Meet Clare Isquith.
Q: What do you do here in Sedona and what inspired or led you to do it?
A: I’m a virtuoso travel agent, so I specialize in unusual trips, bespoke trips. A bespoke trip is the unusual, the latest, the best and it’s something that’s out there right now and it’s something that will fit your personality. In other words, they are very tailored and customized trips.
I started out being an RN and love dealing with people and my husband is a retired Navy captain. We both love to travel the world. Those travels inspired me to be an agent.
As we traveled the world with our four children and their nanny, I realized that I knew more than the travel agent that I was dealing with. My agent said, why don’t you do this? At first, I thought maybe someday I would try being an agent when I retired. Instead, I started doing trips in France, Australia, and Canada. For the past 26 years I have been busier than ever. Now as a great grandmother we are still travelling but in the US.
Q: What brings you to Sedona?
A: Sedona called to us. My husband had a symposium quite a few years ago and we were looking for a place where we could retire. We’re New York people and Washingtonians and our friends said, ‘look at Sedona’.
We were in Scottsdale and took a ride up to Sedona. Once I saw Bell Rock, I said ‘I’m home’. Sedona was a little tough at first coming from New York and Washington. Sedona either pulls you in or spits you out. Apparently, it tried to spit us out, because it was rough for the first year, but now 22 years later, I wouldn’t move anywhere else. We love it.
We still travel the world and enjoy inside information on locations as I am an African as well as a Middle Eastern and Australian travel specialist. I am very savvy concerning European destinations. For me traveling around the world is to inspect, to see first-hand for clients and for my husband, it’s to carry my luggage, ha-ha.
Q: What trait that you have attributes to your success? What is it about you that makes you good at what you do?
A: First of all, I’m a New Yorker and a New Yorker gets out there and will look at a person and know what they want. I interview everybody and see what their bucket list is, but also, I can see beyond what they may want. So, I’m a good people person, and I always have been. And the other thing is I love people and that’s why I was a nurse.
Being a nurse and a travel agent are similar because you are really going to the heart of a person and you want to do good for that person. Whether it’s physically or mentally, you’re going to make it happen for them.
Q: What keeps you motivated? Why do you have to keep going?
A: I have to keep going because I’m a people person and I love what I’m doing. I love that I know that my clients are going to have experiences that they could never dream about. I’m right there with them when they go on a trip.
Q: What is something on your bucket list?
A: Well, right now, I would love to go to Egypt. We have been to every continent except Antarctica. I’m not fond of the cold but my husband wants to go to Antarctica.
I don’t think we’ll do it this year because of my husband’s Naval academy and we’re taking his classmates on a cruise, on a Seabourn in October from New York City to Montreal for 12 days.
And then, we are home for three weeks and we’re leaving for Egypt. We have been to Egypt, but I’ve always wanted to balloon over the dam. And that’s what we’re doing because that’s on my bucket list.
Q: Who is the most interesting person you’ve met here in our community?
A: There’s been so many, and they come and go. And I think people are wonderful. It doesn’t really matter, I mean, Terrie Frankel, and David’s friendly with Fred Shin. And I thought about it, who is my go-to career? I’ve had so many good friends, but I’m so involved in my business.
There hasn’t been just one person. I love Judy from Judy Arizona, I’m very good friends with her. They’re certainly ones that you can send a Christmas card to not see all year and be happy to hear from them, just like our Navy buddies.
Q: What is your favorite thing to do here in Sedona?
A: We’ve always done hiking, but we’re at an age now where we couldn’t do seven miles, like we used to, so now it’s two or three, it’s great. I’m passionate about the gym. I like to go to the gym five days a week. It’s something I don’t drag my husband because he’d like to be writing his book, he liked to be at his office, but he won’t let me out of his sight ‘coz he thinks I’m going to be kidnapped. We used to bike all the time, but biking is a little treacherous now at our age, so I want to sneak out on the bike until he grabs me.
Q: Is there anything that I haven’t asked that you’d like someone to know about you?
A: I’m a very empathetic person. If a person is not well at all, I mean, there’s something they can always call on me… always. When Connie Levinson moved, she was a very good client, and a friend, and Jerry, her husband was sick. He had leukemia and I used to do their trips to Mexico and Canada. Connie wanted to go over the pond but he couldn’t go because he was too ill.
I used to set all of it up and anything Connie needed. David, my husband was there, he’s a jewel to help people. Jerry died and she invited us to her house when they had this Memorial that Lisa Dahl did at her house. All of them were doctors, nurses, and hospice people. And there were the two of us and all of a sudden Connie gets up and said, ‘I want to say a big thank you to my travel agent. I did everything I wanted to do with Jerry because of her. ’
I am hands-on. I don’t resent anything. I try to help and that’s really what I am about. If somebody is hurting, somebody needs something, I’m there. We were there for Connie when she had her eyes done, my husband took her up for her cataracts, that kind of thing. So, I’m not just a travel agent, I’m a friend, I’m a mentor, I’m whatever you need me for.
