Q & A with VTA Founder and Board Member – Brighde Reed

What’s your travel experience?

I was always enthralled with the stories my mum would tell me about her travel escapades in the 1960s when I was a kid. She did some incredible travel with some friends through Eastern Europe and Russia on a shoestring and it just sounded so interesting and exciting.

When I grew up, my first big adventure was migrating from the UK to Australia where I did my tertiary education. After graduating I knew I wanted to see the world a bit more. I moved to France for 8 months where I worked in a school before heading back to Australia and ‘settling down’. I got itchy feet, and it was when I was working in a boarding school that a colleague showed me an advert for a job in the newspaper advertising tour-leading jobs. She urged me to apply so  I did and got the job.

Tour leading was such an incredible experience and I was lucky enough to spend 18 months years in South-East Asia where that company had been established for many years. After SARS when decided to expand their operations to Europe and Africa and I was so thrilled to help put together itineraries in France and Morocco.

After five years, it was time to hang up my backpack. I met my partner (Seb, another tour leader) when we were in Morocco and we decided to settle down in Vietnam. I worked in travel and hospitality there and after three and a half years I moved to Bangkok. I had become vegan just before leaving Vietnam and I was so passionate about it. By this time, I was working in education and loved to travel throughout the region and beyond in the long holidays and through Seb’s new interest: travel-hacking – saving up credit card points and redeeming them for travel.

Seb and I decided to put all our skills together and ran our first luxury vegan tour to Thailand in collaboration with Colleen Patrick-Goudreau in 2017. The success of this trip led to another trip, and another! We established World Vegan Travel in 2018 and it is a huge passion project! We love to spoil vegans because we know that vegans often get the short end of the stick. We like to put our travelers front and center.

What do you do at Vegan Travel Association?

I am so proud to be a founding board member and member of VTA. It’s a joy to collaborate with other vegan travel professionals and inspire vegans to travel through our online events. While VTA is so new, I help with some of the admins and systems setup.

Tell us a little about your company.

World Vegan Travel runs luxury group tours to some incredible destinations around the world. Our group sizes are between 10 and 25 and our tours are generally all-inclusive which means that once you pay, you don’t need really need your wallet! Yes, even tips and laundry is included! We like to think that our itineraries are off the hook amazing and Seb puts so much thought into creating once-in-a-lifetime memories. Think seeing mountain gorillas in the wild, final night dinners in deconsecrated churches, fine dining on a bus going through Paris, and more. Seb and I are on every single trip so you know the customer service will be excellent.

Carryon or check-in?

We can rarely just carry on, especially if we are running trips. We have to carry so much extra stuff (like goodies bags for our travelers, first aid kits, and other miscellaneous stuff. On our personal trips, we usually are doing many different things (like a few days hiking, but then also some city stuff, or tagging on a visit to family) so carry-on only is not possible.

Do you use packing cubes?

I do. Usually, I have one for all my cables and plugs, one (or two) for clothes, one for underwear

Rolling or folding clothes?

A mixture of both. If it is bulky then fold, if it is thin then roll

Describe your perfect vacation in one sentence

Hiking in the mountains in Europe and staying in cute vegan hotels at night