Check Instagram Stories for Reviews!
Post-pandemic, we have hit the ground running and I haven’t had time to catch up on this section yet! But on our instagram @myworld_travel, we have a “Reviews” highlight and you can read through all of our recent reviews there!
Location: Iceland
Dates of travel: January 16-21, 2020
Your Experience: Working with Katie made a complicated trip very seamless. She gave us a range of options with her own recommendations based on experience that helped us choose all of our activities and lodging for the trip. I really like that she gave us a budget, standard, and splurge option and pro/cons whenever possible.
What did you love? Loved having the full itinerary in one place. That was great not only for myself, but for sharing with my family while I was gone.
What would you do differently? The only thing that was very minimally hard was remembering which decisions were still left to be made since we didn’t decide everything at once. Hard to do depending on the trip but whenever possible, would recommend getting final decisions on all activities, lodging, fees, etc at the same time.
Kate Davis + Friends
Iceland
Location: New York City
Dates of travel: March 9-13, 2020
Your Experience: There were 14 of us who traveled to NYC, 11 students, some who had never even flown on a plane. When we first met with Katie, we realized how passionate she was about helping us to have a successful experience for our students. She secured our flights, shuttle service to and from the hotel, found a conveniently located hotel that had complimentary breakfast (important for hungry students), a hop-on-hop-off bus tour, Statue of Liberty Cruise, tickets to The Met, and booked two Broadway Shows! With Katie’s help, this trip was no stress and everyone had a wonderful experience in NYC. I’m sure, for many of these students, this was the trip of a lifetime.
What did you love? I went with the group who was seeing the Broadway Show, Mrs. Doubtfire. This was the opening week of the show and it was amazing! We laughed, we cried… it’s definitely in my top 3 Broadway Shows. I also loved seeing the students experience the city that never sleeps… and, from what I heard, there was one-night several students took advantage of this. LOL!
What would you do differently? The only thing I would do differently is to purchase subway passes for all of us. It seems we always take the subway more than we think we will.
Susan Mackowiak, Ivy Tech Community College
New York City
Location: London and Edinburgh
Dates of travel: October 17-26, 2019
Your Experience: This was such a wonderful experience as it really took the stress out of traveling. We received great suggestions on what to do, how to travel, where to stay, etc. and Katie was EXCELLENT about working with us to find things for our specific interests. I would definitely utilize this service again for traveling abroad. I used the Tier II package this time, but I think I would go up to the Tier III next time because after traveling and seeing how great the Tier II was, the Tier III would definitely be worth it and reduce my stress to absolute minimum.
What did you love? The biggest things for me were (1) how much we were able to work together: there was great back and forth communication and (2) the lack of stress! We had such a short notice trip scheduled.
What would you do differently? I would contact Katie sooner and go to Tier III instead of Tier II. Tier II was 100% worth it, and because of that, I think Tier III would reduce my stress that much more!
Emily Wilborn
London & Edinburgh
Location: Italy
Dates of travel: October 31 – November 8, 2019
Your Experience: Great experience. Smooth travel.
What did you love? Loved Tuscany and the tour with the butcher! Your reco! Thank you! Florence. And Rome was more amazing than I imagined it would be.
What would you do differently? Our fault, but we over programmed especially at the start. Would take it a little slower. But still happy because of all we got to do and see. Needed more cash. Many places did not take cards.
Amy Boardman Brummer
Italy (Sorrento, Florence, Rome)
Location: London
Dates of travel: September 30-October 4, 2019
Your Experience: London is wonderful and we will make this a go-to place. Our tour, rail arrangements that Katie made for us were flawless and so aligned with our interests.
What did you love? Our Viator walking tour guide was outstanding. The Churchill War Rooms and Museum are a must! Windsor Castle and Hampton Court as well are magnificent.
What would you do differently? Just take more time there. Another trip!
Dr. Carolyn Burns
London
Location: Rome, Florence, Prague
Dates of travel: October 13-24, 2019
Your Experience: Katie is fantastic! All of her recommendations were on-point and we had the best time. She stepped in and helped with all the things we didn’t want to/couldn’t handle and then gave us plenty of time on our trip to fill in the blanks.
She is a joy to work with, hilarious, helpful and just plain fabulous. We’ve loved every minute working with her And can’t wait to plan our next trip!
What did you love? Loved all of the recommendations, our hotels were wonderful and all the travel planning help was key to making the process stress free.
What would you do differently? We would have probably asked for more things to be scheduled. It would also have been fun to let the hotels know we were celebrating our anniversary since a couple mentioned that they wish they would have known in advance.
