Why I’m Doing This

In March 2020, like a lot of travel businesses, my company went from millions in sales to zero in about two weeks. Around the same time, my marriage was ending. I remember sitting at my desk in the middle of it thinking, very clearly: I have no idea what happens next.

That’s not a story I’ve told publicly. I’m telling it now because everything that came after is the reason I’m starting this.

Travel Mindset was the company. I started it in 2012 as the first influencer agency built entirely for travel, and by 2019 we were booming. Then COVID hit and the industry didn't slow down. It stopped. I spent the next eighteen months doing the hardest work of my career: rebuilding from nothing, in the middle of a divorce, while telling my team and my clients everything was fine. By the end of 2021 we were back to about 75% of our peak. On paper, a win. It didn't feel like one. I'd lost people I thought of as family, and the room to chase any new idea was gone.

In late 2022, after a lot of back and forth, I sold the company.

Selling was the right call for the business and the people in it. It got the brand and the team to safe harbor after two brutal years, and I'd make the same decision again. What I'll be honest about is why I personally wanted out. I was tired. I wasn't sure I had another rebuild in me. The idea of a partner, more resources, a bigger network, someone to share the weight with, sounded like relief.

Here's what I learned. The thing I was looking for, a sale was never going to deliver. Partnership, shared mission, not being the only one holding it. That was mine to work out, not something a transaction could hand me. Figuring that out is what pointed me back to the work I actually wanted to do.

What I missed most wasn't the agency. It was the clients. The relationships, the trust, the community.

I started in this industry on the destination side. Years on the road with DMOs all over the world, the conferences, the sales missions, the whole circuit. Running an agency was a different chapter, and one I loved for most of it. But as the company grew, the job changed. Growth, financial pressure, mentoring. I still had clients I loved, but that's the shape that business takes. Not bad. Just not the same as the earlier version.

The part I actually loved was the people running destinations. The ones trying to build a tourism economy in a place the rest of the country isn't paying attention to. The marketing directors who care about their cities the way most people care about their families. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I'd been gone a while.

So I'm coming back. Not to start another agency or build another company. To do the work I should have been doing all along: sitting next to the people running destinations and helping them figure out what's actually working, what isn't, and what to do about it.

Here's what I see right now. Almost every destination leader is running too many things at once. Not because they're disorganized, but because every direction tells them to do more. Boards want growth. Bureaus want activity. Vendors want bigger scopes. Teams are stretched thin and budgets are tight. And the one question that matters, "what's working, and what should we stop doing?", almost never gets asked, because nobody around them is paid to ask it.

That's my job now. Helping destinations decide what to keep and what to kill, the AI shift included, so their time, their team, and their budget go to the work that moves visits. If you already feel something is off, or you're tired of doing things just to do them, this is for you.

I know exactly what I want to do, and I'm doing it. If that lands with you, you know where to find me.

-Harley