Photo by Jennifer Young/El Camino Travel

One of the most inspiring and hardworking people I know is Katalina of El Camino travel. We did a trip to Nicaragua with her then newly launched company earlier in 2015 and it was incredible. I can’t say enough about what this woman can do, what she has built. She is actually changing the world for the better, and through travel no less. When she asked us to join her in Medellin I knew we were in for something special. Katalina is not only an amazing curator of experiences, but also of people. She told me she was bringing a group of creatives to Colombia for a trip with Richer Poorer from southern California, a company that she loved. I knew if she loved them we would too so we were definitely on board. Katalina could ask me to hurl myself into a volcano and I’d do so blindly, I trust her when it comes to this stuff.

I could quickly see why Katalina was so enamoured with RP and how this trip made sense, this was a product of female hustlers. Richer Poorer has some really badass ladies at the helm, including CEO and cofounder Iva Pawling and marketing manager Allie Greenberg. Both of these female fronted companies started with very little behind them and these women fought their way through to create successful businesses that cultivate creativity and change.

We were in really great company, beyond the organizers of the trip the other creatives they assembled were incredible. If you wanted to learn about all the people on the trip you can see our crew here, it is really too many people to list fairly. I could write an essay on any of them, what they stand for and how they inspired us. The whole trip centered around the “Honest Hustle” and there’s some great background on what that means there too. I never thought I’d fall in love with a company that made socks but I really did.

If you want to learn about what we saw and ate you can read what our pal Tag wrote about his experience. It’s a great retelling of everything we did as a group and a taste of what you can expect from a trip with El Camino.

We came back from the trip refreshed. It was our first trip out since the accident and being surrounded by that many incredible people left us inspired. Medellin itself was inspiring. I had no idea what to expect but the whole place feels alive, and hopeful. After all the narco-terror years the city has rebuilt itself, there is an energy and sense of optimism there that permeates everything. I finally understood why Katalina is so passionate about this place and why she wanted to share it with us.

Words by: Kyla Trethewey

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Jill and Kyla