Vibrant Women on the road: A new model for travel and global change

As Carol Orsborn and I prepared to speak at the Educational Travel Conference, we connected with one tour operator who has learned some remarkable lessons about the power of Vibrant Women in travel.

Janet Moore started Distant Horizons 25 years ago to share her passion for travel to locations that were exotic then (like India) and those that are exotic now (like Mustang and Iran).

A few years ago, one of her clients, a consortium of the “Seven Sisters” colleges (the historically women’s schools from New England that include Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Vassar and Radcliffe/Harvard) approached Janet with a proposal to offer a tour for women only – and a tour not focused on sightseeing but on connecting with women leaders in other countries to explore “issues that connect us all.” Janet was unsure but took the leap and organized a trip to South Africa in 2007.

That trip quickly sold out, and 29 women enjoyed a unique chance to visit South Africa and meet women leaders there. But the trip produced much more than memorable experiences. The travelers (none of them knew each other beforehand) were so excited by what they had seen and by what they had experienced together that they formed a steering committee to continue the conversations they had begun in S. Africa. They wanted to make a difference.

After many discussions, the group focused on the efforts of Room to Read, the non-profit begun by John Wood (author of Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children to build libraries in the Third World. The tour alumnae created their own non-profit, called Among Women South Africa, and have since funded two libraries in South Africa.

The trip also became a series of tours – now called “Among Women: An International Dialogue” – and the group has just returned from its third adventure, to India and Bangladesh (where they met with the Prime Minister, among others).

This is not just an inspiring story. It reminds us that business and philanthropic opportunities can be built by Vibrant Women and their desire to connect with each other.

VibrantNation.com is one of those businesses, but so is “About Women,” and its success reminds us that for Vibrant Women travel is always about more than sightseeing. Travel is about making friends, connecting with other women, learning about issues and needs in other parts of the world, and using those connections and that knowledge to change the world.

I love this program – and am not surprised at its success – because it appeals to everything we know Vibrant Women value most in themselves.

And while Janet has organized one similar trip for Stanford, the only surprising thing to me is that more universities are not trying to do the same thing. They would make money, strengthen their relationships with important alumnae, and make the world a better place all at the same time.