#222 Bespoke Travel with Kerstin Rheinlander
This week I'm joined by Kerstin Rheinländer, a bespoke travel planner who's spent decades helping busy professionals travel in a way that actually restores them instead of travelling like the busy person they are on a day to day basis.
Kerstin isn't a travel agent. She builds journeys around who you are and what you actually need, not a list of places to photograph and post on social media. We talk about the difference between a holiday that exhausts you and one that restores you, why “bespoke” doesn't have to mean expensive, and what she learned about herself walking the Camino de Santiago after losing both her parents within months of each other.
But the part of this conversation that stuck with me most was about money. When we plan travel, it's often to tick a place of a bucket list. In years gone by, travel was a chance to experience new cultures, to expand our thinking, and to connect with ourselves and our loved ones as we experienced adventures with them.
What we cover:
What “bespoke travel” actually means (it's not necessarily about luxury)
Why exhaustion after a holiday isn't a badge of honour
Kerstin's experience walking the Camino de Santiago after losing both parents last year
The guilt women feel about spending time and money on themselves, especially in the “sandwich generation”
Why we'll pay for a course we never finish but hesitate to invest in something that could genuinely change us
What AI itineraries get wrong, and why judgment still can't be automated
Where Kerstin is seeing real shifts in how people want to travel now
Quotable moment:
“Why is it so easy to justify spending money on things that we own, but we have a difficult time spending money on an experience that could actually shape who we are or who we can become?” – Kerstin Rheinländer
Connect with Kerstin:
Kerstin Rheinlander | TravelManagers
