We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jessica DeFeo Brittany Wilson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jessica DeFeo, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

We are both obsessed with travel even though we have very different experiences with it growing up and into adulthood. Brittany has visited over 10 countries and has solo adventured many times, and Jess has just begun her adventures with international travel this year. We have both experienced such beautiful and incredible moments through travel, however, that we wanted to create a space and community for women to travel the world and would cater to what they wanted their personal experiences to be.

Traveling solo for women requires extra thought and precautions for safety and security. We are obsessed with making sure that whoever works with us to create their trip, that we are asking all the necessary questions to make sure we take into consideration what they are or would be concerned about on their trip. We want to build those measures into the experience as well as giving them tips and resources so they feel empowered on their trip alone. We are also fully available to them while they are on the trip, so they can contact us immediately if they anything were to happen.

There’s a lot of travel agencies out there, but not one that focuses on making sure women and our unique experiences in travel are considered and are top of mind.

Jessica DeFeo, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

We are Jessica DeFeo and Brittany Wilson; friends, owners and wanderlust obsessed travel advisors of Wanderlust, Co.. We created Wanderlust, Co. to cater specifically to women and helping them create unforgettable travel experiences around the world with safety and security top of mind throughout the planning and trip process. We like to say that we encourage women to travel and explore regardless of your age, budget or relationship status. We’re not waiting on the perfect partner to live and travel freely…and neither should you.

We help create three different kinds of travel for women: solo, guided, and group experiences. Our guided and group trips are unique in the sense that if you are wanting to travel to Egypt, for example, but you don’t want to go by yourself, we will accompany you on the trip so you can still experience it and not wait on someone to go with! Group trips are both meant for groups of friends to travel together as well as we create experiences all over the world and then invite whoever wants to join to grab a spot. Next year we’re headed to Scotland, Buenos Aires and Italy!

Our experiences with travel are so important and have literally shaped and changed who we are and how we live. We want to break down any assumptions that women have that it’s too scary to go by yourself, costs too much money or is just out of reach due to your age or circumstances. We can’t wait to help you create a trip that changes your life!

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Brittany and I met through networking and trying to build our individual businesses at the time! We immediately connected through the group we were a part of, and met one on one to learn more about each other and how we could support one another moving forward. FRom that point forward we realized that we were in the same situation as far as being single and business owners, so we connected even further when it came to travel.

I was planning on going to Scotland to live for 30 days back in April of this year, and Britt invited herself over for 10 days of the trip! We had an incredible time together and that’s when we realized we wanted to help make these kinds of trips happen for other women, whether it was solo or group travel.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I think the main lesson I’ve had to unlearn is the misconceptions about travel and traveling solo. For years I allowed myself to believe that travel was too expensive, out of my reach and that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it if I didn’t have a partner to go with. I let myself believe that my anxiety was too high to travel by myself, and that especially as a single mom that I couldn’t have that level of freedom and expansiveness to just go wherever I want.

It wasn’t until 2020, and the death of a very good friend of mine that forced me to see that all those things that I had come to accept as truth, just weren’t. So I decided that travel was going to be the way that I started to fully live my life; regardless of relationship status and budget and what I “thought” was possible. I just kept making financial and business decisions that would support a lifestyle where I could travel and make money. And if it didn’t fit into that equation, then I wouldn’t choose to have it in my life.

I didn’t know exactly how I was going to achieve this, but I knew that it was possible. And I promised myself that I wouldn’t let the fears and the unknown dictate how I live my life any more. I stayed open to what the possibilities could be for me to travel the world consistently and make money while doing it. And everything has fallen into place the last year to help me do exactly that.

I can’t wait to see what Wanderlust, Co. does for women around the world. And I’m so glad I didn’t let my fears keep me from making big decisions.

– Jess

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wanderlustcotravel.com
• Instagram: @wanderlust.co.travel
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wanderlustcotravel