Debbie Linder

I was born in Chicago and eventually moved to the western suburbs. We traveled quite extensively as a family and I was always looking forward to the next trip. So I was hooked at a very young age. I started in travel and worked for a leisure agency for 20 years. Totally by surprise and out of the blue I was contacted by a Corporate agency with over 35 million in sales to open, develop and run a new division of their agency geared toward vacation travel. It was an amazing job! My knowledge and expertise really took off with the vacation side for their agency. 

I have an extensive following so with my "regulars" and now all of these endless new clients I was seeing burnout. After several years,  I decided to open my own agency and create the business I wanted. Golden Travel Inc was born. Yes, the name is a tribute to my love of Golden Retriever's!

For 25 years I worked extensively with the 101st Airborne to organize a local "get together" in their area.  They were a group like no other and loved to talk of their experiences, some of my phone calls lasted hours! Once a year we would arrange a group trip with their children and even grand children back to Bastogne and Normandy where we had several wreath ceremonies to commemorate those that were lost and also private events where they could rebond year after year. Many of them had made friends with locals during the war and wanted to go back to visit them. Maybe they just offered them a cup of coffee during the night, but they never forgot. We made that happen, time and time again. In the early years, several made the jump on to the beaches in Normandy. As they got older and less were able to do that, we had 1 jumper that in his mid 90's made the jump onto the beach every year. I remember he told me,  "parachutes had come a long way" I could feel the smile on his face. 

We leave no stone unturned when it comes to creating the dream. 

I have been a travel professional for 46 years and  love my job.

My areas of expertise include but is not limited to:

• Europe
• River Cruises
• South America
• African Safaris
• Egypt
• Galapagos
• Machu Picchu
• Russia
• Mexico/Caribbean
• All inclusive resorts
• Ocean Cruises
• Customized European Tours 

Whether you travel as a single, couple or groups of friends and family I can customize your journey to include highlights of each destination but also the hidden gems that you don't read about in a brochure. My reputation is about details and custom itineraries. 

I am foodie, so taking food tours and cooking classes all over the world I find that food is the breakthrough for each destination. Its a great start on the local culture and the back round of food is what makes each country so unique. If you really want to dive in to the local way of life, I can arrange dinner with a  local at their home almost anywhere in the world. That's a once in a lifetime experience!

In our first meeting we will discuss what excites you about travel and then I will work out a truly unique itinerary that highlights all of your desires. We will work things out at a leisurely pace so you have time to wander and explore on your journey. 

We provide a beautiful itinerary for all of our clients on all of their travels. We provide this on our app but also as a PDF if you prefer to have things printed. 

I feel so fortunate that I have spent my life travelling. There are still those that say, "when I retire" or "someday". Now more than ever in this new world we are living in, we see that tomorrow is not like yesterday. We've all spent a year of our lives basically putting that dream on hold. Its just lost time. So when we can get going again, lets do it - DON'T PUT OFF THAT DREAM!

As your travel professional the first item I want to talk about with you, will be having  the proper documentation for your travel. If you don't have a passport and you need it for your destination then we need to get that going. Passport expiration dates are extremely important as different countries have different rules.  We monitor  entry and exit requirements for your travel travel throughout the world. 

Passport, inoculations and visas can change and we are always on top of that. Now more than ever with COVID countries entry and exit requirements are changing daily. This is a  changing environment and you need a professional to help navigate  this changing world.

I have already had clients that had to change up their last minute plans to get COVID testing when it wasn't required 3 days ago. Hopefully it will get easier but until then I've got your back!