Providing cultural journeys with unique immersive experiences
What is culture? Or maybe a better question, what is culture to you? Perhaps you view it as the merging of history and the present, or maybe it is all about the day-to-day world of a local resident of a destination. You may even consider it as a nearly indescribable knowing and appreciation of a place. Whatever your definition, and wherever your destination, Experience Culture Travel connects you to the culture.
The itineraries Experience Culture Travel creates, regardless of destination, are always tailored to provide opportunities to connect with the place at the immersion level you desire – whether it’s a cooking class at a local home or farm, instruction on a notable pastime or craft (usually with opportunity to try it yourself), or via a homestay or specialty accommodations that are what the locals would use. Want to be heavily immersed? No problem. Want to test the waters and try it on a smaller scale? Totally okay!
Traveling in a culturally immersive way benefits all involved. You as the traveler get the benefit of expanding your worldview and experiencing something outside of the ordinary while learning more about the people themselves. The local community enjoys the increase in free enterprise and tourism dollars (sustainability in travel is important to me and Experience Culture Travel tries to use local guides and operators as often as possible to that end). You are not only supporting a woman-owned small business by providing me an income to create the life I envision for my own family, but you are also supporting countless other families in your destination of choice and allowing them to live more enriched lives because of your travels.
Meaningful travel that you remember forever
Travel is more than just sightseeing, because it’s the journey and the experiences along the way that make a trip memorable. Bringing back not only the photos and souvenirs from a trip, but also the better understanding of the culture and daily life of the locals is something that will make your vacation a memory of a lifetime. But this can be hard to do on your own, and very time consuming to plan.
Whether your destination is more mainstream or if you wish to explore the farthest reaches of the globe, Experience Culture Travel is ready to partner with you and create the itinerary of your dreams. I work hard to cultivate relationships with local suppliers all over the world to craft custom itineraries specific to your travel dreams.
But first, let me introduce myself…
Hi! I’m Kara and I own a unique travel agency that specializes in adventure and culturally immersive trips and destinations. While I’m located in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, I have helped clients all over the country make their dream vacations a reality. I’m an adventurer at heart, and I love striking up conversations with anyone I meet and especially those who also love to see new places and learn more about the culture. When my clients work with me, they know that I take the time to get to know their wants and desires for their trip, advise them throughout the planning process, and am there for them as they travel, should they need me. As one of my valued repeat clients has said in his 5-star Google review:
One of my latest trips - I’m loving life in the mountains of Morocco!
I take the work and stress out of vacation planning, leaving you able to relax and truly enjoy your travel.
Ready to start planning a dream trip? It’s easy!
When you’re ready to get started on making your vacation a reality, schedule a complimentary travel consultation with me by finding an available time on my schedule that works for you (and any other travel companions who would have input into the trip). In this consultation, we will get to know each other a bit, talk about what led you to desiring the trip you’re requesting, and knock out the logistics like trip dates, duration of travel, airline & accommodation preferences, and of course, budget.
From there, I’ll send over an email with a link to my client intake form where I collect all the pertinent personal information I would need to book a trip on your behalf. That link also directs you to my terms and conditions (which you can read through at any time using the link at the bottom of my website too if you need some light bedtime reading). Finally, you’ll be able to pay the planning fee that we’d discussed during our consultation.
Once you’ve paid the planning fee and completed the client intake form for each traveler, your work is basically done! I’ll take it from there and craft a custom itinerary based on what we discussed in our consultation and send it over to you for review. Since this is a customized quote, you have full reign to make changes as you’d like, and we work together to adjust it until it becomes that vacation of your dreams.
Don’t forget to check out my FAQ page if you have more questions, and read the Guide to Working with Experience Culture Travel too!
So, what are you waiting for?
Schedule your travel consultation using the button below!
Check out the places my past clients have experienced
These Past Trips provide a peek into some prior vacations I've booked for clients or myself, and some highlights of what we’ve experienced while there.
Upcoming Events:
March 9-18, 2025 - Click the picture to get the full info on the trip!
Why would someone use a travel agent?
Check out this blog post about my Top 5 Reasons to Use a Travel Agent to consider if you should use me to plan your next trip!
What my clients say:
“Kara was referred to us by another travel agent because we were told she was the expert when it comes to planning a European vacation, and they were right! Within a few days she had our entire itinerary ready for our review. She planned everything right down to our transportation from the airports. She was available for questions even when we were on our trip. The tours she planned were all amazing. We were able to experience Paris and Rome in a way we would never have been able to on our own. It was a trip of a lifetime thanks to Kara.”
