College Roommates: Nancy (California wedding), Nancy (the Author), Anne Marie (GMA Fan)
My last blog post of my first week is an Origin Story — a girlfriend getaway experience that’s gone into my vision for an ecommerce site connecting women to the perfect travel experiences for us.
A few years ago, my college roommates and I were approaching a milestone birthday. We decided to plan a girlfriend getaway to celebrate and reconnect. Although we’d seen each other separately over the years, the three of us had not been together in the same room since one of their wedding’s in California more than 20 years before. How could that possibly be?!
We chose New York City, where I live, as our destination. One roommate would be flying in from Los Angeles, the other taking the train down from upstate New York. They would both stay with me. We’d be roommates again!
The night of their arrival, we ordered in, hung out, went through yearbooks, old pictures, saved letters from those pre-internet years, and of course, lit birthday candles and took selfies.
The next day, we hit the town. We visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of my favorite places to walk and talk in the city. We lunched and had a pampering afternoon at Elizabeth Arden. We even made a pilgrimage to Ground Zero to see the still being built 9/11 Memorial. Our last evening we dined at Joe Allen (a New York institution) and saw “How To Succeed in Business without Really Trying” on Broadway, starring Daniel Radcliffe. We had a great time.
What I didn’t mention is that one of us was, and still is, a big “Good Morning America” fan. And, she’d made signs about our College Roommate Birthday Reunion. Her plan was for us to hold the signs up outside the Times Square studio where the show broadcasts live for a chance to meet the anchors and maybe get on TV.
It was a hoot. On our last morning together, with lots of coffee to run on, we bundled up and trundled down to Times Square. We got there a little after 7am and there was already a crowd outside made up mostly of women.
I chatted up a group about 10 -15 years younger than us and asked them where they were from and what they were doing there. They were college friends visiting New York for a reunion – a girlfriend getaway. None lived in the tri-state area but were scattered all over the country so they were staying in a nearby hotel. When I asked them what they had done while here, they rattled off they’d been to a museum, gone to a spa, had dinner on restaurant row and gone to the theatre the night before. Now they were standing next to us at “GMA.” It was nearly our exact itinerary. Not the same museum but a museum. Not the same spa but a spa. And not the same Broadway show but a Broadway show.
Did they use a travel agent?
No. One of them was the “planner.”
Did it take long?
Don’t ask…(Too many clicks.)
Aha!
What if there was a site that offered 3-day, 5-day, and 7-day template itineraries for girlfriend getaways in the city of your choice? You could search and book airfares, hotels, activities and tours all in one place with guidance by the templates. Maybe even themed. A foodie template. A galleries and museums template. A spa and shopping template. A sports template. Nothing set in stone. Just enough shape of an itinerary with the user picking and choosing the museum, spa, show, and more, of their choice and booking it all in one place. If only.
We had our signs and caught the eye of Sam Champion who was charming and chatted with us, but ultimately, we never made it onto the show.
We missed our 15-seconds of fame but came away with a girlfriend getaway weekend of wonderful memories reconnecting with special friends and another piece of “aha” inspiration for me.
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