Renee Martin

281-377-3488 x 108

reneeTraveling and seeing new things around the world is one of my passions.

I’ve been to lots of different places, but there are so many more I want to see. I love talking about travel, looking at pictures of my travels and other people’s travels, and dreaming about travels. It’s so much fun to help someone plan a dream vacation. My specialty is all things Disney, but I’ve recently become a big fan of the Mexican beaches and tropical areas. Gorgeous clear blue waters call my name quite a bit lately.

My favorite vacation memory: This is a tough one, but a trip to Disney with 2 other families has given us some great stories to recount over and over. Especially the one where I left my keys in luggage that one of the other families agreed to bring home for us – and I remembered them when we were halfway home on the PLANE!!!! Good times.

My Best/Favorite Souvenir: When I go to Disney World I ALWAYS buy myself a pin. I don’t like to trade them though because I always get ones                       that have the year on them (so I can keep track) and I always pick ones that I think are really cool.

The BEST Vacation I’ve Ever Taken: For my son’s high school graduation, we took the family to Rome, Venice and Paris. It is so awesome to see, IN PERSON, the landmarks and landscapes that you have only seen in movies and on TV your whole life. Our favorite place was Venice…it is so quaint, charming and romantic. Everyone should try it.

My Travel Bucket List: Since hosting a German foreign exchange student a couple of years ago, I have really wanted to go to Germany and tour all of the amazing castles….especially the “Cinderella” castle, Neuschwanstein. I really need a screensaver like that!

 Where did my love of travel begin?

My love for travel that is….I’m pretty sure it all started with my dad!  He was a school teacher born and bred.  Even though the last half of his life he became a very successful sod farmer, he never stopped being a teacher.  He loved students, no matter what age.  He even remembered all of his students – even though most of them were in his classes 30 – 40 years in the past.  The other thing he loved to do was GO!  That has to be where I got it!  He never sat still.  Even though the last several years of his life he was on dialysis 3 days a week and in a power chair due to a fall, he still wanted to GO!  When we were young, he took us to sod conventions – all over the US and Canada.  We visited numerous states and saw lots of amazing landscapes and cities.   He wasn’t afraid of anything, especially of strangers – he never met one.  He was a dreamer also, and he dreamed big.  Some of the things he came up with were downright crazy, but not to him!  He was kind of like Walt Disney – If he could dream it, he could do it!  This is my “before”.

A few years after my boys graduated from high school and apparently didn’t need me any longer, I found myself with time on my hands.  Even though I had a full time job in my family’s sod farm, I still had evenings and weekends, right?  And who couldn’t use a little extra money, and vicarious living, and the perks of traveling?  For a long while I had watched Wendi planning travel for anyone and everyone, even my family had gotten her to plan a European vacation for us.  I had always planned my own vacations, but may or may not have been doing it efficiently.  I finally told myself, Wendi needs to train and hire me.  So one day I invited her to lunch and laid it all out.  She was receptive and we made a deal.

At first it sounded difficult, but luckily I had been traveling all my life, so I thought “I CAN DO THIS”!  All I needed was a little “watch and learn”.  Wendi had been doing travel consulting for well over 12 years so who better to “watch and learn” from?  Plus everyone I knew, and I have a pretty extensive friends’ list, knew that I loved to travel, especially to Disney World/Land, domestic or international.  I had friends call me all the time and ask for my advice, so why not do it for real and make some traveling money?  Most people CAN plan their own trips, especially in this day of internet and endless technology, but what better way to have a great experience on your travels than to reach out to someone who’s “been there, done that”?  That’s where I could come in.

I think we all would agree that there are just 6 degrees of separation in us all, so even though it’s a big, ole world, it’s actually very small when you think of it in the context of mutual friends.  I am amazed daily at my friends who know my friends!  So that’s my story or at least the beginning of it!

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