OUR MISSION

It is our mission to create unique holidays for women to travel together domestically and internationally. We strive to provide opportunities to explore other cultures, try new things, and embrace creativity. We want our guests to leave our trips with a lasting impression of their own magnificence through intentional experiences in beautiful places.

THE STORY OF OUR BRAND

In 2022, after moving from a small island in the Gulf of Mexico to another small island in the Atlantic, Tricia Heaton launched a travel blog called The Island Hopper. The intention of the blog was to share Tricia’s life long love of traveling with tips from the road. This idea did not go as planned. Weeks after launching the blog, she had an epiphany. One afternoon while staying at her favorite villa in Tuscany, Tricia was looking out over beautiful Lucca and blurted out “I am going to bring women here.” No one was more surprised by this occurrence than she. Tricia quickly ran into the kitchen to speak with her friends Siobhan and Laura who are in the hospitality business in Tuscany. Within minutes the plan was secured. Tricia would rent a villa and bring women back to share her love of Lucca. She put a note in her instagram stories asking “If I rent a villa in Tuscany does anyone want to come?” and 300 women said yes. Three weeks later when she launched her trips, much to Tricia’s great surprise, her three trips all sold out in eight hours. Women around the country wanted to join her on this adventure. Courteney quickly jumped on board to help her mother found The Island Hopper.

We are a mother and daughter who had the audacity to launch a business based on intuition and a crazy epiphany. We  host trips to the places we love best including the European riviera, the Swiss alps and the African bush. Within the first three years The Island Hopper has taken 347 guests to three continents. Our current locations for women’s trips are Lucca, Italy; Gstaad, Switzerland; Dorset, Vermont; Chebague Island, Maine and the Costa Brava of Spain. In addition we host an annual co-ed safari in Kenya.

WHAT MAKES US UNIQUE

We are adventurers, hostesses, and creatives. Insider experiences in places we know well and love dearly is our speciality. We are not seeking the hot list of places to go, we are taking our guests to our homes away from home. While this is a business, this is also the most fun we could ever have. We have created a roving community of creatives on holiday around the globe. We continue to pinch ourselves because we feel so very, very lucky.

MEET THE FOUNDERS:

Tricia Heaton: Co-founder of The Island Hopper

Tricia Heaton began island hopping during her first summer of life as she joined her family of sailors on their annual summer vacation to Martha’s Vineyard. Her parents loved everything about being on the water and their three children inherited this trait.

As the youngest child of a widowed executive who insured tankers traveling around the globe, Tricia was pulled out of middle school on extended leave to travel with her father internationally on business trips. It was the first time she learned the art of the perfectly packed suitcase and the benefits of traveling with a capsule travel wardrobe of well made clothes. While on her first trip to London at thirteen Tricia was declared “the youngest child to enter the inner sanctum of Lloyd’s of London” by some horrified English insurance agents. Her father and the Canadian steel magnate he was meeting there thought it was absolutely hilarious. Tricia ran around The Dorchester and Drummond Castle with the glee of Eloise in the Plaza, in awe and with great appreciation of afternoon tea service and heated towel racks. These experiences and accompanying her father on an equally perfectly polished work trip to Bermuda secured Tricia’s love for luxury and International travel at an early age. As a young woman she would explore a lot more of the world with her peers, a backpack and a Eurorail pass. Through these experiences Tricia gained the spirit of adventure, an immense appreciation for small luxuries, and the fine art of traveling light and with a good book and a candy bar.

Tricia attended St. Lawrence University and went on to get two masters degrees in Education. She is a retired high school teacher. Tricia and her husband Donald have seven children in their 20s and early 30s. When not on adventures with The Island Hopper or her family, Tricia can be found with Donald and two poorly behaved rescue dogs in rural Vermont or on Lake Michigan.

Courteney McGowan: Co-founder of The Island Hopper

As the youngest of 7 children, including 5 older brothers, Courteney learned from birth to go with the flow. As a little girl she spent most of her childhood loose in the woods of Vermont, at the skate park asking the older kids how to do tricks, or at the top of a tree. She is the only child in her family who is proficient at both skiing and snowboarding. Courteney was also a captain of both her high school basketball and soccer teams.

                                               
In 10th grade Courteney’s life changed forever with the arrival of students from the St. Paul’s School in Barcelona to the Long Trail School in Dorset, Vermont. Courteney quickly created lifelong friendships with new friends from St. Paul’s and an amazing sisterhood with her family’s exchange student Patty. Patty would become the 8th child in Courteney’s family and Courteney would be welcomed into her new family in Barcelona with open arms. Patty and Courteney have gone back and forth to each other’s homes regularly ever since.

After two years of fun at the College of Charleston, Courteney decided she needed a little more mountain time at CU Boulder. The same day she was accepted into CU Boulder she was also accepted to participate in the NOLS Tanzania program. The decision was easy. Courteney grabbed her pack and jumped on a plane to fly to Africa to meet up with students from across America. She spent months living in the bush in Tanzania, did a host stay, and climbed Kilimanjaro with her NOLS friends, and without a porter, off-trail.

Courteney currently spends her time between her family home in Vermont and her apartment in New York City. Courtney published her first book of poetry in 2023. She runs the operations for The Island Hopper and jumps on a plane to meet our trips wherever they may go.

Courteney well understands what it is like to head off by yourself and meet up with strangers for a great adventure. This makes her a perfect leader on our trips.