Danielle Rudy Davis
Rome, Florence, Prague
Location: Germany, Paris, London
Dates of travel: July 19-28, 2019
Your Experience: Wonderful, great places to stay. We had a great time.
What did you love? Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery. Tracing my family to town in Germany.
What would you do differently? Maybe visit two different countries instead of three.
Mike Schellenberger
Germany, Paris, London
Location: France (Paris, Normandy, Bordeaux, Nice)
Dates of travel: July 10-23, 2019
Your Experience: It was a great trip with a good blend of attractions, events, and experiences.
What did you love? We loved Bordeaux and Nice
What would you do differently? Spend less time in Paris and more time in Nice.
Sarah Hyland
France (Paris, Normandy, Bordeaux, Nice)
Location: Turkey (Istanbul, Cappadocia, Fethiye)
Dates of travel: September 19-27, 2019
Your Experience: I reached out to Katie based on a co-worker’s recommendation, for help planning an epic week-long birthday trip to Turkey. I typically love planning my travel, but was so busy with other things that I knew I’d end up just skipping the trip. She and I met and talked through what I was hoping to do, my travel style, etc. Then she was very communicative throughout the process and always did a lot of digging to provide a few options that would fit my desires. She loves providing extra info, tips, a handy language sheet, and more to make your trip run smoothly. While I love planning my own travel, I’d definitely use Katie again when the need arises!
What did you love? Katie’s enthusiasm for the process and excitement over the trip itself. She prides herself on providing little extras like language and process tips that would be super helpful for people who don’t travel that much. She’s super organized and takes feedback really well.
What would you do differently? Not different necessarily. I think it took a little time at first to get my idea of “epic” and hers aligned (I was like, no, go BIG) but we got there and my experience was awesome!!
Jessica Fergen
Turkey (Istanbul, Cappadocia, Fethiye)
Location: Turkey
Dates of travel: February 27 – March 9, 2019
Your Experience: I had an incredible time in Turkey and loved that we did the city, the countryside, a beach town and the ruins all-in-one trip. Before we left there were many people who expressed concerns that it wouldn’t be “safe” to go, but I never once felt at risk or in danger. I felt safe at night walking around with two other women and everyone we encountered was friendly and respectful.
What did you love? It’s amazing to me that you get to walk among the ruins. Touch them. See them up close. Pet a cat resting on a column lol. I really appreciated how kind everyone was to my 2.5 year old niece. There’s so much history, I don’t think we would have learned or grasped as much as we did without tour guides.
What would you do differently? Not tried to go to the Grand Bazaar on a Sunday when it was closed – waaaah. I felt like the sales-y moments on the Herapolis/Pamaukkale tour days were excessive (like 5 stops total that felt like we’d be brought there for them to try to get us to buy stuff), so I would have made it clear upfront that shopping wasn’t really on the agenda (or in the budget – I would have loved a Turkish rug!).
Minda Reves
Turkey
Location: Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica
Dates of travel: May 15-29, 2019
Your Experience: I absolutely loved traveling Latin America. I enjoyed knowing lodging and travel was scheduled for me and it relieved some stress of traveling. I also appreciated that Katie had an itinerary for us to follow and all prudent information at our finger tips. As well as being super reliable and available to answer any questions we had during our trip.
What did you love? I loved every bit of my trip.
What would you do differently? I graduated the weekend before departing to Latin America and did not take the time to really take a look at our flight times, I should have as they were being booked. Anyway, the only thing is that I prefer short flights both in layover and flight time and all my flights were extremely early in the morning and made it so difficult to have energy the following day to go out and explore. Also, some flights had really long layovers that I prefer not to do. This again was a mistake on mine for not checking with Katie before booking.
Maria Diaz
Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica
Location: South Africa
Dates of travel: January 18-28, 2019
Your Experience: Four days of Safari and five days in Capetown
What did you love? We couldn’t have loved our Safari experience more. It was unbelievably exciting, and the resort was beyond relaxing.
What would you do differently? I’m struggling to think of something but I guess maybe we should have fully planned our Cape Town days so we could’ve squeezed in a few more excursions.
Elizabeth Ann Duncan
South Africa
Location: Turkey
Dates of travel: February 27 – March 9, 2019
Your Experience: Our Trip to Turkey was my first time using any type of travel agent or planner, and it was the best decision we made outside of booking the flights. This trip included 4 busy adults and and a toddler (which requires it’s own set of accommodations) visiting 4 cities/towns, so we needed help. Katie was extremely knowledgeable about the area and created an amazing itinerary for us. She left us room to explore where we wanted and booked us tours when it made sense. Where decision points or action was required on our part she gently nudged us to make sure we weren’t getting behind. She really did all the hard work so we could just go and have fun.
