I want to tell you about two kinds of trips.
The first kind: you spend months on TripAdvisor and Google, build a spreadsheet of restaurants and landmarks, book everything in advance, and arrive with a plan so airtight there's no room for anything unexpected. You see the things on the list. You eat at the places with the most reviews. You come home with good photos and a vague feeling that something was missing — that the place you visited was somehow flatter than you imagined it would be.
The second kind: someone who actually knows the place helps you plan it. Not an algorithm. Not a review aggregator. A person who has been there, who knows which town deserves two nights instead of one, who has a contact at a family-run agriturismo that doesn't show up in any search results, who can tell you that the church you almost skipped is actually the reason the whole region exists.
That second kind of trip is what we help people take.
Who we are
Our family has been traveling the world for years — not as tourists passing through, but as people genuinely embedded in the places we visit. We hold dual Italian citizenship. Our family has returned to Croatia nearly every year since 2019. We've cooked with regional chefs, stayed in places most guidebooks don't know about, visited sacred sites that require knowing who to call, and built relationships on the ground that most travelers simply don't have access to.
Fork in the Road grew out of that experience. So did our travel planning services.
What you actually get
When you hire us to plan your trip, you're not getting a generic itinerary generated from the same sources you could find yourself. You're getting:
Genuine local knowledge. We know which regions to prioritize and which to save for a return trip. We know where to eat that isn't on the tourist circuit. We know the rhythm of these places — when to arrive, where to linger, what not to miss.
Connections. Years of travel have built us a network of people on the ground — chefs, hosts, guides, contacts at sacred sites — who make a trip feel like a genuine experience rather than a production line. We can open doors that don't open for everyone.
A plan built around your family. Cookie-cutter itineraries are built for cookie-cutter travelers. We plan for your family — your pace, your priorities, your faith life if that's part of how you travel, your kids' ages and interests, the things you'd regret missing and the things you'd happily skip.
The Catholic and sacred sites angle. If faith is part of why you travel to Europe — and for many of our families, it is — we know how to weave that in without making it feel like a checklist. We know which sites are genuinely moving and which are worth a short visit and a prayer. We know who to contact and what to plan for.
Who this is for
We work best with families who want to travel well — not just efficiently. People who want their trip to mean something. People who are interested in food, faith, history, and the kind of experience that you're still talking about ten years later.
If that's you, we'd love to help.
How to get started
Visit our travel planning page to tell us about your trip — where you're thinking of going, how long you have, what matters most to you. We'll be in touch to talk through what's possible and put together something worth the journey.
Because the world is too beautiful, and life is too short, to go it alone with a spreadsheet.
