Quito Ecuador and the Galapagos
(28 Reviews)
100% Recommended
Debbie Linder
Nashville, TN
Luxury travel, river cruise & vacation specialist
I was born in Chicago and eventually moved to the western suburbs. We traveled quite extensively as a family and I was always looking forward to the next trip. So I was hooked at a very young age. I started in travel and worked for a leisure agenc...
I was born in Chicago and eventually moved to the western suburbs. We traveled quite extensively as a family and I was always looking forward to the next trip. So I was hooked at a very young age. I started in travel and worked for a leisure agency for 20 years. Totally by surprise and out of the blue I was contacted by a Corporate agency with over 35 million in sales to open, develop and run a new division of their agency geared toward vacation travel. It was an amazing job! My knowledge and expertise really took off with the vacation side for their agency.
I have an extensive following so with my "regulars" and now all of these endless new clients I was seeing burnout. After several years, I decided to open my own agency and create the business I wanted. Golden Travel Inc was born. Yes, the name is a tribute to my love of Golden Retriever's!
For 25 years I worked extensively with the 101st Airborne to organize a local "get together" in their area. They were a group like no other and loved to talk of their experiences, some of my phone calls lasted hours! Once a year we would arrange a group trip with their children and even grand children back to Bastogne and Normandy where we had several wreath ceremonies to commemorate those that were lost and also private events where they could rebond year after year. Many of them had made friends with locals during the war and wanted to go back to visit them. Maybe they just offered them a cup of coffee during the night, but they never forgot. We made that happen, time and time again. In the early years, several made the jump on to the beaches in Normandy. As they got older and less were able to do that, we had 1 jumper that in his mid 90's made the jump onto the beach every year. I remember he told me, "parachutes had come a long way" I could feel the smile on his face.
We leave no stone unturned when it comes to creating the dream.
I have been a travel professional for 42 years and love my job.
My areas of expertise include but is not limited to:
- Europe
- River Cruises
- South America
- African Safaris
- Egypt
- Galapagos
- Machu Picchu
- Russia
- Mexico/Caribbean
- All inclusive resorts
- Ocean Cruises
- Customized European Tours
Whether you travel as a single, couple or groups of friends and family I can customize your journey to include highlights of each destination but also the hidden gems that you don't read about in a brochure. My reputation is about details and custom itineraries.
I am foodie, so taking food tours and cooking classes all over the world I find that food is the breakthrough for each destination. Its a great start on the local culture and the back round of food is what makes each country so unique. If you really want to dive in to the local way of life, I can arrange dinner with a local at their home almost anywhere in the world. That's a once in a lifetime experience!
In our first meeting we will discuss what excites you about travel and then I will work out a truly unique itinerary that highlights all of your desires. We will work things out at a leisurely pace so you have time to wander and explore on your journey.
We provide a beautiful itinerary for all of our clients on all of their travels. We provide this on our app but also as a PDF if you prefer to have things printed.
I feel so fortunate that I have spent my life travelling. There are still those that say, "when I retire" or "someday". Now more than ever in this new world we are living in, we see that tomorrow is not like yesterday. We've all spent a year of our lives basically putting that dream on hold. Its just lost time. So when we can get going again, lets do it - DON'T PUT OFF THAT DREAM!
As your travel professional the first item I want to talk about with you, will be having the proper documentation for your travel. If you don't have a passport and you need it for your destination then we need to get that going. Passport expiration dates are extremely important as different countries have different rules. We monitor entry and exit requirements for your travel travel throughout the world.
Passport, inoculations and visas can change and we are always on top of that. Now more than ever with COVID countries entry and exit requirements are changing daily. This is a changing environment and you need a professional to help navigate this changing world.
I have already had clients that had to change up their last minute plans to get COVID testing when it wasn't required 3 days ago. Hopefully it will get easier but until then I've got your back!
Can Be Reached At
1-630-365-6210
Heading to deep water to snorkel. We saw sharks!
