Why I Started WanderHeart Travel Advisors
If you had asked me twenty years ago what my life would look like, I would have told you “I have no idea, but I know I want to be helping others.”.
And I did. As a teacher. For almost a decade and a half.
Teaching wasn’t just a job for me — it was identity and purpose. I entered the field intentionally because I believed in it. I believed in shaping young minds, in inquiry, in building confidence in students who felt unseen. For a long time, it felt aligned with who I was.
But over the years, the field shifted. Or maybe I did. The joy I once felt started to change. The space for connection — the part I loved most — felt smaller. What I had stepped into slowly became something different than what I had imagined.
Leaving teaching wasn’t a bold, glamorous leap. It felt more like grief. It meant letting go of a version of myself I had always assumed I would be. It meant asking, “If I’m not this anymore, then who am I?”
The last five years have been some of the most transformative and disorienting of my life. I’ve built a business, gone back to grad school (and left), married my best friend, stepped into entrepreneurship in ways I never expected, and made the decision to move to Virginia, and now to move to Florida. I’ve watched the life I haphazardly built begin to shift.
None of it has been tidy. There have been moments of clarity and confidence, and moments of real doubt. When you uproot your life — even for the better — it’s still an uprooting. Change always carries loss alongside growth.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that, WanderHeart was born.
It wasn’t created from a perfectly polished business plan. It grew out of transition. It came from a very honest question: how can I still help people in a way that feels aligned with who I am now?
I realized that what I loved most about teaching was never the structure or the system. It was the people. It was guiding, advocating, protecting experiences, and creating moments that stayed with someone long after the day ended.
Travel started to feel similar.
At 25, travel for me was fast and ambitious — squeezing everything in, chasing landmarks, moving constantly. Now, it feels slower and more intentional. I think about multi-generational trips, about how time with family feels more fragile and precious. I think about how a shared meal, a sunset, or a well-planned day can become part of a family’s story.
I don’t want to just “go somewhere” anymore. I want experiences to mean something.
That’s what WanderHeart represents. It’s not about luxury for the sake of luxury. It’s about legacy. It’s about helping families protect their time and invest in memories that last. It’s about reducing overwhelm so people can be present.
There was a time I worried that leaving teaching meant leaving impact. Now I see it differently. Helping a couple celebrate ten years of marriage, guiding grandparents through travel that feels comfortable and thoughtful, designing a seamless multi-generational itinerary — that’s impact too. It’s just expressed in a different setting.
This season of my life is layered. Self-growthl. Entrepreneurship. Moving states. Letting go of what was and building what’s next. It’s exciting and overwhelming at the same time. It’s growth, mixed with uncertainty.
But for the first time in a long time, I feel aligned.
WanderHeart wasn’t created because everything was perfect. It was created because I was honest enough to admit that things had changed — and brave enough to build something that felt more like me.
I didn’t stop helping people. I just changed the setting.
And right now, that feels exactly right.
From my heart,
Laura 💙