyone get to know each other and build excitement about what we’re going to experience. I’d share some history, fun facts, things to look forward to and probably a ridiculous number of countdowns as we get closer.
I don’t want us to arrive at the airport as a bunch of strangers who happen to be booked on the same tour. I want us to have already started building friendships and feel like we’re part of something together before we ever get on the plane.
Then we’d get to experience Italy together, travelling from Rome through Tuscany and Florence before continuing north toward Verona and the Italian Lakes. Because this particular tour was created for women, we’d also have opportunities along the way to learn more about Italian women, both past and present, and the roles they’ve played in the country’s history, culture, food, art and communities.
I’m not going to pretend this is a cheap trip, because it isn’t. This is a trip you would need to plan for and save for. But that’s also part of why I’m putting this dream out there now. With more than two years before we leave, there is time to make a plan, set a savings goal and slowly work toward making a once-in-a-lifetime experience possible.
Right now, I’m trying to figure out whether there are other women out there who have the same kind of big dream. Before I take the next step with EF, I want to know if there are women who would genuinely be interested in joining me in Italy from September 23 – October 7th, 2028.
There’s no commitment right now. I’m simply putting the idea out there and looking for women who are genuinely interested and would like to learn more as I explore what it would take to make this happen.
Because the bigger dream isn’t actually one trip to Italy. It’s creating a community of women who want to see the world, learn from the women in it, experience different cultures, make new friendships and come home with new stories and a bigger view of what’s possible.
Italy could simply be where we begin.
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, let me know. I’d love to see where this dream could take us.
Talia Hreljac 