Plenty of ink has been spilled about the resurgence of travel advisors, with an increasing share of travelers opting to trust the personalized touch of experienced experts over the deluge of online multimedia they see as tainted by sponsored content, SEO-focused inauthenticity and AI slop.
Count me among those ranks. An experience on a recent trip to London underscored the magic that travel advisors can work.
As a journalist covering the travel industry, and an avid traveler myself, I’ve tended to plan my own trips: reading guidebooks, trawling TripAdvisor, panning Google Maps. The only time I’d previously worked with a travel advisor was for an extensive South Africa itinerary, the kind of trip that clearly warranted expertise.
In 2025, when my wife and I took our then-two-year-old son overseas for the first time, we found ourselves overwhelmed planning a driving trip across part of Scotland. On a family member’s recommendation, we contacted Amie O’Brien at VLX Travel, who put together an unforgettable itinerary with perfect accommodations for two avid travelers and their toddler.
This past spring, we planned a slower-paced trip to London. But this time there were four of us, with our 6-month-old breaking in his crisp new passport.
We looked into hotels that would be fun for parents and children alike and were drawn to One Aldwych, known for its understated luxury, highly attentive service and welcoming attitude toward its youngest guests. Everything we read on message boards and influencer Instagram pages suggested it would be perfect. It was also well outside the budget we had planned.
We asked Amie and her head of operations, Francesca Coyne, whether it would be worth reworking that budget to splurge. On their enthusiastic recommendation, we booked one of the hotel’s corner suites, with plans to put a cot in the living room for our older son and a crib in the bedroom for our younger.
But the real magic came later.
A few weeks after we booked, Francesca reached out: despite an initial confirmation, the hotel had capped our corner suite's occupancy at three, not four. She had already solved the problem, working with the hotel to give us an adjoining room and convert our unit into a two-bedroom suite for no additional cost. All of it played out with me insulated from the anxiety and only came to my attention once the fix was in place.
Our stay, meanwhile, exceeded even our highest expectations. We checked in to find a room stocked with child-sized bathrobes, kid’s toiletries and new teddy bears, plus the practical touches most hotels would never think to provide, like a baby bathtub and a diaper pail.
Even as social media brings the world to our fingertips, it can be harder than ever to find reliable information online when planning a trip. A trusted advisor can help travelers cut through that noise. But the other work that travel advisors do—problem-solving and advocating for their clients—tends to be forgotten.
That is the part I had underestimated. Anyone can find a hotel; the internet will cheerfully suggest a hundred of them, half of them sponsored. What no algorithm will do is call the front desk when the room does not work, negotiate a second one and hand the trip back intact before you knew it was at risk. As a traveler myself, at least, I know I will never overlook that again.
Related Stories
Ritz-Carlton Reserve Urban Concept Finds First Home in Shanghai
The Rise of the Gen Z Travel Advisor: “There Are No Rules Now”