“Working with Kara to plan our trips has been phenomenal! She is incredibly thorough and is always thinking ahead. For our Stockholm trip, Kara worked with us to understand what kind of experiences we were looking to have. She found us two great, locally run hotels in separate parts of the city to give us different cultural experiences. She scheduled amazing tours that fit our goals - food immersion, local history, and getting into nature. Our week in Stockholm was a once in a lifetime experience and we’re so glad we had Kara to not only plan but be our backup if anything were to go wrong (it did not). 100% recommend Kara at Experience Culture for any future travels. She will ensure you have the trip of your dreams. We will be going back to her for our next adventure!”
“My wife and I booked are honeymoon through Experience Culture Travel and it was amazing. Kara made everything so easy and went above and beyond. She even was there to help us with questions even during the middle of the night. I would highly recommend!”
“I have nothing but good things to say about Kara. I had an open plan which isn’t always easy, but she patiently guided me through the process and listened to me. Her vast experience with travel was much appreciated as I set off to easter Europe by myself.
Kara was always available and responded much faster than I would have expected. I felt personally cared for. The trip was so successful that I only reached out to her during the trip to let her know how fantastic the trip was going.
Highly recommend working with Kara and Experience Culture Travel.”
“Australia was a once-in-a-lifetime trip and we had a long list of places to see. There is no way we could have planned it all ourselves. Kara exceeded every expectation. We had multiple transfers across planes, trains, busses and ferries and it was so seamless. It took all the stress off the logistics, allowing us to just soak in the experience.
We will use Kara again and can’t recommend her highly enough.”
A bit more about me
World Traveler, mom, type 7 enneagram, cat lover
My last trip to Europe — just me and my ten month old. This is all we had for 2 weeks—I am definitely a light packer. :)
I’m eager to expand my travels with both kids internationally - they both have traveled outside the country three times so far in their lifetimes.
I started this agency in 2016 with the intent to use it to share my love of learning about other cultures to my clients, as well as to my own family. I have two kids and it is one of my goals as a mom to provide opportunities for them to see more than their slice of the world and to encourage an attitude of curiosity and learning from other people and cultures outside of their own. Growing up, my own mother planted this desire in my life by bringing me to England a couple times in my childhood and enrolling me in a local day camp during one of those visits. I enthusiastically met new friends and learned about their typical activities that were a bit different than my own. Later in high school, I had opportunity to travel to St. Vincent and assist as a camp counselor for a day camp. This trip introduced me to the idea that it is more than just checking off must-see items on a bucket list, but that travel could open a window revealing what daily life looks like in a destination.
If you’re a fan of the Enneagram method of categorizing personality types, it may be pretty obvious to you that I fall firmly into the type 7 category. My husband likes to tease me because I really enjoy taking these types of quizzes (I can tell you I’m a ESTJ in the Myers Briggs categorization, an I in the DISC method, and so on…). But I’ve found value in identifying both my strengths and areas of improvement using these so, jokes on him. Rounding out my family is my cat, Archimedes, who is my OG “kid” and I don’t care what my husband says about that either. Obviously my family enjoys teasing one another, it’s one of our love languages (and oh, I can tell you I fall under the Quality Time love language categorization too).
MY goal for every itinerary
I work to craft your custom vacation experience, based on our initial consultation conversation and any additional information you give me. I create unique experiences based on what you’ve told me you value most in the trip. Your utmost satisfaction is my greatest desire and I design each quote with that in mind.
More testimonials:
“Kara planned our honeymoon from start to finish and it was an AMAZING ADVENTURE! We traveled in Belize seamlessly from place to place. All we had to do was show up ready for our next experience! We can’t wait to have Kara set up our next adventure!”
“Kara does up a great vacation with little worries! We had a fantastic time. It was nice to know she was only a text away if we ran into trouble - which, by the way, we didn’t!! Italy did not disappoint and neither did Kara Brown!”
“I have used Experience Culture Travel twice in the last six months—once for a personal international trip, and one for a church youth group trip for 31 people! Kara was amazing to work with, whether it was my honeymoon in Italy or my professional trip to NYC. She is knowledgeable, always quick to respond, accessible, and even though she does all the planning, she makes you feel very empowered to embark on the trip alone! There’s nothing negative to say.”
“Kara was a great help in planning my trip to Iceland and France! She spent a lot of time sorting through different options to find the exact flights, hotels and attractions that I wanted.She even found a unique opportunity in Paris - private cooking lessons in an amazing 19th century apartment - that I would never in a million years have found for myself. Using Experience Culture Travel was a great decision!”
“Our family of 5 traveled to London and Paris over spring break. I was very overwhelmed with the idea of planning all the details of our trip, so when a friend recommended Kara at Experience Culture Travel, we scheduled a meeting. We decided to move forward, and it was the absolute best decision! Kara planned an amazing trip for us. She really took the time to get to know us, our travel style, and our interests. Kara’s communication and attention to detail was stellar. We loved all of our accommodations and tours and transfers! Kara took the stress out planning this trip, so we could just enjoy our family time in Europe. ”
