AS A YOUNG executive in pharmaceutical sales in the early 2000s, Annie Pezza learned that the most successful products always solved a problem.

“Growing up, I moved around a lot,” says Pezza of splitting time with her parents between Missouri and Colorado. “I think this taught me to adapt and be flexible wherever I was and be more go with the flow. But it also made me a little restless if I was ever in one place for too long.”

Pezza discovered that travel often always the answer when was feeling the need to change things up.

“I figured out that I absolutely love going somewhere and experiencing something new, but even more than that I love how travel makes home feel,” she says. “It’s so comforting to come home from a trip. You have these amazing experiences with your family—time away that brings you all closer—and you come home and you just feel that happiness. A great trip doesn’t have to be extravagant to make this happen.”

But it does have to be well planned, especially when you have a husband and three children in tow.

“When you’re going to spend time and money on something like a vacation, you don’t want to make any big mistakes,” Pezza explains. “But the way most of us make travel plans is by reaching out to friends of friends, or engaging in scattered searches on the internet— never feeling quite sure of what we’re signing up for.”

What Pezza longed for was a credible source for travel information, where like-minded people shared their itineraries from destinations she was interested in.

“You know, a lot of times you go on these travel sites and you’ll see what seems to be model sitting at a table saying that this is the hotel you should stay at, or this is a restaurant you should go to,” she says. “I have three kids. I want to see where families go and what they do. If I’m planning a trip to Yellowstone, I want to know where I should fly into, if I should stay in the park, how long should I plan to stay there, and if it’s possible to see Lake Tahoe on the same trip. I know that someone else has taken this trip and my hope is that they will share their authentic experiences on MyPinerary so that I can learn from them.”

Pezza’s solution has been to create a digital hub for people to share their authentic travel experiences—named MyPinerary (sounds like itinerary)—where people can login and discover, create, and share itineraries.

“I think in this post-pandemic world, people are eager to get out and travel again and share their experiences,” she adds. “I’ve built a place where they can tell others what they did, what they liked and what they didn’t, and what they might do differently if given the chance. My dream is that MyPinerary will be the Spotify of travel. I’m hoping that people will discover travel itineraries that they can run with as is, or see pieces from different ones that they can make into their own, knowing they can trust the recommendations they’re receiving.”

While travel will be the primary focus of MyPinerary, there will also be a component of environmental stewardship—a passion that is dear to Pezza.

“The world has really healed over the last couple of years with the pandemic reducing the extent of our carbon footprint by keeping us all home,” Pezza says. “As much as I love travel, I care about the environment more. And often times, the very nature of travel industry works against this. But there are so many parts of the world that depend on tourism, that I firmly I believe that there is a way to travel the globe and take care of it, too.”

Pezza’s secondary goal with MyPinerary is to educate travelers about being eco-friendly.

“If you register your email with MyPinerary, you’ll l receive a free e-book I’ve written with the five simple ways to become an eco-friendly traveler,” she says. “My goal isn’t to hit people over the head with this information, but simply to make it available. My feeling is that if we educate people and put this information out there, they can then be part of the solution. I really believe that the MyPinerary community will want this.”

To learn more about MyPinerary or to share your travel plans, visit mypinerary.com.