Karolina Guilcapi has been to South America 42 times — for business and pleasure.

As the founder of Sated Ventures, Guilcapi couldn’t hide her love and excitement for food and travel if she tried. Her boutique travel agency in Palm Coast, Florida, aims to delight travelers with foodie experiences that simply can’t be booked through a big-time travel search engine.

Niche tourism caters to more authentic experiences that allow for tailor-made vacations and brings positive impacts to local communities that welcome tourists, according to a 2023 GlobalData Niche Tourism report.

“We do everything on people’s bucket lists,” she says of what she calls food anthropology travels. “I’m interested in tying in those experiences with food.”

Since childhood, Guilcapi’s appetite for travel has grown. Originally from Warsaw, Poland, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, at the age of 10 with her family.

“Travel has always been a part of my life,” she says. “I enjoyed the culture shock of moving to New York…moving forward, every cent I could scrape together, I put it toward travel.”

After spending 15 years in travel sales and then experiencing the Covid pandemic in the travel industry, Guilcapi felt it was time to open her own business on her terms. If the pandemic taught her anything, “nothing is guaranteed,” which gave her a good reason to start Sated Ventures.

Whether it’s someone’s first trip with her or their third, Guilcapi aims to treat every client as a friend getting a V.I.P. experience. They need to know they can depend on her if something goes awry overseas. She’s had clients call her in the middle of the night due to missed flights and broken legs. One time, she chartered a helicopter to pick up clients stranded at a train station due to a railroad strike.

“It gets you excited every day,” she says. “It’s never the same every day. I work best when there’s a challenge.”

Last year, her company booked half a million dollars worth of trips to the Galapagos alone.

While Guilcapi never intends to become a mega-corporation, she does plan to grow her company. “We do not want to lose the sense of connection to each client and each destination,” she says. “We want to scale slowly and grow at a healthy pace. We project a 25% revenue increase annually, and by 2025 the goal is to have well-established departments that work together seamlessly.”

Travel owner agent Joseph Bishop of Fruit Cove, Florida, takes a more leisurely approach and focuses on booking trips as more of a hobby.

After 30 years in the Navy, Bishop’s love of travel became deeply engraved.

Once retired, he had a short-term job before coming across a work-from-home travel agency. He and his wife wanted to travel more and becoming an independent consultant seemed like a good way to do it.

That led him to open Adventure Trails Tours & Travel agency in Saint Johns, Florida, in 2017. Prior to the Covid pandemic, he booked up to seven trips a year for clients. Now, he plans trips for clientele as he sees fit.

His “specialty” is booking cruises for loved ones and for people he meets in his personal travels. As an agent, his favorite aspect is “helping people have a good time” by creating fully independent travel experiences that aren’t attached to large tours or groups.

For him, it’s about providing individuals with customized trips and looking out for the best deals. While he does charge a fee for booking certain services, it’s a low cost — $25 for flights and $50 for planning —  that travelers are happy to fork over so they don’t have to do it.

“That’s one of the best parts about travel — usually, people are in a pretty good mood when they talk about a vacation,” Bishop jokes.

While booking sites are popular, travel agents are still in business. Florida has the most travel agents of all 50 states  — a whopping 9,000 agents, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Niche travel, in particular, is growing as people are seeking out more immersive travel that’s centered around hobbies and country-specific experiences.

Travel agents can offer those experiences — like a private tour of a coffee farm or a wine tasting among vineyards — because of the connections they have globally. Connections that can’t simply be Googled.

As a niche travel category, culinary experiences, in particular, are a high priority for younger travelers. In fact, 56% of Gen Zs and 61% of Millennials say they’re “influenced by the quality of the culinary scene when choosing where to stay in a destination,” according to a recent MMGY Global report.

Both agents admit their services are not for everyone. Some people want to spend hours researching their trip, scouting out the best prices on their own. Not their clients — they want high-end experiences and don’t worry about every discount. Some of Guilcapi’s clients can spend as much as $40,000 per person, all dependent on the experiences, accommodations and trip length. But travelers do get certain discounts when working with an agent; it’s part of their exclusive services that aren’t available to the public through general search engines.

Their ideal clients? Retired couples with disposable income looking for the experience of a lifetime. These are the adventurous clients who don’t hesitate to hop on a train ride across Italy or go on a hot air balloon ride.