TCS World Travel Testimonial

Speaker: T. Cole Rachel, Editor, Departures Magazine

T. Cole Rachel: Hi, my name is T. Cole Rachel. I'm an editor at Departures Magazine. Earlier this year I went on a TCS trip to... a journey to the South Seas, going from Hawaii to the Cook Islands to New Zealand, to Australia, then to Fiji and back to Hawaii, which was all really incredible.

T. Cole Rachel: My experience with TCS was really remarkable. I mean, not just because of the places we went, which were incredible, and because of the accommodations and the meals, which are also incredible. But it was a kind of level of service that I really never experienced before. You know that every detail was thought out. You really never had to be stressed out about anything. It was just really pretty unbelievable, the level to which everything had been planned and co-ordinated and the seamlessness with which everything happened. I just never ever experienced anything quite like it.

T. Cole Rachel: I think my main concerns prior to this trip was just that as a person who's used to traveling alone and used to creating my own itineraries and used to sort of exploring without much of a set itinerary. Anyways, I was worried that it would feel a little bit too much like a class trip or that I wouldn't feel that it would be sort of hemmed in by schedule and I might want to do my own thing. And how is that gonna be? And it turned out that, you know, your itinerary is very robust and you always know what you're going to be doing, but they do have these pockets of time that sort of allow you to sort of choose your own adventure when you want to. And everybody running the trip was so accommodating that if you did feel like you needed to do something else or you wanted to have some time on your own or there was something else you wanted to do, they would also help facilitate making that happen as well. But I found beyond that, that like once I sort of settled into the rhythm of the trip that like, I was so grateful for the itinerary and also the mental space for me that was freed up by not having to think about what I was doing next was actually pretty great. And, you know, I had been really worried about, well, if I cannot deviate from this itinerary, if I want to or if I don't feel like doing something. But in the end, I really didn't ever want to. It was really, the pace of things was such that it felt really natural and, easy and, yeah, pretty, pretty, amazing. So, you know, any concerns I'd had about like, you know, traveling with the group and not having like my own freedom or my own space were pretty quickly. elade once I sort of got there and saw how everything was organized. So, yeah, it was great.

T. Cole Rachel: I think my biggest surprise about my trip with TCS was, I sort of wasn't, you know, I, I was pleasantly surprised by like, how great everything was and how much, how wonderful the service was. But you know, I'd expected the service to be pretty incredible. I was mostly surprised by how bonding it was, like how much I ended up, really, like befriending the other people on the trip and, how close you get to everybody. And it's also just kind of a reminder of like how bonding travel is in general. So, you know, you really, you know, you start the trip out, at least I did not knowing anyone at the first dinner and then by the time it was over, you know, you were, it was like being a summer camp and not wanting to say good bye to anybody. You know. it was really, it was really remarkable the way in which it allowed you to get to know the other travelers. And, you know, how much by the end of it you felt like you were a part of this little community that you weren't when you started. So that was the thing, I was most surprised by that when I was leaving. It was not just sad that the trip was ending, but I was actually more sad that I was saying goodbye to these people that I had like, you know, come to know so well over the course of our journey. So I found that really pretty lovely actually.

T. Cole Rachel: If you're on the fence about booking one of these TCS experiences, I can totally understand that. I mean, you know, not only, I mean, there, there's a certain expense involved obviously and that's in most of these trips are long. So it does feel like a commitment. I mean, but um I, I would say having just done this, like, um you know, the itinerary that's put together for you in the way that it is put together, you know, is such that like it would be incredibly difficult to arrange all of this just for yourself for one thing. Also the experience of traveling on the plane and the ease with which you maneuver through airports, the fact that your luggage basically just, you know, is in your hotel room waiting for you, usually when you get there and you don't really ever have to touch it. Like those are things that like, I didn't realize how, how incredible that would be or how luxurious that would feel. But I think, you know, I mean, ostensibly you could go to any of these places yourself and you could book your own hotels and rooms and restaurants and transfers and all of that. But, the ease with which this allows you to do this, you know, it's, it's hard for me to imagine how a person could organize this on their own and also get access to some of the experiences that they, they arrange for you. So, um, I would say if you've, you know, if you've ever been curious or, you know, any number of these trips are going to places in the world that you've always wanted to see. This is a really, really remarkable way to do it. So I would say do it.