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

Bri, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

I started Mini Voyager because of one massively overfilled carry-on suitcase full of toys that weighed more than the 8 month old they were for, on a cross country flight from New York City to San Diego.

Long story short, I was SO stressed about flying by myself with my baby on that 6 hr flight that I totally overprepared with tons of research and every toy I could think of to keep her entertained. I used to feel sick before flights with a huge pit of nerves in my stomach because I knew it was going to be all on me to keep her entertained for that long.

I don’t want any other parent to feel like that! That became the driving force behind our business.

We launched Mini Voyager in 2020 after many years of research and testing out toys. We’ve narrowed it down to the absolute best travel toys to keep kids entertained for longer. And now, we bundle them at a discount in our Travel Kits for you, so you can feel more confident going into any outing with kids.

I love that the Travel Kits making it easier to be on the go with kids have opened up this world of travel for so many families as well.

Our family has grown a lot since that first little baby and cross-country flight. We now have 4 kids (all about 2 years apart, and all still little!) who we love to take around the world. I want to show you how it is possible to still travel and explore with your kids, as well as share all the real-life moments that traveling with kids will no-doubt bring at some point along the way. We share the good, bad, hard, and rewarding moments! But overall, traveling with kids can be so rewarding and we want to share all our tips.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We got into the travel industry after lots of cross country flights (both solo and as a family) and feeling completely nervous about how to keep a little baby entertained for 6+ hours. We now help families build their own confidence in flying and all types of travel with little kids and make it easier to be on the go with our Travel Kits. We take all the guesswork out of how to keep kids entertained by letting parents build their own Travel Kits from our tried-and-true travel toy options on our website. They’ll be totally prepared for anything that comes on travel days with kids when they have a bag full of activities.

There’s no other company out there that provides high-quality, reusable toys that are geared specifically toward travel. Our Travel Kits are perfect for any time on the go, and the value you get from them with being able to reuse them over and over again is so important to me. I love being able to provide families with high-quality entertainment for their kids.

I love hearing how many families have found more confidence and success on their travel days because of our Travel Kits. Being able to create memories as a family on vacations is so special. Some of my favorite memories as a kid come from family trips. I love being able to be a small part of other family’s travel memories too.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I’ve never owned a business before- my background is in advertising and marketing. I do lots of the creative side of things, but making business decisions was never in my background. So when I started Mini Voyager, I made lots of mistakes. We went different routes to try and grow that just didn’t work. Those were really painful lessons to learn, since I am funding and growing this business completely on my own. I’ve had to deal with the struggles of launching a business during COVID as well, which was quite the struggle. There was so much unknown with the travel industry at that time, and so I had to pivot my marketing strategy quite a bit to rebrand while families were staying at home. All of these struggles just helped teach me that business really is a rollercoaster. And you need to have the patience to ride it out and not quite before the ride is over.

How did you build your audience on social media?

We have quite a large following for a brand on social media (mainly Instagram) and a lot of it was because I wanted to make it a place of entertainment, not just brand information. On our social media, I don’t just share the toys that we sell, but I show the toys being used on trips- flights, trains, road trips, restaurants, etc. I make sure to keep our social media account somewhere that parents can go to feel a strong travel community- building a community is so much more important than the number of followers you have. I also am very open in sharing our own personal travels and life on there, and mix in relatable family travel moments (and fails) with posts that help share information with parents to help make travel easier. Having a good mix of different types of content on there has really helped us grow our community and a strong following around the brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://minivoyager.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/minivoyager_/
• Facebook: http://facebook.com/shopminivoyager
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@minivoyager_

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