Vacayou
The first website for a wellness travel startup
In 2018, Muirelle Montecalvo had an idea for a travel company built around health and wellness, and she needed a website she could launch it on. I designed and built that first site, with tours sorted by country and by kind of trip, a clean look that drew people in, and a structure she could add to every day. Three years later, Vacayou raised $3.3 million to build the wellness travel platform it runs today.
The first homepage, February 2019, and the booking box that sat beside every trip.
$3.3 million in angel and seed funding, announced in 2021
- Client
- Vacayou
- Where
- St. Petersburg, Florida
- Business
- A wellness travel startup
- Launched
- February 2019
- What I did
- Website design and build, with the tour pages, categories, and the structure for adding tours
From an idea to the Hot 25
Five stops, and three tags for where Vacayou went next.
Muirelle wrote to me in April 2018 with an idea and a plan to raise money. We signed that November, and the site went live in February 2019, the week of Vacayou’s first trade show.
A founder with a plan
An idea for wellness travel, and a site to launch it on.
Muirelle Montecalvo wrote to me in April 2018. She was in St. Pete and wanted to build a travel business. It would offer tours around the world, each with its own page, sorted by country and then by kind of trip. Travelers had to do a lot of research to find the right trip, and she wanted to bring the good ones together in one place.
Before any design, we met several times to talk through the concept, including what Vacayou would be, who it was for, and what the site had to say.
We clicked right away. She liked my design style, and I understood the trips she wanted to sell and the philosophy behind them. I’d lived abroad for years and traveled to more than 30 countries, and yoga and meditation were already part of my life. I got it.
A site to go out for funding
Built for investors and travelers at the same time.
She was plain about where she stood. "This is a startup," she wrote on the questionnaire, and "I need the site built generally so I can go out for funding." The site had to show investors and travelers what the company would be, while the business plan was still being written.
She knew the feel she wanted. "Simple and clean, very easy to use," she wrote, and at the same time "dynamic, exciting," a site that "pulls you in to find out more about vacations." Many travel sites are crowded with information. She wanted each page to draw a traveler a little further into the destination or the trip. She asked for relaxing blues and greens, and she wanted to start with Europe.
She asked for less on every page, so each trip had room to pull people in.
The website I built
Trips by place and by kind, and room to add more every day.
I built the site around the way a traveler browses. A trip could be found by destination or by the kind of experience it offered, and each tour had a page of its own with the details a traveler weighs before booking. The design kept the pages light and let the places do the selling, with a homepage that opened on a wide photograph and a trip search, a grid of trip types to choose from, and tour pages with the itinerary, a map, the dates, and a clear next step.
Built for her to add trips
Muirelle planned to add tours herself, every day, so the site was built for her to add them without help. From launch day, travelers could book and pay online, send a question about any trip, or call, and they had an account area where they could manage their trips and save a wish list. A mailing list kept them posted on new trips.
In front of investors in four days
4 daysFrom the first draft to Muirelle presenting with itMuirelle had asked for trip pages she could show prospective clients and investors. She saw the first draft on a Friday in January 2019, and by Tuesday she was presenting with it.
Built around the way a traveler browses
A traveler could start from the kind of trip or from the place. Every path ended on a trip page, with the details and a way to book.
Every trip, the same parts
Muirelle and her team added the trips themselves, from one template I set up. Every trip page had the same parts in the same order, so a traveler always knew where to look.
- 1
Book, ask, or save it
A booking box beside every trip lets you pick a date and book, send a question, or save it to a wish list.
- 2
The highlights first
A short story of the trip, then the group size, the age limit and how active the days are.
- 3
Day by day
The itinerary, one line a day, so a traveler sees the shape of the whole trip at a glance.
- 4
Where it goes
A map with a pin at every stop, so the route makes sense before anyone reads the details.
- 5
What the price covers
Two lists, one after the other, show what the trip includes, and what it leaves out.
- 6
Questions, then dates
Answers to the questions people ask most, then every date the trip runs, with its price.
Have an idea that needs a website before it needs anything else?
Tell me about itWhat Vacayou did next
Funding, a platform of its own, and a spot on the Hot 25.
The rest of the story is Vacayou's. The company raised a first round from local angel investors in early 2020. In May 2021, it announced $3.3 million in combined angel and seed funding, led by Jeff Vinik and Relevance Ventures, to launch its online platform for finding and booking wellness travel. It opened in beta with more than 100 packages, from spa getaways to active trips.
In 2022, PhocusWire named Vacayou to its Hot 25 Travel Startups. Today the company runs on a travel booking platform of its own, built for a much bigger catalog than the first site was.
A first round, a year later
1 yearFrom launch to a first round of fundingShe needed the site, in her words, “so I can go out for funding.” She was showing it to investors before it even launched.
Launching something new and need a site that can grow with it?
Start a project“He was able to listen to what I wanted over multiple meetings and take this from idea stage to reality!”
"I went to Josh with an idea to build a wellness travel website. I was in need of help to turn my idea into reality and we needed something to get us off the ground. Josh was terrific! He was able to listen to what I wanted over multiple meetings and take this from idea stage to reality! I'm not the best designer so I was thrilled that Josh was able to use his creative side to see my vision. I would highly recommend Josh to get your project done!"
A year of updates, then a new line
What I added after launch, and where the tagline came from.
In August 2019 I gave the site a new homepage, restyled the trip and checkout pages, drew a set of icons for the kinds of trip, and added live chat. That fall, “tours” became “trips,” and the menu grew to hold everything Vacayou added.
In 2020 I came up with the line “Travel that moves you.” It became Vacayou’s tagline, and vacayou.com still carries it today.
My part came first. Muirelle needed a website she could take to investors and launch to travelers before the company had money behind it. That is the site I built.
Room for every kind of trip
17Kinds of trip on the menu by late 2019Each kind of trip had a page of its own, so adding a new kind took a menu item, not a redesign. By November 2019 the menu listed 17, from yoga retreats to scuba.
From Europe to six continents
26Destinations on the menu by late 2019By late 2019 the destinations menu reached from Iceland and Scotland to Bali, Peru and Costa Rica, 26 places on six continents, each with a page of its own.
Booking and accounts
Online booking with card payments, a question form on every trip, and traveler wish lists.
Updates after launch
A new homepage, icons for every kind of trip, live chat, a bigger menu and destination pages.
A coming-soon page
For the booking platform Vacayou was building, with a list to sign up for early news.
Looking back
From my first conversation with Muirelle, I loved this idea. I was already into health and wellness, like yoga and meditation, and I've always loved to travel, so this project brought a lot of what I care about together. I got to help share that with other people, and Muirelle's vision and my design style lined up in a way that rarely happens.
The site's first job was to show investors what Vacayou could be, and that made every choice matter. I spent hours picking the perfect photo for each tour and category, and drawing icons until they were just right.
I also got to help shape the message. How do you explain wellness travel to someone who's never heard of it? The tagline, "travel that moves you," came to me in a flash, and I knew right away she'd love it. She did!
In time, the project grew bigger than any one freelancer should take on, with tour companies from all over to connect into one site, and a larger team took it from there.
When I heard Vacayou had landed its funding and built something even bigger, I was thrilled. Helping an entrepreneur turn a dream into something real is one of my favorite parts of this work.
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