What you need here is a friend in the know, one who has traveled just about everywhere and done just about everything. You need a friend who will take your call and listen as you outline your vacation dreams. You need someone who will not only suggest where you should go, but show you how to do it right. You need a travel expert friend.
Good news, travel lovers: You’ve got a friend in the Newton-based company Active Travels. Owned and operated by Steve Jermanok and his wife, Lisa Leavitt, Active Travels draws on the couple’s extensive travel experience to give you a combination of adviser/concierge help that amps up your trip in every way. And while they love to share information on exotic locales, they know our own backyard, too.
Their careers started with a summer trip as teenagers.
“We backpacked across Europe together,” Jermanok said.
“Talk about a relationship maker or breaker,” Leavitt added.
The two found not just love for each other, but a love for travel. Jermanok went on to become a well-known travel writer, often bringing Leavitt and their children along for his experiences. Then, in 2008, two things happened to propel them into creating the business: Publishing tanked and travel sites like Expedia soared.
Jermanok found himself considering a new line of work the same time online travel sites were sucking the personal touch out of travel planning.
“I knew people really needed travel expertise,” he said. “The Web was overwhelming. There were too many choices and not enough personalization. Places like Expedia and Priceline took off, but there was no customer service. It was just like when E-Trade came out, and everyone was like ‘Oh look! I can do this on my own!’ And then in time they realized, ‘Oh, gosh, I actually need some expertise here.’ Log on and book through Expedia? They don’t care. We actually do care.”
Jermanok had been doing the work in a kind of pro-bono way for some time.
“Since friends knew I traveled extensively, they’d call me and ask where they should go and how they should do it,” he said.
Building the business just made sense. So he recruited Leavitt to leave her job as a museum docent.
Today, the membership-based Active Travels helps folks figure out what they want to experience, where they want to experience it and then holds their hands start to finish. And while your mind may immediately go to “African safari” (a hot destination right now), Active Travels is just as busy helping folks find and book amazing New England trips and even Boston area “staycations.” From a weekend at the new and fun Envoy Hotel in the Innovation District to a long cruise in the Pacific Ocean, they can help with it all.
It works like this: After filling out a form that surveys your past travel experiences and future goals, you get on the phone or sit down in person with Jermanok and talk about what you love about travel, what you’d like to experience and what you don’t. They present you with destination options, drilling down every last detail, from where to stay to what to eat to how to get around to what to do. The best part is, it is all based on firsthand experience, as well as relationships the two have fostered.
“We don’t just know the hotels, we know the general managers of the hotels,” Jermanok said. “We use that to make sure everything about your trip is great.”
Once that destination is decided, they build a starter itinerary for you, and then work off that to build your full schedule based on your interests.
“We take the stress out of it and make it as effortless as possible,” Leavitt said.
That includes while you travel. Active Travels follows you on your journey, making sure each detail works out fine. And if something goes askew, they step in and fix it.
The concept is taking off. Active Travels has more than 250 members now, and is growing daily.
As for Jermanok and Leavitt, the two spent much time building and seeing through trips, but they also get to wrap a true love into their new careers: traveling together.
This fall, they will head to Botswana, a dream location of Leavitt’s. And they’ll continue to revisit New England spots to stay up to speed.
Then, of course, there’s the ultimate journey: working together in a business as a married couple.
“My office is on the third floor and hers is on the first,” Jermanok said. “That helps.”
For more on Active Travels, go to activetravels.com.
