Meet the People Changing Travel for the Better in 2025

The Creator of the Year Award honors creators whose exemplary work has challenged the status quo in the past year, positioning them as thought leaders in the travel industry.

This year’s winners are Kirstie Pike and Christine Diaz, the power couple and travel duo behind the popular @onairplanemode__ Instagram account, reaching 248,000+ followers. Together, Pike and Diaz have built a platform that centers LGBTQ+ travel and representation, using unique storytelling as a way to connect to their audience.

“When we first started this platform, our goal was to be representation where there wasn’t,” writes the pair on their Instagram. “We wanted to inspire LGBTQ+ women and non-binary people to travel, to explore, and to learn about destinations all over the world and how to navigate them safely. Since then we have learned we wanted to be much more than just that, we want and need visibility everywhere in every category.”

Their work has leapt right off Instagram, giving them the opportunity to speak at major industry events and collaborate with top brands, including Apple, while even making history. Together, Pike and Diaz became the first LGBTQ+ talent featured on National Geographic Travel.

The Inclusion Award spotlights a company or brand’s outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion in the past year. Turning thought into action and words into commitment, the Inclusion Award looks at partnerships, campaigns, content, and/or initiatives that have helped move the travel industry towards a more inclusive future.

This year’s winner is Native Womens Wilderness (NWW), which was founded by Jaylyn Gough of the Diné (Navajo) Tribe in New Mexico. NWW’s mission is to amplify the voices of Native women in outdoor spaces, including advocating for greater representation of Indigenous women in outdoor retail campaigns to offering resources for outdoor education. NWW’s goal is to encourage exploration and education about Ancestral lands and their peoples, all the while amplifying Native women’s stories and fostering deeper connections with nature.

Presented by JourneyWoman—a solo travel resource for women over 50—the Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes a person who has demonstrated a long-term commitment to working in and making the travel industry better.

This year’s winner is Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Uganda’s first wildlife veterinarian, a pioneering conservationist, and the founder of Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH). CTPH is a Uganda-based non-profit that has proved a leader in gorilla and wildlife conservation by focusing on the relationship between human health and animal welfare in and around Africa’s protected areas. The belief behind CTPH’s work is that only through the alleviation of poverty and improvement of rural public health access and hygiene will the greater biodiversity of Africa improve.

“The mountain gorillas have really shaped my life,” Kalema-Zikusoka told CNN. And in turn, “the gorillas have really transformed Uganda, and brought Ugandan conservation and tourism back on the map.”

Kalema-Zikusoka’s efforts have earned her global recognition and praise, including the UNEP Champion of the Earth Award and a spot on the BBC 100 Women list. She is also the author of Walking With Gorillas, a memoir about her leadership journey.

The Most Impactful Piece of Writing Award recognizes inspiring and engaging stories from the past year that have left an indelible mark on readers and encouraged dialogue and interaction. 

This year’s winner is Filipina-American Millette Stambaugh, the woman behind the Instagram @thenextsomewhere. Through her blog of the same namesake, Stambaugh pours her travel experience and advice into posts that aim to inspire readers for their next trip. In her article “Life Beyond Mom Guilt: How Traveling Alone Made Me Whole Again,” Stambaugh reflects on how the act of solo traveling helped her reconnect to her pre-mom identity.

“The ability to ground and recharge solo makes me a better parent,” writes Stambaugh, encouraging her readers that it is possible to release the societal pressures and expectations that often befall mothers, and release the guilt of pursuing self-care. Through her writing, Stambaugh stresses the importance of solo travel as a vital tool for wellbeing, especially for mothers looking to recharge and be more present for their families. 

The Social Impact Award celebrates individuals or brands that have positively impacted the travel community.

This year’s winner is Shivya Nath and her ‘Routes of Resilience’ series on her YouTube channel, The Shooting Star. Nath, who describes herself as a storyteller, writer, photographer, digital nomad, social entrepreneur, solo traveler, and environmentalist, is also the author of The Shooting Star, a memoir detailing the impact travel has had on her life. She is also the co-founder of Voices of Rural India, a non-profit creating digital storytelling opportunities for rural communities that have suffered lasting impacts from the loss of tourism brought on by COVID-19. 

In her YouTube series, Routes of Resilience, Nath celebrates women-led initiatives worldwide that promote eco-consciousness. From empowering rural women guides in India to promoting Indigenous tourism in Peru, Nath’s series amplifies impactful stories of resilience and sustainability.

The Trailblazer Award honors those who have spent the past year making major strides towards building their own companies, establishing their own platforms, and furthering their own initiatives, blazing a trail for future leaders in the travel industry.

This year’s winner is Sojourner White, the social worker turned travel vlogger behind Sojournies. In 2024, White decided to quit her career and pursue travel entrepreneurship full-time.

“While I did not ‘quit my job to travel the world,’ I did do it to build a business that allows me to embrace my multi-hyphenate dreams—and inspire others to create their own life of adventure,” she writes.

Through her writing, expertise, and thoughtful content, White has since amassed over 200,000 followers, drawn to her nuanced approach to travel. Known as the “Train Travel Queen,” White has traveled over 200 hours by train, sharing her journey of moving through the world as a Black woman across her own platforms and with various publications.

Notably, White is named after another trailblazer, the American abolitionist Sojourner Truth, who was a women’s rights activist born into slavery.

The Travel Startup of the Year Award spotlights innovative start-ups that are having an impact and changing the way we travel and move through the world.

This year’s winner is Byway, a travel B-Corp and the first travel company of its kind committed to 100% flight-free travel. With climate change and environmental challenges becoming a rising concern and threat, the entire travel industry has been grappling with the best way to offset carbon emissions and move through the world in a way that doesn’t come at the detriment of the planet. This is exactly what makes Byway such a unique and powerful idea—it leverages a “first-of-its-kind routing technology that uses two million miles of local expertise to build a trip by land and sea optimized for your enjoyment,” according to their website.

Byway was founded in 2020 by Cat Jones, who walks the walk when it comes to being eco-conscious. Jones has never owned a car and has only traveled for any holiday by train, ferry, bus, and bike.

Much like the Wanderful community itself, the Wanderful Award aims to empower women and honor initiatives that are doing the work to support women, champion women’s voices, and represent women.

This year’s winner is Himalayan Women Trail Leaders, a project founded by Marinel M. de Jesus, who is also the founder of Equity Global Treks and The Porter Voice Collective, and Mingmar Dolma Sherpa, the first Nepali female guide to complete a 100-day trek.

Through their work, they are finding ways to empower Indigenous communities and BIPOC women while challenging Nepal’s patriarchal trekking culture. Their project, Himalayan Women Trail Leaders, supports Nepali women in leading long-distance treks on the Great Himalaya Trail.

The Collaboration of the Year Award celebrates creative collaborations between creators and/or brands that have helped foster meaningful partnerships that ultimately work toward a shared goal.

This year’s winner is the collaboration between the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association (AIANTA) and the U.S. Forest Service. In September 2024, the AIANTA—the only national organization with a mission to advance cultural tourism in Native American nations and communities across the country—partnered with the Forest Service on its Community Navigators program, which uses funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to support underserved Indigenous and rural communities in accessing Forest Service resources.

“As the expert in Indigenous tourism and the only organization to advance cultural heritage tourism across our Native Nations and communities in the U.S., AIANTA is proud to have the capacity to create opportunity for the inclusion of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiians in the tourism industry,” said AIANTA CEO Sherry L. Rupert. 

Through their partnership and AIANTA’s mentorship program, Native Nations can access grant applications and education around wildfire risk reduction, habitat protection, and more.