We were lucky to catch up with Megan Grant recently and have shared our conversation below.
Megan, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
Hi, I’m Megan! I’m the Founder & Memory Creator for Cherish Tours. World travel for me is genetic. My parents took me on my first airplane when I was only 6 months old, and I’ve been hooked on exploring ever since.
But society taught me that there was a specific road map that I had to follow in life. Get good grades, get into college, graduate from high school, graduate from college, get a stable career, get married, and have kids. Not travel endlessly.
It took me years of rebelling to finally find my purpose in life and be able to travel the world the way I wanted to. Then in the middle of the pandemic, I was the crazy entrepreneur who decided to launch a travel company.
With a global canvas of experiences, I am deeply convinced that travel has the power to be transformational, especially for women striving to create a difference in the world through making meaningful and mindful choices. I’ve witnessed firsthand how traversing cultural boundaries, embracing diverse perspectives, and forging connections can create beautiful growth opportunities for women travelers.
I’ve discovered that my purpose in life is to create impact while supporting women in adding joyous experiences to their lives. I believe that if women focus on what truly brings them joy there will be a ripple effect of compassion, intention, and understanding that will make a direct impact in our world.
Finding my purpose took a lot of interpersonal work and having the willingness to take a hard look at the life I was living versus the life I dreamed of creating for myself.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Starting my own business has completely transformed my life. Since I was a little girl, I was told exactly how my life was supposed to be. I call that the “roadmap”.
The roadmap I was given is similar to a lot of girls my age growing up in the suburbs of the US. We were told to be nice, fit in, get good grades, go to college, graduate with honors, get a good career, find the loves of our lives, get married, and then give up everything we worked for to have children. I followed that roadmap religiously while at the same time actively rebelling against it.
I was incredibly accomplished in my career in conference planning having been promoted to manager of 15 city-wide conferences at only 23. But my body went into physical burnout as I was trying to conform to a roadmap that was given to me and never felt like my own. After dabbling in several other hospitality roles and ending back up in conference planning I sought out a life business coach to help me figure out how to align my career with my purpose and passions. Little did I know that the exit plan I was working on was COVID-19.
I lost my job in the middle of the pandemic while going through the biggest personal transformation of my life. Instead of giving up, I dug deeper and tuned inward to find my calling. Through this work, I discovered that as a visionary thinker with practical logistics and project management skills, I needed to become an entrepreneur.
Out of this discovery my travel experience company, Cherish was born.
Cherish is an immersive, ethical, and transformational travel experience company hosting multi-day tours exclusively for women around the world. Cherish is a social enterprise with a mission to empower women through purposeful travel. All of our trips support women in business in the destinations we go to so that our travelers can feel confident that the money they’re spending on travel is going into the pockets of the women they get to meet on their trip.
Cherish is my love letter to the hospitality industry. I wake up every day with my soul on fire because through Cherish I have the privilege of traveling more in my own life and traveling alongside incredible women who inspire me.
We offer small group tours where 75% of our travelers sign up on their own to join a group of strangers to travel to these incredible destinations. By the end of our trips these strangers leave as friends.
We also now offer private tours exclusively for your own group or community. Private Tours require a minimum of 6 travelers and are offered in any of Cherish’s 8 destinations.
Upcoming in 2024 we have 5 small group tours:
1) Costa Rica – April 6-13, 2024
2) Glamping in Utah – May 9-12, 2024
3) Turkey from Istanbul to Cappadocia – June 1-7, 2024
4) Nordic Getaway to Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Denmark – September 6-14, 2024
5) Tanzania – Dates TBD
Private Tours are available to book for the end of 2024 and beyond. … trips taking place in November 2024 and beyond.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1) Understanding Self – I would still be stuck in a cycle of chasing fulfillment if I didn’t spend time learning myself on an interpersonal level. This took time and a willingness to feel uncomfortable with the discoveries. For anyone who is trying to discover their purpose, or who has discovered it and is trying to figure out the “what next” part, I would recommend finding a way to give yourself patience. Patience for others is something that has been taught in our culture and tends to come more naturally, but you also deserve to be patient with yourself. Sit in the uncomfortable, listen to it, listen to your inner voice, write things down, and learn as much as you can about yourself.
2) Self Reflection/Self Care – This may seem similar to the one listed above, however, I wrote this as the second one because it is so profoundly different. Once you understand yourself intimately, next you have to not only take care of yourself and your new discovery or self but also allow for change. When I discovered my purpose, it did not mean that I was all of a sudden healed or perfect at my next path in life. It meant that I had a new compass to base my decisions moving forward against. It gave me an opportunity to self reflect more accurately and make changes when needed. My biggest piece of advice in this category is to find the thing that works for YOU, yoga and meditation are not the only way to think deeply or take care of yourself.
3) A Desire to Learn – I believe this is the only reason I have had any sort of success in my business. I have an innate desire to learn more and to grow. As an entrepreneur, you will constantly learn new things and need to shift or adjust what you are working on to the new things you are learning. As a solo entrepreneur, you will also have an abundance of new responsibilities that you may have never done before. Learning and growing with these changes will make you successful in the long run, I truly believe this for myself and I’ll let you know once I get there.
How would you describe your ideal client?
Cherish’s tagline for what type of woman traveler is perfect to travel with us is “women on a mission to travel with purpose.”
These women are typically someone who has experienced a recent big life transition and is seeking a new community, new experiences, and/or a greater connection with themselves and the world around them. We have had many women who join our trips who are celebrating milestone birthdays, have recently gone through a divorce, are cancer free, recently moved, started a new career, and more.
Cherish travelers are open minded joy seekers – they are women of all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life. They are adventurers, solo travelers, and mindful observers. They are open minded women who are still seeking to learn from others and the world around us.
Cherish travelers are women who welcome personal growth and development. Whether they have full-time careers, are entrepreneurs, or retirees, they are women who believe self-growth continues to happen at any age. They are passionate about supporting themselves and other women throughout their lives.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gocherishtours.com/
- Instagram: @gocherishtours.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gocherishtours
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cherish-tours-llc
