Some people take a trip. I've never really known how to do that.
I was an art historian
before I was a
travel designer.
rachel stankovic · phoenix, arizona
It's the reason my trips feel different. Museum education taught me how to make a complicated thing feel clear and worth caring about: a fresco, a facade, a city. That's the same skill I use on your itinerary.
That training still runs through everything I write. My cultural primers are where it shows most plainly.
or it's just a photograph.
A place is a story,
03
02
01
Twenty years of it, plus the visits that never make it into an itinerary. You get the conclusions, not the reading list.
Not only what to visit. The history behind a neighborhood, the story the architecture is telling, why locals fill one restaurant and walk past another.
Museum education is the practice of taking something dense, a period, a painter, a political feud carved into a facade, and making it land in five minutes. Your itinerary gets the same treatment.
I do the research so you don't
I tell you why, not just what
I make the complicated feel clear
01 — the throughline
When I design a journey I'm building a picture of a place, one that connects the church you're standing in to the family who funded it, and to the restaurant three streets over where the recipe hasn't changed in a hundred years.
02 - what taught me this
showed me what matters.
Traveling with my kids
It isn't landmarks. It's understanding what you're looking at: the context, the culture, the people you meet. That's the travel that stays with you, and it's the only kind I know how to design.
Travel isn't a break from my life. After my children, it's most of what my life is made of.
I focus on Europe because I know it well, and knowing a place well enough to design around it takes more than one visit. I've been to over thirty countries, many of them repeatedly, which is the part that counts.
I'm not a
A booking agent takes your dates and finds availability. I start from what you care about and build backwards. Sometimes that's landscapes. Sometimes it's food, invigorating mornings, or a long conversation with someone who lives there.
03 — the distinction
Tells you which morning to go, and what to look for when you get there
Knows what to leave out
Asks what you want to be looking at when you wake up
Starts from what you care about and builds the journey backward from there
Books the landmark
Fills the itinerary
Asks how many stars you want
Takes your dates and finds availability
I handle the complexity: the ferry that runs twice a day and not on Sundays, the train connection that gives you eleven minutes and a platform change, the reservation nobody takes without a name attached. You focus on what you are going to remember.
Seller of Travel CST# 2118416-40, FLST# ST39093
Europe, with cultural, culinary, and river cruise itineraries
Over 20 years designing travel
Art history and museum education
licensing
based in
specialty
experience
training
background
Rachel Stankovic, Travel Designer
"I started Uptown Travel Design for people who want the depth but don't have the months it takes to plan."
Not just see it. Context, culture, a conversation with someone who lives there. If a journey is only photographs, something got missed.
02
You want to understand a place
Someone who has been to these places repeatedly and has a real opinion, instead of a comparison table and a hope.
03
You'd rather trust someone who knows
You know you want something meaningful. You just don't want to sift through endless reviews to find it, or spend another weekend trying.
01
You want depth, not months of planning
You want clarity, not more choices. You're not ticking off a list. You want travel that belongs to you.
04 — fit
The Blog
Cruise Design
Travel Design
+1 (480) 868-6152
Monday–Friday, 10am–4pm MST
Phoenix, Arizona, working with clients anywhere.
The first conversation is complimentary, and you don't need a finished idea to have it. "Somewhere in Italy, maybe next spring" is a good place to start.
comparing hotels.
Rather than spend another weekend
Let's talk
Takes about three minutes. No obligation.
How I think about planning. In longer form.
River, ocean, and expedition. Matched to how you travel.
Full custom itineraries, and how the process works.
where to go next