What did you love? I absolutely LOVE Katie’s passion around travel. She recommended such fun and interesting things for us to do, as a result we had an amazing trip. I’m so grateful that she kept us on track during the planning process so there was no last minute scrambling.
What would you do differently? I will always bring my own car seat in the future, that is for sure. I loved Turkey and it is incredible how many sites there are to visit, so much history in one country! I’d love to go back again though and see some things off the beaten path, now that we’ve seen a lot of the highlights.
Jasmine Tate
Turkey
Location: Italy (Rome, Florence, Amalfi Coast, Sicily)
Dates of travel: October 1-10, 2018
Your Experience: Katie basically planned our entire honeymoon to perfection. We came to her wanting the trip of a lifetime, and we got it! Our trip included a ton of moving from place to place and everything was seamless. We were nervous about our skills of grabbing trains and different flights multiple times in one trip, but it was so easy with her guidance and directions! She had everything done for us before our trip even began. She spent months sending us recommendations for hotels and airbnbs and they were all great recommendations. She also did great research on any activity we wanted to do and they all ended up so fun and perfect for us. she just did an outstanding job.
What did you love? The packet she gave us before we left was SO helpful. She also spent about thirty minutes on the phone with us beforehand making sure the whole packet made sense so that there were no questions before we left. This experience just could not have gone more smoothly or been better.
What would you do differently? Absolutely nothing! Katie was INCREDIBLE!
Caitlin Byrd
Italy (Rome, Florence, Amalfi Coast, Sicily)
Location: Japan
Dates of travel: September 14-24, 2018
Your Experience: Katie was the best! She reminds me of an old fashioned travel agent as she was available all the time to iron out details why were in Japan. She took great pride in making sure our trip was flawless.
What did you love? The people, the history and the the artistic aesthetic style of the Japanese people.
What would you do differently? HHHM. Public transport is an absolute necessity in Japan, which is really no longer our thing, but I think packing a little lighter and doing more wash would be preferred. Bullet trains are fab, but you still have to do connections and lift your suitcases onto the overhead luggage racks.
George Johnson
Japan
Location: Pris, Conque Terre, Rome
Dates of travel: October 16-27, 2018
Your Experience: Everything went like clockwork! It was so smooth. All the accommodations were wonderful. All the transfers (drivers, trains, planes) went perfectly according to plan. We cannot thank you enough for your help in making that happen! I feel certain if left to our own devices to plan this trip there would have been numerous mishaps and missteps that resulted in a great deal of stress. As is was, we were able to relax and enjoy ourselves and the trip was truly magical. Thank you so much for EVERYTHING.
What did you love? All the air b-n-bs and VRBOs were perfect for our needs.
What would you do differently? Have a slightly longer buffer to make our connection on the way home. Getting through customs took longer than expected.
Whitney Martin
Paris, Cinque Terre, Rome
Location: The Highlands, Scotland
Dates of travel: July 23 – August 6, 2018
Your Experience: Katie planned my husband and I’s two-week honeymoon to Scotland. She helped us plan out every aspect of the trip, which was such a relief after planning a wedding. She completely nailed it! Our trip was paced perfectly for us, slow and relaxing. We knew we wanted to run, hike, and fish our way through the country, and she found perfect stopping points for us on our road trip. Traveling is so much more enjoyable when you know you’ve had someone like Katie pour over every detail to ensure the best possible experience!
What did you love? Our favorite part of the trip was staying at Killiehuntly. We also fished with Scotia fishing, which we would highly recommend to anyone looking to fish in Scotland.
What would you do differently? Nothing!
Amy Nelson
The Highlands, Scotland
Location: Germany (Berlin, Heidelberg, and Munich)
Dates of travel: September 13-23, 2018
Your Experience: Allison was lucky enough to gain entry to the Berlin Marathon this year, and Oktoberfest started the following weekend, so a week spent in Germany was a no-brainer! Katie helped us find accommodations, booked travel to and within the country, and did a ton of research that made our trip worry-free.
What did you love? The itinerary Katie wrote up with all of our travel details in one place was invaluable while traveling. The boat tour in Berlin the day before the marathon was a great way to see the city while resting up for the race. The Airbnb she found for us in Heidelberg was one of our favorite places we’ve ever stayed! Her Oktoberfest tips made it easy for us to relax and enjoy the day.
