You could say Diane Korellis is “hooked on Gutsy.” She is already planning her FOURTH mother/daughter trip with Gutsy Women Travel, this time to Costa Rica.
Diane and her husband John, high school sweethearts who have been married for 30 years, think it's okay to have divergent hobbies, so in 2006 Diane decided to go on Gutsy Women Travel’s Montecatini trip with her mother Carol Petrie, who had just retired. That trip was such a wonderful experience for both that every year since then Diane and Carol have gone on a different mother/daughter adventure.
Diane and her mother have found that they are very compatible travelers and look at these trips as a special opportunity to bond, make new friends, and visit some fabulous places. Since that first trip, Diane and Carol have also been to the Amalfi Coast and Provence with Gutsy Women Travel.
Diane prefers the style of travel that Gutsy offers – being in smaller groups, having all the logistics taken care of and especially the camaraderie of the other women. She noted, “We had the experience of traveling to Norway a few weeks ago with a different and larger tour group for the first time. The scenery and tour were excellent, but we both missed the closeness and ease of a small group that we had with our Gutsy trips.”
In fact the friendships formed on those Gutsy trips continue after the ladies returned home. Diane told us that she and her newfound travel friends have even organized reunion trips, “Our 'Gutsy Women Reunion' trips, as we've named them were in Chicago May 2008 and NYC May 2009. I bought matching crazy socks in Gutsy's signature purple color, which we wore and will be a tradition.” Diane sent us this reunion picture of the ladies and their "Gutsy" socks.
Diane says her best Gutsy trip experiences have been “the lunches we had after a cooking class or visiting a farm or garden. There was food fresh from the farm or made by us in a casual setting. It was special on all three trips we took. We lingered and ate and drank. You can't do this with a large group.”
What Diane has enjoyed most on her travels with Gutsy is seeing the “centuries and centuries of history” of the places she’s visited. “We learned a huge amount on the way to our destinations–not only history, but the current events because the guides are residents. We were also able to enjoy spontaneous events, such as concerts and shows, made possible by our fantastic guides.”
Before her Montecatini trip Diane had never traveled internationally and her domestic travels were mostly limited to visiting family in Indiana. Now we can say she’s definitely caught the travel bug!