Embark on a transformative journey.
Trip Experience Design
Design a unique journey further of your horizons
Travel is not about the perfect beach. It’s not about the glorious sunset. It’s about how that particular experience resonates into your very being, opens your mind to new possibilities, and helps you grow as a person.
Indie Horizons provides a fully facilitated coaching experience, connected with specific learning objectives, for both individuals and larger organisations. Together, we will define your travel goals, discover the ideal destination, and design the perfect journey to fulfil them. But at the same time, throw into the mix something that may challenge you. Experiences that will show you things from a different perspective. Break your stereotypes. Help you learn something new.
The work of a travel coaching facilitator goes beyond of just organising the trip, it’s about enriching your journey. The aim is to design a transformative experience, which will help you immerse into local culture, discover different perspectives, broaden your horizons, spark your imagination, and ultimately bring back a new self.
Because we believe travel learning should be an intimate and immersive experience, we recommend travelling with a maximum of 8-10 people in your party (your work team, close friends, partner, or solo). Itineraries are usually created in week-long increments (7-10 days long).
Trip Design Process
Envision
- Envision your ideal trip, or browse through our destination pages for additional inspiration. Think of what is important to you as a person, your organisation, your students or employees. Why you want to travel to that particular place? What do you want to experience in this journey? What are your expectations and aspirations? Which aspects/values you want to highlight/strengthen?
Define
- Define your trip details, when and how long you wish to travel, what is your budget and travel style, which sights and activities you want to focus on.
- Contact us to book an initial coaching session to discuss your ideas and travel goals, and we will start designing your own unique journey right away.
Consolidate
- Once you return from your journey, we strongly suggest to follow up on your trip with a personal Travel Coaching session, to discuss your experience and consolidate the personal growth process.
- If you wish, we can also provide a local facilitator to help you along your journey, in any part of the world, at additional cost.
Explore with complete freedom
Once the design process is complete, you will receive all the necessary information to explore the destination and book the trip on your own, through your preferred travel agency, or our own partners.
- A list of coaching breadcrumbs to follow on your journey, highlighting important points and aspects of local history, culture, and nature, providing initial food for thought and inspiration to stimulate the discovery and learning process.
- A detailed and diverse day by day itinerary and useful good to know tips. These may include museum sightseeing, town exploration, nature activities, gastronomic discoveries, and anything else you may want to experience.
- A map with all the corresponding points of interest, which can also be used to navigate offline.
- All the links to proceed with the bookings of any third party services, such as flights, accommodation, transportation, or local tours.
Remember that this is your own unique journey. All information provided by Indie Horizons is suggestions only. Once at the destination, you will have complete freedom to decide what to do and what not, which hotel or local company to use, and how long are you going to enjoy each sight and activity.
Personal Travel Coaching sessions
Let us explore together your travel goals and dreams
Travel coaching is not about where to go, but why go there.
A travel coach is not a travel consultant. They will not guide you towards specific destinations, or pre-determined packages. They will help you explore and define your personal travel goals and dreams, so together you can create the perfect trip.
Our travel coaching sessions are also about becoming a better traveller. Learn from your experience. Lead sustainable journeys. Respect and give back to the local communities. Minimize your impact to the environment. Shift your focus from bringing back souvenirs, to bringing back a new self.
Meaningful travelling is not about checking boxes. It is a transformative journey, that will test the limits of your comfort zone, help you rethink your stereotypes, and ultimately lead you to personal growth. And in the process, create lasting memories that can show you things from a different perspective.
Travel coaching sessions are offered online upon appointment, or in person at additional cost.
Indicative fee: 50€/hour +VAT
Travel Design Masterclass
Learn to design and organise travel experiences
Most of us have organised some of our own trips, to a lesser or greater extent. But to design and organise a trip efficiently or on a professional level requires skill, experience, in depth knowledge, critical thinking, and attention to detail.
In this masterclass you will learn how to create and conduct unique, tailored, and high quality travel experiences, whether on your own city, your own country, or any destination around the world, for both independent travellers, larger groups, or travel agencies. What is more, the programme is embedded with Travel Coaching principles, for participants to learn to create more meaningful trips for themselves and their clients.
Each module has a week-long duration, and the series of interactive lectures is combined with real world case studies and assignments, so participants can learn by doing, and implement the theory in practice. Alternatively, participants may sign up for individual modules instead of the full programme. A Certificate of Completion is awarded upon successful completion of all modules in the course.
All modules are also available as standalone seminars for travel professionals and businesses.
duration: 3hr/module, x8 modules (2 months total)
cost: 400€ +VAT (or 100€/module, prices per person)
Programme aims / Skills earned
- learn to design and organise a modern, high quality travel experience
- learn how to conduct travel research and critical read reviews
- understand cultural differences and learn cultural empathy
- learn how to discover and handle different traveller needs
- learn the basic principles for the promotion of travel services
Who is this for?
- Students and employees of tourism & hospitality sector
- travel agents, travel guides, tour directors
- anyone who wants to organise efficiently their own trips
Methodology
small groups, online interactive lectures, weekly case study assignments
Indicative module structure
- Why & how we travel / Travel Coaching
why we travel, travel style, traveller types, travel for learning & personal growth
- Travel beyond the ordinary / Contemporary approaches / Future travel
immersive experiences, carbon footprint, sustainability, alternative tourism, workations
- Travelling in a multicultural world / Cultural management
basic geography, basic history, cultural differences & similarities, cultural empathy
- Conducting travel research
basic information resources, travel guides, booking engines, critical reading of reviews
- Organising the perfect trip
building an itinerary and its components, choosing local operators, tips & tricks
- Traveller psychology
discovering traveller needs, common fears and inhibitions, communication techniques
- Athens & Greece as a destination
Athens city breaks, AirBnB experiences, Greece tourism models, global competition
- Promotion of travel services
basic marketing, creating competitive advantage, target audience, promotion platforms