The Galapagos - #1 on the wish list/bucket list and must do before I die list. I had been to a travel program in 1980 at a Museum in Chicago about the Galapagos and I was hooked. Everything happens in time I guess. So when we found the time to make the journey we had to combine it with Machu Picchu since MP is only a few days and thats a long way to go for a short trip. We like the 3-6 weeks trips these days! We are very fortunate, I get that.
We flew to Quito. Quito, formally San Francisco de Quito, is the capital city of Ecuador, and at an elevation of 9,350 feet above sea level, it is the highest official capital city in the world. It is located in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active volcano in the Andes Mountains. With a population of 2,671,191 , Quito is the second most populous city in Ecuador, after Guayaquil.
We took a fabulous 6 hour walking tour one day and a foodie tour the next. They took us to 6 different spots for local foods/snacks and a full history of what we ate.We travelled through backstreets to the southern part of Quito and admired the city’s historical architecture as we made our way to a small, family-owned sweets shop. We watched the delicacies being made before trying a few of the sweets, including majar de leche, a caramel delicacy. They talked of the history and production process behind mistelas, which are sweet treats made with a fragile layer of sugar and filled with whiskey or rum.
The next day a 5 hour cooking class at someone's home. They spoke no English but you really don't need works when you are cooking, we laughed and snacked the whole time. It was really a great experience to spend the day at someone's home and see all of their treasures. Tamales and Empanadas were about the best I've ever had!
The Galapagos Islands and the surrounding waters represent one of the world’s most unique ecosystems and are rich areas of bio diversity. Recently granted UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). World Heritage Site status, the Galapagos Marine Reserve is the largest marine reserve in a developing country and the second largest marine reserve in the world. There are 21 main islands, hundreds of smaller rocks and inlets the first started to appear about 80 million years ago.
The Galapagos Islands is unique to the rest of world where as it’s been separated from the rest of the world for tens of thousands of years, whatever life is there, either had to fly, swim or float on plant life of sorts, the mammals that made it to the islands have to survive for long long periods of time without food, like Iguanas, and tortoise, the bugs probably came on the birds.
The Galapagos Marine Reserve covers 85,000 square miles. This reserve, which lies a 650 miles from the Ecuadorian mainland was set up in 1998 to protect the waters around the Galapagos Islands and the many species of animals and fish that live there.There are so many marine species in Galapagos because of the cold ocean currents that bring rich nutrients for food and the great variety of habitats, coral reefs, mangrove lagoons, rocky areas and sandy beaches.
Many species depend on the Galapagos marine life for their food, such as sea birds that eat fish and the marine iguanas that feed on algae growing on the bottom of the sea.In certain areas in the Galapagos Marine Reserve, you can dive or snorkel and come into contact with amazing aquatic species which live underwater such as Whales, whale sharks, hammerhead sharks, rays, manta rays, sword fish and turtles, just to name a few.Cold, hot and warm marine currents come together here, generating a wide diversity of animal life, from small colorful fish to large mammals.
We flew to Baltra to board the Celebrity Expedition - a nice size yacht. Excellent accommodations, great food and an amazing staff of marine biologists. We took the Inner Loop Itinerary.
Each day we stopped at 1 or 2 islands for hiking or swimming. An insane amount of wildlife. When you get to an island, there is no dock so we would board our Zodiac for a quick trip to the shore and jump out in the water. My dream came true when I swam with a Sea Lion for almost 15 minutes. I have that video posted!
The story of Darwin and evolution is well publicized but the thought of his experiments when you are there is really 1 in a million. When you see the amount of unspoiled and untouched animal and bird species it really makes you realize what an amazing place the Galapagos really is.
You are not permitted to touch anything and with that rule the birds and animals have zero fear. We had a 2 foot Iguana walk right in front of me and if I had not moved my foot he would have walked on me! Birds laying eggs and even hatching eggs 2 feet away and no fear.
Its something everyone needs to experience in their lifetime. This type of trip needs to be on your short list. After what we just experienced on our planet we have to seize every moment.
Lets talk about it!