What would you do differently? We probably would have stayed an extra day! We also would have probably allowed extra time to make connections when traveling by train — contrary to popular belief, German trains do NOT run on time.
Allison Cuyjet and Paul Brown
Germany (Berlin, Heidelberg, and Munich)
Location: Ireland
Dates of travel: June 6-13, 2018
Your Experience: I had a wonderful experience in Ireland thanks to the exceptional services provided by My World Travel!
What did you love? I’m not one to generally participate in guided tours, but every tour we experienced was outstanding. From the town of Howta to Belfast to a walking tour of Dublin, we were thoroughly impressed by the tours and the guides. We also enjoyed the city of Dublin, its history, and the fun pub crawls!
What would you do differently? N/A
Emory Williamson
Ireland
Location: Turkey
Dates of travel: July 29 – August 19, 2018
Your Experience: One of the best vacations of our lifetime!
What did you love? Turkey is a wonderful country. We started our trip in Istanbul, which is truly amazing. The history, the architecture, the food, and the hospitality – all are worth exploring in depth. The government of Turkey has a highly developed tourism industry, and they do a great job showcasing their unique historic and geologic treasures. My World arranged for guides, sponsored by the government, that took care of us – door to door – to many of the treasures of the country. It was an effortless, memorable experience.
What would you do differently? Not a thing!
Jim Rightmyer
Turkey
Location: Orlando, Florida
Dates of travel: April 26-29, 2018
Your Experience: My 12 year old daughter is a HUGE Harry Potter fan and last year asked if we could go to Orlando to go to all of the fun HP stuff. I told her to save up! Well, she saved up $380 and asked again so I had to say yes! I’m a busy working mom and did not have time to research so Katie at My World to the rescue! We decided to ditch my husband and 17 year old son and just have a girls’ trip. Katie asked great questions about what we wanted to do, what our time-frame options were, and of course, budget. She took care of everything and when airline ticket prices changed before we booked, she continued to check them to help us get the best option and price. I never felt apprehensive with her recommendations or thoughts. She gave us a few options on each part of the trip and made it easy to say yes, no, or look a little further into it, please. We had a fantastic trip and I am so appreciative for all of her help and expertise! My daughter is over the moon with her Orlando & HP experience and vacation!
What did you love? Katie asked the right questions, did her homework, and came back with options. She made it so easy and pain-free. Just what I needed!
What would you do differently? Nothing really, I cannot think of anything that was a glitch or issue.
Camie Lies
Orlanda, Florida
Location: Iceland
Dates of travel: July 9-16, 2018
Your Experience: My wife and I had an amazing experience!!
What did you love? We loved everything about the country- the glacier, the waterfalls, the vistas. Everything was picturesque!
What would you do differently? Maybe use a different airline [WOW Airlines]
Kyle Kaiman
Iceland
Location: Ireland & Scotland
Dates of travel: March 26 – April 9, 2018
Your Experience: An adventurous journey! And I could not have done it without Katie!
What did you love? Katie was always open to ideas, keen on what WE wanted to get out of the experience and always reachable!
What would you do differently? I would have done a little more of the ‘homework’ myself regarding driving distances, debit card vs credit card issues, and saved more money for emergencies!
Kate Raisor
Ireland & Scotland
Location: Italy, France, Germany, England
Dates of travel: May 17 – June 3, 2018
Your Experience: We hired Katie to help plan our 3 week Honeymoon vacation to Europe. We had never been before, so we wanted to see a lot of things our first time out – Rome, Florence, Venice, Paris, London… and maybe a few stops in between. Planning this on our own with no prior knowledge of this kind of international travel would have been a nightmare. Katie and My World Travel absolutely saved the day and made planning our Honeymoon a breeze.
What did you love? Besides the obvious things to love about Europe, we loved how Katie was extraordinarily communicative, responsive, and accessible throughout the entire time we were abroad as well as the months leading up to our vacation. Her recommendations for things to do, places to see, and ways we could fit it all into our packed schedule were beyond phenomenal.
What would you do differently? We will probably opt for (at least) business class seats next time we have a 14 hour flight! Buying tickets ahead of time for museums, monuments, and events is a good idea, but it really is optional in Italy. If you’ve got your wits about you, haggling with a scalper (or better yet, pitting two scalpers against each other) will often times end up getting you a better deal than the normal ticket price online. We’ll also study the public transportation options, routes, and fees a little better next time before we arrive.
William Borza
Italy, France, Germany, England