How we got into travel… 
Amanda: My first travel job was with Kuoni at its head office in Dorking in 1988, before going travelling for a year around Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Thailand. I later worked as a travel agent at Surrey International Travel and Carolyn Lodge Travel in Cranleigh. I met Penny at Lown Travel – we did a job share together for about 14 years while our children were growing up.

Penny: I started off working for an insurance company but I used to do all the travel arrangements for the sales force. I then worked for Alec Bristow Travel, airlines Gulf Air and ANA, and, later, Lown Travel. I also used to lecture in travel and tourism at Guildford College.  

How we set up our travel agency… 

A: We were thrown into it! The owner of Lown Travel wanted to retire and couldn’t sell the business so it closed. 

P: We decided we really wanted to stay in travel and Amanda’s sister had a gift shop in Godalming so we sub-let a little corner of that. 

A: We had a small round table and a little travel lounge in there. 

How we have grown the business… 

A: We had one of the shop windows with our travel stuff in, so people saw us when walking past or when they came into my sister’s gift shop. We also joined the Godalming Chamber of Commerce, which has been a great help. And then word of mouth recommendations started. 

P: We’re lucky with our location and the community, everybody’s very supportive of one another.

The part of the business growing the most is… 

A: Specialist, luxury, tailor-made travel – that’s what we do best. To start with, you want to try to please everybody, but we realised we couldn’t do that because it was to the detriment of the clients we needed to spend more time on. 

The suppliers we have the strongest partnership with is… 

A: Those that work like we do. We use Distinctive Travel a lot for South America and Africa; Anzcro for Australia and New Zealand; North America Travel Service or Prestige Travel for Canada or America; and we use Abercrombie & Kent a lot.

Our proudest career achievement is… 

A: This! Neither of us is particularly a risk-taker, so for us to do just that, it has to be the highlight.