Meet Holly

I fell in love with travel when I was just 12 years old.

My father worked for a man from the Middle East, and as a gift one year, my father’s employer flew us first class to visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt. That adventure lit up my mind and my soul with its fragrant spices, exciting foods, glittering gold, desert landscape far from our suburban Florida surroundings and culture unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

Fast forward to my college years, when the travel bug bit me again during my junior and senior years, where instead of staying on campus, I studied abroad in northern Mexico for one semester and then headed to Paris — now my favorite city in the world and the one I know best — for another study abroad program. While I was there, I visited Italy and Switzerland and the Cote d’Azur — the ultra-glam French Riviera. I knew my life would be spent exploring the globe, learning new languages, connecting with people from around the world and learning international cuisines.

I ended up in Chicago in culinary school, and for my externship, while most of my peers found themselves in restaurants and banquet halls, I made my way back to Paris to work as a personal chef. I spent another year there before coming home to complete my MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Central Florida.

There, I met my husband and we settled down — at least until we had built our careers enough to travel again. After that, we were on planes as often as possible.

My career as a writer and editor eventually landed me squarely in the travel space, where I have worked ever since as a freelance travel writer and as an editor at major national travel publications and websites.

In 2022, we became parents to a beautiful baby girl. One of the first things I did on my maternity leave was apply for her passport and join a Facebook group of other parents who traveled with their kids. At just three months old, our daughter took her first plane trip.

Go Mama Go is the culmination of my career as a traveler and my newfound identity as a mother, learning that while parenthood is all-consuming, it doesn’t have to mean that the identity I worked to build for the 38 years prior has to be pushed to the side. They can coexist, and I want to help other moms figure out how to reconnect with themselves, too.

I can’t wait to travel with you, to see your eyes light up when you rediscover your passion again on one of our trips. Whether it’s painting or baking or surfing or hiking, there’s a trip for you. Now, go, Mama, GO!