Recognizing Soulful Trailblazers
Celebrating the Women Who Are Shaping the Future of Travel: Introducing the Soulful Trailblazers!
There are women all across the travel industry, from hospitality to destination management, travel design, tech, and everywhere in between. They are creating opportunities for other women. Championing their communities and the communities of others. Challenging the way ‘it’s always been done.’
These women are creating new pathways experiencing the world and using travel and tourism as a force for positive change.
And so much of that work happens quietly.
It happens behind the scenes, within communities, through small businesses and grassroots organizations, through mentorship and advocacy, and through women simply deciding that there must be another way. And it’s time to bring these stories to light!
Becki & Christine Honor Soulful Trailblazers!
That is why I’m so excited to introduce the Soulful Trailblazer recognition, a collaboration between Christine Winebrenner Irick, Soul of Travel Podcast, and Becki Rupp, Trailblazer Wellness. We created it to celebrate women who are creating meaningful change through travel—and helping to create pathways for others along the way.
What Does It Mean to Be a Soulful Trailblazer?
For me, a trailblazer isn't necessarily the person with the biggest title, the largest following, or the most visible platform.
A Soulful Trailblazer is someone who is helping to create a different future.
She might be amplifying the voices of other women, connecting with and working alongside her community or a local host community, or challenging an outdated system by creating opportunities that didn't exist before.
And sometimes, she may simply be showing others that another path is possible.
The women being recognized as Soulful Trailblazers embody three values at the heart of this recognition:
Amplifying the voices of other women
Championing local communities
Creating positive change in the world through travel
These women may be working in very different corners of tourism, but they share something essential: they are using their work to make travel—and the world around it—better.
From Telling Stories About Travel to Telling Stories About the People Changing Travel
When I launched Soul of Travel, I knew I wanted to explore what mindful, meaningful travel could look like.
But after years of conversations with women from around the world, something became increasingly clear to me: some of the most powerful stories about travel aren't really about where we go. They're about the people who are changing how we travel and how tourism impacts the world.
Over more than 250 episodes, I’ve had the privilege of sitting down with women working across tourism, hospitality, conservation, guiding, entrepreneurship, community development, sustainability, advocacy, and so many other areas of the industry.
Those conversations have changed my understanding of my own role, too.
Soul of Travel has evolved into more than a podcast about mindful travel. It has become a space for women to share their expertise, experiences, ideas, and wisdom in their own voices.
It has become a place where we can connect the dots between women, ideas, communities, and possibilities.
And I've come to really acknowledge how storytelling itself is a form of visibility.
When we create a platform for e share someone's story, we aren't simply telling people what she has accomplished.
We're helping people see what is possible.
Why Recognition Matters
One of the things I’ve learned through this work is just how much incredible change is happening that we don't always see.
There are women creating new models of tourism. Women opening doors for other women. Women advocating for their communities. Women changing the way destinations are represented. Women building businesses around their values. Women stepping into leadership in industries and spaces where they haven't always been seen as experts.
And there are so many more whose stories I haven't discovered yet.
That is one of the reasons this recognition feels like such a natural extension of the mission of Soul of Travel.
It moves us from asking:
“Who should I interview?”
to asking:
“Who should we all be seeing?”
By inviting our community to nominate women who inspire them, we're opening the door to stories and voices that might otherwise remain outside our field of vision.
Because visibility matters.
Visibility shapes who we believe belongs in the room. It shapes who we see as a leader, an expert, a guide, an entrepreneur, a changemaker.
If we continue to see the same voices represented, we limit our understanding of who is shaping tourism and what leadership can look like.
This Isn't About an Award. It's About Amplification.
We discussed the subtlety of choosing the word, “recognition,” rather than “award.” The invitation feels more open, welcoming, flexible. We are able to recognize and celebrate in this spirit, without creating a hierarchy or suggesting one woman is more deserving than another.
The Soulful Trailblazer recognition is about pausing long enough to say:
We see you.
We see the work you're doing.
We see the people and communities you're lifting up.
We want you to feel seen.
We want other people to see you, too.
Because celebrating one woman's work, without fail, creates a ripple effect.
When another woman sees someone like her stepping into leadership, creating something new, challenging the status quo, or making meaningful change, she may begin to imagine herself doing the same. That's the power of visibility – looking at what someone has already accomplished, while simultaneously looking ahead and asking:
What might become possible because someone showed us the way?
Meet Our Soulful Trailblazers
Today, we begin sharing the women who have been selected as Soulful Trailblazers.
Each of these women is creating her own path through travel and tourism. Some are well known within their fields, while others may be doing transformative work that deserves a much larger audience.
Their stories are different.
Their journeys are different.
Their work is different.
But each is contributing to a more thoughtful, equitable, community-centered, and positive future for travel.
And that is exactly what we want to celebrate.
Throughout this special series on Soul of Travel Podcast, we’ll be sharing their stories and exploring what it means to be a trailblazer—not just for yourself, but for the women and communities who come after you.
I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who took the time to nominate a woman whose work they believe deserves to be seen, bringing them to the light within the travel community.
Our hope is that this recognition is one reminder for us to become a little more intentional about noticing, celebrating, and amplifying the women who are helping shape the future of travel.
So to our Soulful Trailblazers: thank you for blazing the trail—and for making the path a little wider for those who follow.
And to the women who nominated them: thank you for seeing them.