By Hank Schrader, USMA ’71, Europe Destination & Europe River Cruise Expert
After writing our blog for over 2 and a half years, I started to reflect on why we write about travel. I think it is a fair question to ask—why should you read our blog? Most of you are very busy and often are overwhelmed by emails and online information about travel.
So, why should you take the time to read our blog? Let’s explore this thought together and decide if you should or should not read our blog!
The Starting Point—What is the Purpose of Our Blog?
For me this is a simple answer—our purpose is to make you a better informed traveler who may need our services. Sounds fairly simple but it really is much more complex in my mind.
I think there are 4 parts of making you a better informed traveler. First, we want to teach about what good value travel is. Second, we want to inspire you and help you visualize your next trip. Third, we want to provide objective advice, so you can make wise travel choices. Forth, we want to help you decide if you should trust Visit Dream Destinations, LLC to plan your trip.
So, let’s evaluate our blog and see if it is worthwhile for you to read our blog and if we deliver on the 4 parts of making you a better informed traveler.
Our Role as Teachers About Good Value Travel
Good value travel is making the most of your travel dollars. It is about memorable experiences. It is about reduced hassles on the trip. We write often about these topics. The blog has really 4 sub topics. We write about ocean cruising, Europe river cruising, Europe Destinations and Our Travel Philosophy (best value travel and smart travel planning). On our website we have all our blogs under these categories, so you can find travel or destination advice easily. Here is the link if you would like to Learn More. We try and write about the advantages and disadvantages of travel to help understand about the suppliers and their benefits to help you achieve your travel goals and how we can guide you to make wise choices.
There is one common theme in each topic –We try to write with the viewpoint of: Do they care about me and what I need as a traveler? In our blogs, we try and establish what we consider as a good relationship with our readers. We want our readers to think of us as friends who may become clients, if they need our services. If we take the next step in our relationship to client and travel consultant, we still maintain the friend’s mantra. We treat each of our clients as friends, because we don’t sell travel to clients—we sell travel to friends. There is a big difference—how your trip goes makes a world of difference to us. We like to say we are small enough to deliver personalize service but big and experience enough to get you just the right trip. We try to match you to just the right experience and make it logical, realistic and affordable in your price range. Don’t get us wrong—we do not sell on price—we sell on value. We try to demonstrate how valuable you are to us in many ways (many love our handwritten thank you and welcome back notes) but how many other travel professional have a Traveler Hall of Fame? We are proud we could help you travel and we want to share with others your joy and satisfaction. Learn More About our Hall of Fame.
Inspiration
We try in our blogs to help you visualize your next trip. We often talk about our experiences during our travels so you can see if that trip would fit into a trip you might like to take. There are many pictures in our blogs, most taken by us, to help you visualize the trip in your mind. If you want to see more of our travel pictures, please visit our Pinterest page—it has over 4,500 pictures (www.pinterest.com/visitdd). Our emphasis is always the best possible experience within your price range and we hope these pictures help inspire you to visit a new place or experience a new culture or just have a bucket list trip.
Objective Advice
I recently read that 62% of business bloggers outsource their blog! I was stunned—their blog may have good content but what that tells me they are too busy to provide first-hand information. How reliable and objective is that? With over 21 years of experience selling travel to many satisfied clients, we know both what you need to make your travel experience better and the knowledge of what is available to match you with just the right vacation. We have extensive first-hand knowledge and do comprehensive research on trips. We really strive to make your travel experience more enjoyable. We have planned hundreds of successful trips to delighted clients and we are eager to plan yours. Like a little proof? Ask for one of our 50 Europe City travel guides—we wrote them, not some other person or company—just go to our website, click on the region of Europe you want to visit and then click on the city, provide us your email contact info, and we will send you the guide. Or click on one of our many PowerPoint presentations on our web site or visit our Resource Section of our website to get travel tips (www.dreamdestinations.com). There is one common thread here—almost 98% is our own pictures or written by us—in truth, it would be hard to find many travel professionals who have been to so many of the places we sell. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know we know our stuff. As I used to say as a coach, when evaluating good football players, “he is the real deal!” Well folks, we are the real deal!
Should I trust Dream Destinations LLC to Plan My trip?
Trust and integrity are valuable traits and, in my judgement, in short supply in our country. Too many make promises they can’t or won’t keep. My whole life has been devoted to service after graduating from West Point—20 years as a US Army Officer, 20 years as a coach and teacher and 21 years helping others travel to the right location. Anne is equally dedicated to trust and integrity—she always thinks about what is best for our clients, every single time. We think trust is the cornerstone of our relationship with you. We try to under promise and over deliver a great travel experience for you. We strive to make your travel experience better by helping you make wise choices, eliminate hassles, and help you get the best value for your money. In short, while working with us, we want to provide a trip that will exceed your expectations. I guess the best thing we can provide you is some comments by some of our clients. Please click here to read A Few Words From Our Clients.
We would like to hear from you–do you like the blog and does it help you become a more informed traveler?
Our Final Thoughts
We hope our blog is worth your time to read. As you can see, there is much more than these brief thoughts to describe the value of our blogs. I think we help you become a more informed traveler by being good teachers, providing inspiration, providing objective information and developing trust. If our blog has helped get more knowledge about travel, then we have done our job and the blog is worth your time to read. We hope this ultimately leads us into you deciding to use us as your travel agents—we are here to help you get the best possible trips based on what is important to you! Please give me a call 713-397-0188 (Hank) or email me at hschrader@dreamdestinations.com. We want to help you: Savor life…make memories…Visit Dream Destinations! Your journey begins here!
HANK is a certified Western European Destination Specialist (DS) who has been traveling to Europe for 45 years. He is also an Accredited Cruise Counselor (ACC), conferred by the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA). This recognized expert in cruise and leisure travel is a retired Army Officer, and taught World Geography for 8 years. He is a `71 graduate of West Point and has earned 2 master’s degrees. His other Certifications:
- AmaWaterways River Cruise Specialist
- Viking River Cruise Specialist
- Scenic River Cruise Specialist
- Emerald Waterways Specialist
- Avalon Waterways Specialist
- Brit Agent
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