We started designing journeys in nineteen ninety nine. The work has not changed in twenty five years. The world has changed considerably.
The Studio
Bella Vacations is a small travel design studio. We work from three offices across two continents, which means a client in any time zone reaches a real person before the next sunrise. The principals are Lynn and Chadd Ciccarelli. The roster of advisors is intentionally limited.
Most of our work begins with a referral, continues for a decade, and quietly resists the tendency of travel companies to grow. Scale changes the work, and we are uninterested in changing the work.
The Standards
We are a Top 25 Virtuoso advisor, which is a credential earned by a few hundred travel professionals globally. The membership matters because it is the gateway to relationships hotels and tour operators do not extend to the open market.
We refuse referral fees from any property we have not personally vetted. We will not place a client in a destination during the wrong season. We answer the phone when something goes wrong, even when the something is at three in the morning, time zones away.
The Principals
Lynn & Chadd
A mother and a son. A Pittsburgh studio and a Sydney one. A combined sixty plus years of designing journeys for clients who, between them, have travelled almost everywhere worth travelling.
The way Bella Vacations works is the way Lynn taught Chadd to work. Slowly, by hand, and only with people we like.
Lynn Ciccarelli
Pittsburgh, PA · Top 25 Virtuoso All Star
Lynn founded Bella Vacations in nineteen ninety nine, in a small office in Pittsburgh, with a single rolodex and a working theory that travel agents were going to disappear and travel designers were going to be needed more than ever. The theory has held up.
Twenty five years on, Lynn is one of fewer than a hundred Virtuoso All Star advisors in the world, and one of the most relied upon names in luxury travel for clients who treat the work as serious. Her specialties are ultra luxury hotels, multigenerational journeys, and the long form planning that turns a milestone into a memory.
She has visited more than a hundred countries personally, and the joke in the studio is that she remembers the names of the housekeepers in most of them. The joke is half true.
Chadd Ciccarelli
Sydney, AU · Pittsburgh · Franklin TN
Chadd grew up watching his mother do the work, and started doing it himself professionally fifteen years ago, in a different country and with a slightly different set of clients. He splits his time between Sydney, Pittsburgh, and Franklin Tennessee, which means a Bella Vacations client never waits long for an answer regardless of where they are in the world.
His specialties are wellness journeys, private symposiums, the kind of solo travel that quietly transforms a person, and any itinerary involving the Asia Pacific. He has spent meaningful time in fifty plus countries and has a particular affection for places most travellers underestimate.
When he is not on the road, he is usually thinking about the next time he will be on the road.
Three Offices
Two continents, three time zones, always one of us awake.
Headquarters
Pittsburgh, PA
The original studio. Founded in nineteen ninety nine. The address most of our long standing clients still call when they want to talk to Lynn directly.
South
Franklin, TN
Our southern office, opened to serve a growing roster of clients across the American south. Quiet, unflashy, the way Tennessee clients tend to prefer.
Pacific
Sydney, AU
Chadd’s base. The reason a client in Australia or anywhere across the Asia Pacific can have a real conversation with us during their working hours.
The Bella Vacations Difference
A few small commitments that change everything.
We refuse referral fees from properties we have not personally vetted.
Most travel agencies earn commissions from any property they book. We earn ours only from properties we have stayed in, scrutinised, and would happily send our own family to. The difference quietly compounds.
We design slowly.
A first draft itinerary takes us two to three weeks, not two to three days. We learn how a client thinks before we recommend where they should sleep. The pace is the work.
We work for years per client, not days.
Our average client relationship spans more than a decade and dozens of journeys. We get better at designing for you the longer we know you. Most travel platforms are built to forget you the moment you book.
We answer the phone.
From anywhere in the world, at any hour, you reach the same human who designed your journey. Not a call centre. Not a chatbot. The person who knows your trip and your name.
Recognition
Featured in Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Virtuoso Life, and conversations our clients tend not to put in writing.
Begin a Conversation
Every journey we design begins the same way: a long, unhurried conversation. Tell us a little about how you travel, and we will be in touch within forty eight hours.
Our Offices
Pittsburgh, PA
Franklin, TN
Sydney, AU