Meet Katie Warner | Owner & Founder – Lucid Routes Luxury Travel and Lifestyle Collective

We had the good fortune of connecting with Katie Warner and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Katie, every day, we know how much execution matters, but we think ideas matter as well. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
While the leap from lawyer to travel advisor seems drastic at first glance, it’s really more of a story of divine timing. As a Texas native with dual citizenship in Croatia, I was exposed early on to the idea of what it means to be a world citizen. However, it wasn’t until I graduated from and high school and spent a summer in Mexico, learning Spanish and volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, that I truly caught the travel bug. From there, I focused my studies and all of my resources towards international studies and foreign languages.

I had the opportunity while in college to work once a week at a travel agency for students and found my “dream job,” but unfortunately, after 9/11 and the rise of the online travel agencies, there was not a job for me upon graduation. So I decided to pursue my post graduate studies.

After graduating, I worked as the European liaison for the Center for Terrorism Law and as an Assistant Attorney General for the Global Settlement Section of the Antitrust and Civil Medicaid Fraud Division. However, it was my freelance work as a lifestyle writer and photographer—and overwhelming interest from friends and colleagues in what I was posting to social media—that inspired me to take the plunge.

You see what had changed in the 10 years from the time I graduated college and now, was that social media had blown up, and “google” was a household name. There was more information out there than we knew what to do with and people were overwhelmed by review sites and all the options available. They wanted someone they could trust to recommend and endorse where to go and what to do. I started to notice that friends would see my articles or photos online and would ask me “how did you do that?” I started sharing my itineraries with people and then realized, there may be a business model there. I was ready to leave my current employer and had been renting out my apartment on airbnb when I was traveling. I went to look at my account to see how much I had in savings and it was almost down to the penny the same amount as a year’s worth of salary at my current job. I thought “if this isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is.” I figured, I would take a crack at starting a travel company, designing trips for people. If it didn’t work in a year, I would go find a job at another law firm . . . that was just over 10 years ago.

In 2012, I left the world of law behind to start Lucid Routes, a luxury travel agency for clients who value “white glove service and personal attention.” I easily spent 200 to 300 days on the road vetting airlines, hotels, tour guides, cruise lines and more for my largely word-of-mouth clientele. Over 50 countries later, frequent flier is an understatement.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Hello, my name is Katie Warner, I am the owner of Lucid Routes Luxury Travel and Lifestyle Collective, a luxury travel and lifestyle collective that specializes in designing cultural & transformative experiences for individuals and groups who really value exploring the world like a local and venturing off the beaten path in a responsible and mindful way.

What I am most proud of is our dedication to sustainability and the cultural preservation of local populations. We do this by partnering with companies that make this a priority as well as supporting local as much as possible. We provide opportunities for our clients, if they choose, to be involved in voluntourism, social impact & transformative travel initiatives.

In addition to my volunteer work, I have instituted a program where a percentage of the profits from Lucid Routes, go to the Whole Planet Foundation, dedicated to alleviating global poverty by empowering the world’s poorest people with microcredit loans.

I am also working with a nonprofit to help offset the carbon footprints associated with my personal travel as well as the trips my company designs for clients.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to thank my parents for always supporting me in every way possible.

Website: https://www.lucidroutes.com

Instagram: @lucidroutes

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiewarner/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lucidroutes