We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Abby Hatteberg. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Abby below.

Abby, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

So Wayfaren actually started with one slightly crazy dream: taking our kids to live in Italy for a month.

I’d lived and taught 3rd Grade there after college, so once we had kids, I wasn’t about to let my deep love of Europe go! We had this growing thirst for adventure that having babies didn’t kill, it just made it a bit more complicated (and a wholeeee lot more expensive).

For over a decade before that, my husband and I had run a handcrafted (also travel-based!) ecommerce business. When COVID hit, it forced us to rethink everything. But the one thing we still had was a community of people who’d followed us for years. So I started sharing something totally different with them: how we were actually pulling off these big family trips without paying full price, by opening credit cards and using the points to cover the crazy flights costs.

And the engagement and questions came flooding in faster than I could answer them. “But what about your credit score?!” “Wait, how does this actually work?” “How do you even KNOW how to maximize the points?”

And from there it continued to grow and grow. Families desperately wanted to see the world together, and most of them had quietly decided it wasn’t an option, especially once kids and a mortgage entered the picture. They didn’t need more money (shockingly!). They needed someone they trusted to break it down in plain English, without the jargon, without making them feel two steps behind.

Today I’ve helped 1,035+ families through my resources take 3-5 trips a year for a FRACTION of what they’d normally pay (and tens of thousands more through all my free content on Instagram!), just by getting a little more strategic with the spending they were already doing anyway.

And honestly? The cheap flights and $0 luxury hotel stays were neverrrrr the point. I just want families to get more time together, be able to make more CORE memories side-by-side, and know you don’t have to be rich to show your kids the world (or travel like you are!!).

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

‘m Abby! Founder of Wayfaren, mom of four, and your slightly-too-enthusiastic travel friend who believes your family can see the world without going broke doing it.

It started with Italy. I taught there for a year after college, and a decade later (with two little kids and zero budget for “extras”) I was aching to take my own family back. We couldn’t afford it, so we opened one credit card to cover the flights with points. That cracked something open. Dozens of cards and a lot of nearly free trips later, we haven’t paid full price for a family vacation since 2018, and I’ve helped over 1,035 families do the same now!

What I do is teach families to turn everyday spending (groceries, gas, the Target run) into insanely discounted flights and hotels, through my course ExperienceRICH, 1:1 consultations, a free masterclass, and a private community of families cheering each other on.

What sets me apart is that I build all of my content and resources by a mom, FOR moms. So much of the traveling on points content out there is made for the “points bros” that can hop on a business class flights with a week’s notice. We travel with four kids on very set school and sports schedules, so I know the real puzzle of finding five and six seats together and trips that *actually* work for a big family. Andddd I’m a little fanatical about doing this the responsible way. Helping people keep their financial health in PEAK condition, while also taking more family vacations than they ever thought possible.

What I’m proudest of are the messages from families who were sure they could never go to x, y, or z but send me DMs and emails from their beachfront balcony in DISBELIEF they got their family here- paid for with points, not their hard earned paychecks. The meaningful notes from families about how they were able to (stress-FREE!) show up for those family events that mean the most- funerals, weddings, the cancer diagnosis – all because they could cover the travel expenses without a second thought!

I’ll never tell you travel is completely free, because it’s not. BUT I can show you how to make family vacations really, really cheap, without the financial stress or risk! On the other side is more time and experiences with the people you love, in places you’ll never forget. Life moves fast, and I just want to help other moms make those memories NOW. ✈️

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

So my social media story honestly starts with a solid decade of going basically nowhere. Through our entire first travel-based ecommerce business, we sat at around 7,000 followers for nearly a decade, and it wasn’t for lack of trying, we put in a ton of effort and even hired someone to run our social at one point (and still… 7k, foreverrr).

It picked up a tiny bit once I started sharing the slightly crazy ways we were actually affording our travels, but everything truly changed with one trip. We took my husband’s whole extended family on a complete and total bucket list trip to Norway, all 13 of us, the entire gaggle of kids and cousins included, and I’d gotten our flights for around $200 a ticket instead of $2,000. All by just maximizing everyone’s credit card points!!

So I made this reel about how, instead of exchanging a big pile of gifts every Christmas, our family had decided to just take one trip together every year (and that year, it was Norway!).

And that reel?? It ended up hitting 10 MILLION views. I gained something like 80,000 followers in a matter of weeks, after a literal decade stuck at 7k. That’s really the moment my whole social media journey kicked off.

Now, has it been smooth sailing ever since? Definitely NOT. There have been soo many ups and downs, plenty of seasons where I’d post and post and nothing seemed to land. Which is exactly why my one real piece of advice, after 13 years of doing this, is honestly just this: do NOT stop.

That’s the whole thing! You just have to be willing to ride the waves when a reel totally flops, when the engagement isn’t there, when it feels like you’re talking to no one. Because the only difference I’ve ever seen between the people who “make it” and the ones who don’t? The ones who make it just refused to throw in the towel. They didn’t stop, even when it would’ve been so easy to.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Honestly, so much of it comes down to just showing up transparently and authentically, especially on social media. People can see right through you, they really can, so I try soo hard to show up in a real, relatable way, even when it’s messy and not all polished and perfect (because who actually relates to perfect anyway?).

And then it’s connection, connection, connection. My DMs are truly the lifeline of my whole brand, and I personally respond to each and every one, week over week, with real voice memos back and forth, actually getting to know people and what they’re walking through. It takes time, but it is ALWAYS worth it, because that’s how I keep a real pulse on what people need, give them personalized help, and build genuine loyalty (which, yes, ends up impacting my revenue too!). But at the heart of it? I just really, really want to help people.

And then the deepest layer is my private community, where my students get direct access to me through my ExperienceRICH course, and I get to actually roll up my sleeves and help them in really personal, high-impact ways. That’s honestly the most rewarding part of all of this for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wayfaren.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wayfarenco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wayfarenco

Image Credits

First Headshot Image: Angelica Marie Photography (Dallas, TX). Others: Mine