Meet Lorraine Simpson | Travel Agent , speaker and On Air Travel expert

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lorraine Simpson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lorraine, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I was widowed at a young age and with four children and no savings I not only had to make a living but I needed to do it with flexibility and aty my own schedule. My youngest turned two just two weeks before my husband died of a heart attack following a long battle with cancer. I looked at what my skills were vs what I thought would be a business I knew enough about to get me started and I knew I could learn the rest along the way. Travel had always been my passion and I had been a traveller at all levels of the financial scale so I thought I would be able to speak about any form of travel to a potential client.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
In my unfinished basement with toys thrown at me over a baby gate I began selling a new concept in travel, the Destination Wedding. This was back in 2005 when it was not even a term. people knew a destination wedding as an elopement but with guests. I did 8 weddings in my first year, 28 in my second, 72 in my thrd and by 2010 I was turning over $4 million a year. I began to teach others how to do it and realized that to this day I enjoy the teaching and the speaking about travel rather than the administrative part of the process. In fact the admin side I am terrible at and I get myself all tied up in knots woryying about it.
about 9 years ago I was spending much more time teaching or speaking at conferences and even hosting special educational trips for other agents where I would share my secrets and created a business in mentoring and teaching other agents how to be successful using the tricks I had learned along the way.
My philosophy is when life throws you lemons DO NOT make lemonade! This is something I still stand by. Be different, think so far out of the box that it never even existed! Think what would they do and do the opposite. Go the extra mile. Over and above should be the norm and not an extra.
During the pandemic travel died. We were banned from leaving our house, then the local area and for a long time the country. I couldn’t talk about it and when we were able to travel we went to Ireland and drove all around the island or Ireland and were besotted. fast forward two years and now we live in Ireland almost full time. we bought five derelict cottages that we are in the process of renovating and if my best friend wanted to visit me it would be here to Ireland. We live now in a beautiful rural area surrounded by cows and sheep and the past struggles just seem to disappear. The cottages we aptly named Lemonade Cottages and we now rent out three of them for Yoga retreats, art retreats and family gatherings and more.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
During the pandemic travel died. We were banned from leaving our house, then the local area and for a long time the country. I couldn’t talk about it and when we were able to travel we went to Ireland and drove all around the island or Ireland and were besotted. fast forward two years and now we live in Ireland almost full time. we bought five derelict cottages that we are in the process of renovating and if my best friend wanted to visit me it would be here to Ireland. We live now in a beautiful rural area surrounded by cows and sheep and the past struggles just seem to disappear. The cottages we aptly named Lemonade Cottages and we now rent out three of them for Yoga retreats, art retreats and family gatherings. we also rent them to people looking to explore Ireland especially the cliffs, Doolin, Dingle, Limerick, galway and more. We would walk along the Cliffs of Kilkee, have lunch in a traditional Pub in Doonbeg and show in the boutiques of Lehinch. Ireland has become our home even though I still work in Canada and I could not be happier!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My biggest support has been my family. four kids brought up by a very sad, lonely and ridiculously busy working single widowed mum they were often dragged to events, destination weddings and even trade shows. At a young age they were very self sufficient, at six maddy would stick labels on brochures and at 8 Oscar was making travel videos of his own and even became the face of Thomas Cook Kids first program. My teenagers helped so much with babysitting the young ones and setting up trade shows. It was a family effort and they have no idea how different they were and how much I look back and realize I could not have done this without them.

Website: www.lorrainesimpson.com and www.lemonadecottages.com

Instagram: @lorrainesimpsontravels @lemonadecottagesireland

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorrainesimpsontravels/

Facebook: @lorrainesimpsontravels

Youtube: Lorrainessimpsontravels

Image Credits
I am now featured regularly on TV shows such as Cityline and Fox network as well as speaking at fabulous conferences all over the world. The pictures include two of my children, Oscar Rogers and Maddy Rogers now 21 and 19.