About Travel Light Collective
We are a women-owned travel company on a mission to take you beyond the typical tourist hotspots and into the heart of lesser-known cities. Our carefully curated itineraries are designed for those who seek meaningful experiences, local connections, and a deeper understanding of the places they visit.
Founded by Carrie, who has a background in art and architectural history, and Bex, a professional photographer and interior designer, we combine our passions for visual storytelling and cultural discovery to create journeys that are as enriching as they are unforgettable.
Travel Light Collective itineraries leave open space for you to explore with an open heart. We can’t wait to show you the world, one unexpected discovery at a time.
About Bex and Carrie
Travel Light Collective started with wanting to fill a need we have when we travel – particularly to less-touristy places. We both regularly travel solo, and at the end of the day, we often want to talk with people, hang out, learn about different places to go. (We also want to do this when traveling with a friend!) This is much easier in places with lots of tourists, like Paris, Rome, or Barcelona, where there are a lot of options for meet-ups and tours with a social component. It is difficult in less-touristy places, like Parma, Italy, or Metz, France, or Girona, Spain. So we set out to meet that need for us – and for anyone else who wants it.
Some information about us:
- We are travelers at heart, to our core.
- We are a women-owned business based in Madison, WI, USA.
- We want to share the wonder and curiosity we feel when we travel.
- We walk – a lot. You can walk with us, or take public transportation or taxis, but walking, for us, is almost always the default mode of transportation.
- We sometimes call ourselves budget travelers, but we’re not really. Nor are we luxury-level travelers. Can we say that we are frequent, non-budget, non-luxury, keeping things under control but maybe with a splurge kind of travelers?
We have been friends for a long time, and we very much value deep friendships. We also love meeting new people. As part of the start-up process, we did a values study. And the values we came up with in common were these (seems like a lot!):
- Joy
- Wonder
- Humor
- Fun
- Curiosity
- Flexibility
- Openness/open mindedness
- Beauty
- Adventure
- Exploration
- Honesty
- Relationships
- Wine
- Having a flipping blast!
We hope you’ll explore the world with us by your side!
Carrie
I have a graduate degree in art history, but I am not an art historian. I am fascinated with language and art and architecture and history and design and literature/writing and music, old and new. I like to be surprised, so I often don’t look at photos before I go somewhere, even if I’m doing research. I like to eat, so food is always a big part of my trips, and I like pretty much all forms of wine. My travel philosophy could probably be summed up by this: When in Italy, although I’m not religious, I stop into every church I see, because why not? You never know what you’ll find!
I am inspired by the words of historian Howard Bloch: ” . . . standing before or inside a monumental Gothic church may spark wonder at its size or beauty, but knowing something about it makes for a closeness that borders on love. What more can one ask from a work of art?” Well said, Howard Bloch.
Some of my favorite places to travel:
- Italy: Albenga and Savona; Rome; Palermo, Monreale, Cefalu, Sicily; Florence; Pisa; Venice; Emilia-Romagna (Bologna, Parma, Ravenna)
- US Pacific Northwest: Seattle, Olympic Peninsula, Bellingham, Olympia
- Mexico City
- Montevideo, Uruguay
- US Midwest: Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis
- Istanbul, Turkey
- France: Paris, Metz, Strasbourg, Perpignan
- Porto, Portugal
- Spain: Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Girona
- Northern Ireland: Belfast, Derry
- Ireland: Cork, Clonmacnoise and Glendalough, Portrane
Bex
You know that saying, “Not all who wander are lost”? That’s me! I’m a wanderer. And I like to be lost! My favorite thing to do is to explore a new city, without a map, with my camera, er . . . phone, in hand. I tend to gravitate toward the less posh neighborhoods with alleys full of street art, followed by flea markets full of vintage furniture. My daily, non-traveling life is spent as an interior designer and a photographer. (Check me out at @beauty_tramp.) All of my work is naturally inspired by travel, and I am one hundred percent of the time in search of beauty.
I favor serendipity while traveling and veer toward what the locals do as often as possible, especially when it comes to eating and drinking, both of which I’m quite fond of. I also have a burdensome addiction: foreign design magazines. I seem to favor the heavy ones.
Some of my favorite places to travel (but I’m fairly certain I’ve fallen a little in love with everywhere I’ve been):
- France: Paris, Montpellier, Arles
- UK: London and Bath
- Porto, Portugal
- San Sebastian, Spain
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Haarlem, Netherlands
- Mykonos, Greece
- India
- Tokyo, Japan
- Bogota, Colombia
- North America: Vancouver, Canada; San Diego, CA; Chicago; NYC; Berkeley, CA; Mexico City and Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico
- Essaouria and Chefchhaouen, Morocco
Travel Light Collective 