Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

North America

Women’s Travel Fest 2019 – Day 1

Photo by Amy Harris/The Travel Addict

Women’s Travel Festival is a celebration of females who want to explore, who are curious and who create. This year marked the sixth year of the event which aptly kicked off with a pre-party the day before which happened to be International Women’s Day.

The first day the panels and speakers was led by founder Kelly Lewis in the beautiful space that is the Angel Orensanz Center, a synagogue with gothic revival architecture, in New York City.

The first panel “The Future of Travel Is Women” was curated by Lewis and had speakers such as traveler, TV Host and producer Rachel Rudwall, travel editor of Unearth Women Magazine Nikki Vargas, Girls LOVE Travel founder Haley Woods founder and Uber’s Tracey Breeden.

Unearth Women Magazine is the first feminist travel magazine on the international market with global distribution and is edited by Lewis and Vargas. The publication focuses on women’s travel, feminist city guides, food and culture and women who are making an impact internationally.

Girls Love Travel, founded by Woods, is an online community and Facebook group where women can connect and socialize about their travels. There are currently 737,000 members of the empowering resource that is Girls Love Travel.

All of these women had an open conversation on sharing their personal story as female travelers, empowering others to share their own stories of travel.

“Fear is the greatest barrier to freedom,” this was a statement by Breeden. Those words bounced off of the stained glass and fastened on the minds of hearts of women in attendance.

Breeden is the epitome of badassery; she was a former sex crimes detective and is now the senior program manager of safety and insurance at Uber. She is a champion for women’s safety and spoke about initiatives that Uber was implementing for women worldwide for female customers and drivers.

The next panel “How Travel Actually Enhances Your Career” featured journalist, Travel Channel host and media personality Oneika Raymond, travel blogger Sherry Ott, and Erica Virvo who is the director of global operations at Nomadic Matt.

Traveling isn’t cheap, so the women on this panel shared tips on working abroad, balancing travel and work and ways of making money to travel or while traveling.

 One of the best panels of the weekend included an inspirational speaker, Nigerian photographer Lola Akinmade Åkerström. Her work has been featured in National Geographic, CNN, BBC, and many other publications. “What was denied to me, I decided to give to others,” she said.

She spoke freely about discovering, amplifying and maturing one’s voice. Her moving words resonated throughout our curiosity, wonderment, and need for exploration as we held on to her every word, every pixel of her photographs as they showed only a segment of her many experiences.

Her story of immigrating from Nigeria to the United States and then to Sweden and how that influenced her photography, her work, and her voice was nothing short of encouraging.

After lunch, there were many fascinating panels for the second half of the day.  “How I Became a TV Host” featuring Mickela Mallozzi of the PBS series Bare Feet with Mickela Mallozzi. She shared her story of dreaming big, hard work, frustration and resilience.

Other panels included Tenny Ostrem and Claire Wernstedt-Lynch who decided to walk the thru-length of the United States and Mexico border and last year they became the first ever people to complete the task.

The last panel of the day featured Annette Raymond, Amanda McCullough, Samantha O’Brochta, Chantel Loura and Bianca Karina Vaccarini. These women spoke about representation in the travel industry how we “view” travel and “who” travel is for in the mainstream.

The after party of drinking and networking took place at Jia, a speakeasy, at the Hotel on Rivington. Stay tuned for our recap of the second day of this year’s sixth annual Women’s Travel Fest.

Article by Liz Ramanand

Latest Articles

Interviews

Claudette Zepeda is an award-winning chef who focuses her culinary skills on regional Mexican cuisine. Claudette can be seen on Thursday, November 30th on...

News

The eagerly awaited Sunseeker Resort Charlotte Harbor is thrilled to announce its official opening date, set for December 15, 2023. This independently branded property...

News

Delta Airlines announced discounts on upgraded seats for Cyber Monday and Travel Tuesday, extending the sale through Wednesday, November 29. This promotion includes reduced...

North America

As travel has become more and more accessible, there is a myth that keeps getting perpetuated. This myth is the idea that long-distance vacations...

News

Paris is one of the most magical cities in the world. This year if your travel plan include the city of lights you can...

News

Anyone who has visited the Biltmore Estate knows how magical it is during the Christmas season so it makes sense that the network known...

You May Also Like

Interviews

The series “Departures” chronicled two Canadian friends Scott Wilson and Justin Lukach as they quit their day jobs to make their way around the...

North America

While covering MGK “Machine Gun Kelly” Day which took place on August 13 I visited the musician’s local coffee shop, 27 Club Coffee. It...

Interviews

Cincinnati-based chef Christian Gill has been taking on every challenge that the Food Network has to offer this summer. He is currently competing in...

Interviews

Ministry has paved a unique path for the past four decades, from its early days melding elements of dark wave, synth pop and metal...