Travel Designers Travel Leaders team -

through the years

Happy New Year! Here we are in 2024, and it’s an important year for me. In August, I’ll note my—drum roll, please—40^th anniversary of my first day in the travel industry. (Yes, I was very young then!) I remember seeing an engagement announcement for a woman who was marrying a man from England, and she’d be leaving her job at Cedar Mall Travel in Rice Lake. The next day I walked into the office and introduced myself to Jolene Doyle, then the owner and manager. I said, “I think you should hire me. I’d be really good at this job.” She hired me on the spot.

            I bought the agency from Jolene in 1991 and haven’t looked back. It’s been a wonderful journey, and the best part is, it’s not over yet! Well, make that the second-best part; the best is the wonderful people I’ve worked with during all these years. Here we are in the Cedar Mall office in 1993:

(Back row, L-R: Peggy, me, Cora, Patty, Jacqie, Jean. Seated: Karen and Dorothy.)

            Throughout the decades, we’ve always been a franchisee of what is now Travel Leaders, one of the oldest travel agency organizations in the world. It began as “Ask Mr. Foster” when the company became North America’s first travel agency in 1888, founded in St. Augustine, Fla., by Ward G. Foster. From his flower shop across the street from the Ponce de Leon Hotel, he gave out train and steamship schedules to his customers. Legend has it that the bellboys at the hotel would direct travelers to “Ask Mr. Foster.” By his death in 1940, Foster’s network included 75 offices around the country, “with a woman in charge of each one,” according to his obituary. Today, Foster’s little flower-shop advisory gig has grown into the second-largest travel agency chain in America. During Jolene’s tenure, the name changed to Carlson Travel Network. That morphed into Carlson Wagonlit Travel after a merger with a French company, and ultimately to the Travel Leaders brand we have today.

            In the mid-90s our Rice Lake office needed more space, so we moved to a new office in the Southridge Center. By the late 1990s, our partnership with Homespun Tours helped us grow our staff, so that by Christmas of 1999, we had quite a group:

(Front row, L-R: Dorothy, Missy, Patty, Jodi, Julie, Linda. Top row, L-R: Jacqie, Peggy, Jean, me, Deb, Michelle.)

            When Homespun “spun off” to its own office around 2010, we moved into our present location, alongside the beautiful Red Cedar River on Rice Lake’s south side. We now serve clients both locally and throughout the country, thanks to our online presence. Our staff has been literally all over the world—except for Antarctica, and we’re working on that—giving us the experience we can use to assist our clients in fulfilling their travel dreams.

            We had a banner year in 2023, and we look forward to more adventures in ’24, thanks to you, our valued clients. Thank you for working with us! Now, where would you like to go next?